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Keith Rankin
Political Economist, Scoop Columnist
Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s.
Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like.
Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.
Keith Rankin - Latest News [Page 17]
Keith Rankin: The Politics of Generation
Thursday, 15 September 2005, 10:22 am | Keith Rankin
In this election campaign, Labour has been playing the politics of generation. Specifically, Labour seeks the votes of the young, those aged 18-35. More >>
Immigration: Needed, A Policy For The 21st Century
Tuesday, 13 September 2005, 12:37 am | Keith Rankin
Immigration was set to become an election issue, but got lost in the fog of tax cuts, student loans, petrol prices and speeding motorcades. More >>
Keith Rankin: 123 MMP
Monday, 12 September 2005, 12:56 am | Keith Rankin
One of the most important effects of New Zealand's form of proportional representation (MMP) is the significance of the 5% threshold for the "minor parties". A vote of 4.99% for a party means a very large number of wasted votes; of votes that do not ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Universities of Technology
Thursday, 25 August 2005, 10:30 am | Keith Rankin
Two important stories this year have been Unitec's long struggle for recognition as a form of university, and the record high balance of payments deficit that New Zealand is now experiencing. More >>
Keith Rankin: Auckland's Ports (Air and Sea)
Friday, 17 December 2004, 1:04 pm | Keith Rankin
It may not be well known, even in Auckland, but Auckland has two international seaports: Auckland and Tauranga. The Port of Tauranga and TranzRail (now Toll Rail) jointly operate an inland ''metroport'' at Southdown, between Onehunga and Otahuhu. Businesses ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Civil Unions And Discrimination
Thursday, 9 December 2004, 1:33 pm | Keith Rankin
One of the most important (yet least discussed) reasons why we need to have ''civil unions'' for same-sex couples is the need for such couples to be treated the same as married couples by government welfare agencies. More >>
Keith Rankin: Reckoning Risk
Tuesday, 30 November 2004, 12:03 am | Keith Rankin
It has been instructive to reflect on the loss of TE901 on Mt Erebus, 25 years ago on Sunday. More >>
Keith Rankin: The Case For STV In Auckland
Tuesday, 12 October 2004, 10:55 am | Keith Rankin
An analysis of Auckland's election results shows that increased use of STV voting will enhance the city's democracy. On its most substantial test, STV for the District Health Board yielded a markedly more democratic result than would have happened under ... More >>
MMP NZ Style: A Self-Eliminating Electoral System?
Monday, 15 March 2004, 2:35 pm | Keith Rankin
In New Zealand politics, there is an opportunity for the rejected FPP electoral system to creep back in through the back door. More >>
Keith Rankin: Awarding Votes
Friday, 27 February 2004, 2:19 pm | Keith Rankin
The vagaries of first-past-the-post (FPP) voting are far from an historical curiosity for New Zealanders. Not only do we vote for our mayors and electorate MPs by this method, but many of the award ceremonies that are important to us may lead to winners ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Do We Need A Global Police Force?
Thursday, 17 April 2003, 11:32 am | Keith Rankin
It has been long evident that the United States' invasion and conquest of Iraq has been neither a quest for weapons of mass destruction (whatever that phrase means) nor a selfless exorcism of an evil regime. The United States was always too eager. More >>
Keith Rankin: Empire Building
Monday, 24 February 2003, 10:44 am | Keith Rankin
Is the United States simply the world's policeman, on the beat, acting to reduce global crime? No. The Washington regime gets visibly angry at the very suggestion that there may be no crime that the Iraqi nation can be arrested, tortured and sentenced ... More >>
Ethnic Cleansing closer than Bali
Friday, 25 October 2002, 9:00 am | Keith Rankin
The Kuta Beach (Bali) bombings are supposed to be of special concern to New Zealanders because they bring terrorism to our back yard (or at least to within 6,500 km of us). Yet arguably the most disturbing ethnic-cum-sectarian conflict of the last three ... More >>
Validating Terrorism
Friday, 18 October 2002, 8:51 am | Keith Rankin
Last weekend witnessed the biggest terrorist atrocity in which westerners were victims, since 11 September 2001. And last weekend featured another repeat telecast of Mel Gibson's Braveheart , a staple for TV3. More >>
Keith Rankin - Motorway Madness
Friday, 11 October 2002, 11:15 am | Keith Rankin
John Banks wants to give Auckland a triple by-pass. Imagine a doctor telling a patient with blocked arteries that she must wait 15 years for a triple by-pass, when the alternative single bypass could be achieved much sooner. More >>
Information, Belief and Terror
Friday, 4 October 2002, 10:56 am | Keith Rankin
The Internet has made it possible to disseminate untruths more widely and more quickly than ever before. This is not necessarily a problem. Most of us have a portfolio of beliefs which include some items that are verifiably untrue. More >>
Ministry of Information: Govt's new Burns Unit
Friday, 27 September 2002, 8:38 am | Keith Rankin
The new Government Communications Unit - dubbed the Burns Unit after its director Brendon Burns - has been compared with Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda in Hitler's Third Reich, and (by Winston Peters) with the former Soviet official mouthpiece Tass. More >>
Incremental versus Excremental Economics
Friday, 20 September 2002, 8:44 am | Keith Rankin
Orthodox neoclassical economics is incremental in its nature. Economic analysis is done by considering small changes at the 'margin' to such things as cost, utility (ie happiness), revenue or whatever. And neoclassical economists prefer to interpret ... More >>
A Brief Reflection
Friday, 13 September 2002, 8:15 am | Keith Rankin
Now that it's the first anniversary of the attacks by (presumably) Al Qaeda on New York and Washington, two things in particular worry me. The American political leaders seem to have learned nothing about how to avoid terror, and they make statements ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Transport Modes
Friday, 6 September 2002, 9:39 am | Keith Rankin
Two weeks ago I suggested that the airline industry was going through a transformation that would make it much like any other form of transport; for example like buses. Air New Zealand has travelled further down that road than its Goliath rival Qantas. More >>
