New Zealand has a unique accident insurance system that pays the direct costs of all accidental injuries and compensates workers 80% of their earnings for any time post-injury that they are unable to work. Statistics New Zealand's Linked Employer-Employee Database contains monthly information on...

This paper analyses the effects of a large reform in the minimum wages affecting youth workers in New Zealand since 2001. Prior to this reform, a youth minimum wage, applying to 16-19 year-olds, was set at 60% of the adult minimum. The reform had two components. First, it lowered the eligible...

This paper provides an empirical evaluation of true state dependence in welfare participation using unique administrative data from California that is measured at the monthly frequency, which coincides with the welfare eligibility period and so is free of time aggregation bias. The analysis uses...

This paper examines the relationship between firm multifactor productivity growth (mfp) and changing skill levels of labour in New Zealand, over the period 2001-12, using longitudinal data from Statistics New Zealand's Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) and Integrated Data Infrastructure...

This paper provides an econometric analysis of the effects of receiving welfare benefits on individuals' future income, using longitudinal administrative data on individual incomes. After controlling for heterogeneous differences in individual incomes, spurious effects of contemporaneous benefit...

This paper reports early results from an ongoing analysis of the income dynamics of individuals, using the Inland Revenue Department's income tax database over the four- year period 1994-7. The first two parts of the paper assess the reliability of the data. The third part reports a preliminary...

This paper presents an analysis of changes in the distribution of gross household income and income inequality over the period 1983–1998. The analysis applies a semiparametric approach to study the effects of changes in the distribution of household types, and changes in National...

This paper summarises the changing nature of qualifications across the working age population in New Zealand over the period from 1986 to 2001, and investigates the relationships between the changing qualification distribution and employment and income. First, the results confirm that there was...

In 2001 the then Ministry of Social Policy published a comprehensive study of the living standards of older New Zealanders. The current paper revisits the estimated relationship between material well-being and the current income and accommodation costs of older people, and questions the extent...

This work provides an update of changes in the income distribution over the period from 1998-2004, using data from the Household Labour Force Survey's annual Income Supplement (HLFS-IS). We focus on changes in working-age individuals' earnings and total income distribution and, to allow for...