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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 19]
Celebrating Our Public Holidays
Tuesday, 1 February 2011, 1:34 pm | Keith Rankin
Upon the belated realisation that in 2011, as in 2010, Monday-Friday workers get 9 instead of the usual 11 public holidays, Labour has promised to 'Mondayise' Waitangi Day and Anzac Day. [Refer Scoop (28 Jan) Labour will protect everyone's holidays ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Taxes and Benefits for Families
Thursday, 1 April 2010, 5:03 pm | Keith Rankin
On March 8 Scoop published my article Taxes and Benefits for Individuals: Current State and Reform Options , which looks at taxes and benefits for individual New Zealand wage and salary earners, as their earnings vary. In this article, I apply the same ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Tax Reform in Pictures
Wednesday, 17 March 2010, 1:18 pm | Keith Rankin
On 8 February and 8 March I published a number of tables that show, for individual taxpayers, average and marginal tax rates for: the status quo; conservative reform options that recognise the comparatively high rates of tax that low income that New ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Taxes and Benefits for Individuals
Monday, 8 March 2010, 12:25 pm | Keith Rankin
On Feb 8 Scoop published my article Personal Income Tax Reform in New Zealand , which looks at taxes for individual New Zealand wage and salary earning tax residents. More >>
Tax Principles - A Need for Public Dialogue
Friday, 19 February 2010, 1:53 pm | Keith Rankin
One of our problems in policy debate about many issues - taxation is but one - is the lack of reference to the principles that can give structure to our opinions. In the absence of reference to principles, opinions about policy matters such as ... More >>
Response to the Prime Minister's Tax Announcement
Wednesday, 10 February 2010, 1:23 pm | Keith Rankin
Yesterday's tax announcement has disturbing implications for democracy in New Zealand. This government was elected in 2008 - despite concerns that it might have a hidden agenda - on the promise of a programme of tax cuts that would mainly benefit middle ... More >>
Personal Income Tax Reform in New Zealand
Monday, 8 February 2010, 12:14 pm | Keith Rankin
We have heard a lot of talk recently about how New Zealand's tax system is broken and that it requires radical surgery, the latest being the January 20 Report of the Victoria University tax working group ( http://www.victoria.ac.nz/sacl/cagtr/pdf/tax-report-website.pdf ... More >>
2025 and All That: the 2009 Brash Report
Tuesday, 1 December 2009, 3:59 pm | Keith Rankin
The task set for 2025 taskforce (chaired by Don Brash) - to identify ways in which New Zealand's annual economic growth might average at least 4.5% per capita for 15 years - must be understood for what it is: an exercise in politics, not economics. More >>
Keith Rankin: Tax Reform - What Not To Do
Friday, 27 November 2009, 4:38 pm | Keith Rankin
The global financial crisis was caused, in large part, by excessive income inequality. With very high levels of inequality in an industrialised world (ie a world in which the rich make their profits by selling goods and services to the non-rich), the rich ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Use It or Lose It
Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 11:11 am | Keith Rankin
I have, in recent weeks, written a draft essay – Use It or Lose It – which uses a simple global model of creditor and debtor behaviour to explain not only the present global financial and economic crisis, but also the repeating nature of such crises. More >>
Revising our Statutory Public Holidays
Thursday, 2 July 2009, 1:01 pm | Keith Rankin
It is now Matariki, our indigenous New Year and mid-winter festival. Each year, there is increasing clamour for Matariki to be recognised with a public holiday. More >>
Rankin: Tax Cuts 2009-2011
Wednesday, 1 April 2009, 12:21 pm | Keith Rankin
Today, the first round of the National Government's personal tax cuts became effective, along with the raised employee ACC employee levies. There are three main areas of controversy. First, taxpayers with children will need to be earning at least $41,025 ... More >>
Controversy over National tax cuts: clarification
Friday, 12 December 2008, 9:48 am | Keith Rankin
In my Scoop article Controversy over National's tax cuts (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0812/S00214.htm) I inadvertently suggested that the fiscal cost of extending the Independent Earner Tax Credit (IETC) in 2011 into the $14,000 to $24,000 income bracket would be only ... More >>
Controversy over National's Tax Cuts
Thursday, 11 December 2008, 11:57 am | Keith Rankin
Listening to the tax debate in Parliament today (10 December 2008), most of the controversy has been about the lower threshold ($24,000) for the proposed Independent Earner Tax Credit (IETC). The IETC will be $520 per year ($10 per week) from April 2009 ... More >>
Keith Rankin: MMP - The Electorate MP Rule
Tuesday, 11 November 2008, 9:27 am | Keith Rankin
Once again, MMP has delivered a nicely weighted result. Voters wanted change, and they got change. And once again, the leading single party fell well short of 50% of the vote, placing the new centre-right government on a path that requires National ... More >>
Helping the Newly Unemployed in the Recession
Friday, 7 November 2008, 8:39 am | Keith Rankin
Last week, Labour and National announced proposals to assist some persons who lose their jobs as a result of the 2008 recession which is being exacerbated by the global financial crisis. More >>
Keith Rankin: Reasons to vote Green
Monday, 20 October 2008, 4:17 pm | Keith Rankin
Many New Zealand voters would like to see a change of government. The present Labour-led government is past its used-by date. More >>
National's 2008 Tax Reform
Friday, 30 May 2008, 10:43 am | Keith Rankin
John Key, in his recent statements, talks not merely of tax cuts, but of more widespread changes to the structure of personal income tax. Thus, he is (or at least he says he is) planning tax reform, and not merely a lowering of average tax rates under ... More >>
Kiwi Saver: is it good public policy?
Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 10:28 am | Keith Rankin
For a variety of reasons, there has been a call in recent years for New Zealand households to save more of their disposable incomes. Kiwi Saver is the government's answer to this call. Benefits are supposed to accrue to the New Zealand economy as a whole ... More >>
Keith Rankin: PC
Friday, 11 April 2008, 1:34 pm | Keith Rankin
Something very disquieting is happening in Aotearoa. It appears to be a virulent new strain of political correctness. We could call this "acquired PC syndrome", or something similar. More >>
