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In less than 50 days Africa will host its first ever football World Cup. With all the stadiums and most of the supporting infrastructure in place concerns about South Africa’s ability to host the games have been allayed. Concerns now turn to the question of whether the massive expenditure by government will offer value to the South African taxpayer.

A recently published paper provides insights into how management practices contribute to variation in business performance between countries. Nicholas Bloom and John Van Reenan have conducted a study that investigated the relationship between management practices and business performance in 5,850 middle sized firms (100 to 5,000 employees) in 17 countries. Although their study did not include New Zealand it still offers a number of insights that are likely to be relevant here. Bloom and Van Reenen construct a measure of management performance based on firm responses to interviews that rated the sophistication of management practices in three broad areas:

Since late last year, uncertainty about possible tax changes has reduced the housing market’s momentum, and property investors have been increasingly vocal in their efforts to protect their favourable tax treatment. John Key’s speech in February ruled out most of the Tax Working Group’s suggestions about property, leaving only the removal of the ability for landlords to depreciate their buildings, and a bright-line test to strengthen current provisions for taxing capital gains.

If John Key wants us to be as rich as the Australians, why not start acting like them? Time to adopt the win-at-all-costs attitude, start bowling underarm and of course, mine every hill. The mining sector cosseted the Australian economy during the recent global financial crisis, and has yanked up the Australian dollar to parity with the US dollar. It is even attracting white collar workers from their cozy Sydney offices to drive trucks across the arid Aussie interior. While the Chinese are taking their time developing a taste for our dairy products and red meat, they can’t get enough of those Aussie minerals.

There has been a marked tendency by the government of late to jump in with changes in policy when a high profile issue emerges. There seems to be a presumption in some cases that it’s better to take some sort of action than do nothing at all – witness the recent proposed policies aimed at the P problem, fatal taxi attacks, drink-driving, and the potential loss of the Rally of New Zealand among other perceived problems.

Apparently there is a growing rift forming between the baby boomers and the younger generations. Some have gone so far as to warn that there is a “generational war” coming, as generation X and Y try and wrestle back political and economic control from their parents. But from where I stand as a member of Gen-Y, things don’t look so bad. Our living standards and expected lifetime income are much higher than my parents’ generation enjoyed.

Following the global financial crisis people all around the world were angry and they wanted someone to blame.  Given that the crisis seemed to originate from credit markets, it became natural for everyone to blame bankers.  In Britain there have been calls to make bankers pay through the introduction of a tax on speculative banking transactions called a “Robin Hood tax”.  It even has the all important celebrity backing of Bill Nighy, and 131,919 fans on Facebook.  Economists have seen this tax before in a different guise – we call it a financial transaction tax.  Instead of attacking bankers, lowering financial market volatility, and raising money for the needy the burden of such a tax would fall mainly on ordinary people while having few of the claimed effects.

Many people do not support an increase in GST, or so the polls tell us. I recall the same popular sentiment in 1986 when GST was first introduced. At that time there was a natural fear about a type of tax that was unfamiliar to most New Zealanders. Would it work? Would politicians deliver the accompanying income tax cuts? Who would gain and who would lose? Would government be bigger or smaller? Perhaps these fears still exist even though the change being talked about this time is much less dramatic.

In 1914 New Zealand was the richest country in the world and in 1960 we were the third richest. We are now ranked at number 50. We have been overtaken by Greece and Slovenia and are about to be overtaken by Israel, Taiwan and Korea. That our economic performance has been so mediocre is surprising as we have checked so many of the correct boxes to achieve growth.

One of the grimmer aspects of the holiday season is the prominent focus given to the holiday road toll. Although it will be small comfort to the friends and relatives of those who died on the roads this summer, 2009’s holiday road toll of 13 was a substantial improvement on the 25 who died in 2008. After adjusting for the number of vehicles on the road, 2009 would be the third lowest holiday road-toll since records began in 1958.