Back in 1968, economist Friedrich Hayek wrote that competition is a discovery procedure. Some information about the world simply would not exist without the process of market competition that discovers it. Read more

Last week, Labour finally began delivering on its urban growth agenda. Housing affordability was one of the two main themes of the 2017 election. Restrictions preventing cities from either growing up or growing out made for serious problems when population growth increased demand for housing. Getting the infrastructure in place to allow for urban growth is absolutely vital. Read more

There was something in the original plans for the post-earthquake Christchurch downtown rebuild that never really made much sense. Well, there were a lot of things that never made any sense, both in the plans and in practice, and that's why a lot of business fled to the suburbs. Read more

One of the underappreciated joys of parenthood is lying to your children. Read more

Moving to New Zealand in 2003 was a bit like stepping into an underpowered time machine. The new-release movies in theatre were ones that had hit the big screen in the US months earlier. TV series lagged by months, or even a season. Some web-based services seemed years behind. Read more

It is too easy to convince ourselves of things that are not true. Read more

Sometimes, being at the front of the queue isn't a good thing. Read more

The Government can pass whatever legislation it likes regulating the relationship between landlords and tenants. Some of it might make sense; some of it might wind up harming the people it’s intended to help. Read more

New Zealand’s basic bargain around firearms ownership and policing always seemed rather sensible. It was very much a feature of New Zealand’s general “Outside of the Asylum” approach to policy. Read more

There was a great old The Three Stooges bit about plumbing that teaches us a lot about regulation. Read more

In a world without laws about fists meeting noses, it would make a lot more sense to prohibit us from punching someone else on the nose without their consent than to ban us from punching ourselves on the nose. It might make sense to ban both, but it would be ridiculous to start by banning people from punching themselves. Read more

I often describe New Zealand as the Outside of the Asylum – the last sane place in a world going mad. Read more

I don’t know if anyone ever really believed manufacturing televisions in New Zealand made sense. Controls in place until New Zealand’s reforms prohibited importing fully assembled televisions, to encourage manufacture and assembly in New Zealand. But it resulted in nonsense practices guaranteed to make televisions more expensive. Read more