Much has been written about politicians' preferences for electoral systems, yet little is known about the preferences of voters. In 1993, New Zealand had a binding electoral referendum on the same day as the general election where voters chose between keeping a single plurality system (First...

Despite the centrality of voting costs to the paradox of voting, little effort has been made to accurately measure these costs outside of a few spatially limited case studies. In this paper, we apply Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools to validated national election survey data from New...

Night lights, as detected by satellites, are increasingly used by economists, typically as a proxy for economic activity. The growing popularity of these data reflects either the absence, or the presumed inaccuracy, of more conventional economic statistics, like national or regional GDP. Further...

In this report, we examine the impact that two large external shocks, one related to structural reform and another to immigration policy, had on the initial development and long-term success of New Zealand First (NZF), one of the oldest populist parties in the OECD. Using survey data together...

This paper examines the impact of a reduction in the legal drinking age in New Zealand from 20 to 18 on alcohol use, and alcohol-related hospitalisations and vehicular accidents among teenagers. We use both a difference-in-differences approach and a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to...

This paper uses data from the New Zealand Census to examine how the supply of recent migrants in particular skill groups affects the geographic mobility of the New Zealand-born and earlier migrants. We identify the impact of recent migration on mobility using the "area-analysis" approach, which...

Millions of people emigrate every year in search of better economic and social opportunities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that emigrants may have over-optimistic expectations about the incomes they can earn abroad, resulting in excessive migration pressure, and in disappointment amongst those...

Over 200 million people worldwide live outside their country of birth and typically experience large gains in material well-being by moving to where incomes are higher. But effects of migration on subjective well-being are less clear, with some studies suggesting that migrants are miserable in...

The impact that an unforeseen event has on household welfare depends on the extent to which household members can take actions to mitigate the direct impact of the shock. In this paper, we use nine years of longitudinal data from the Household Income Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) survey...

We use 2009 Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) data to link institutional arrangements in OECD countries to the disparity in reading, math, and science test scores for migrant and native-born students. We find that achievement gaps are larger for those migrant youths who arrive...