Firms in big cities hire well and price to compete Are they better firms? This study estimates differences in productivity (mfp) across New Zealand urban areas, with a focus on the size of Auckland’s productivity premium. The estimates are based on analysis of firm-level data from Statistics New Zealand’s Longitudinal Business Database. The methods used...

This working paper investigates whether there are productivity gains from ultrafast broadband (UFB) adoption and whether any gains are higher when firms undertake complementary organisational investments.

Surveys have errors. Tax data errors are rare, but they still matter. This paper analyses measurement error in the classification of employment. We show that the true employment rate and time-invariant error rates can be identified, given access to two measures of employment with independent errors. Empirical identification requires at least two periods of data...

This paper analyses the measurement error and earnings dynamics of two sources of individuals' annual earnings from Statistics New Zealand's Survey of Family, Income and Employment (SoFIE) and administrative linked employer-employee data (LEED) earnings reported in the Integrated Database Infrastructure (IDI).

The science is clear. When debating emissions, consider your goals. Biological emissions from agriculture (methane and nitrous oxide) make up almost half New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions, so their importance relative to carbon dioxide is of particular policy interest. Motu Economic and Public Policy Research brought together a group of New Zealand climate change...