Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
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 26]
Keith Rankin: Revolting Vets?
Thursday, 22 February 2001, 9:45 am | Keith Rankin
The strike by the veterinary inspectors at our export meat works enters its 7th day today. Are our salaried vets at the vanguard of a wage and salary earners' revolt? Or are they more like greedy Dickensian capitalists, plucking the food out of the ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Sporting Blues
Thursday, 15 February 2001, 9:02 am | Keith Rankin
Sport - ie couch potato sport - is important to New Zealanders. It's a form of vicarious living for (in particular) men - a parallel to the soap operas and romantic novels that serve the same purpose for many women. Sport's fascination goes deeper than ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Good Fund?
Thursday, 8 February 2001, 10:00 am | Keith Rankin
On a number of occasions, I've cited the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) as a model system of public property rights in action. A highly successful way of managing a publicly owned energy resources and equitably distributing the resulting profits ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Should NZ First be in Parliament?
Thursday, 1 February 2001, 10:06 am | Keith Rankin
With the Select Committee on MMP soon to present its findings, there is a sense that there will be no recommendations for major changes to our new electoral system, but possibly some 'token' concessions to appease those who, for many very different reasons, ... More >>
Keith Rankin: People's Bank
Thursday, 25 January 2001, 8:48 am | Keith Rankin
In this era of globalisation, national boundaries are no barrier to the transmission of money and knowledge, right? Further, flows of people are, very slowly, starting to reflect the new reality of a single planet-wide economy. So why is it then so ... More >>
Rankin: Out of Eden; a Multi-Millennial Story
Wednesday, 17 January 2001, 3:22 pm | Keith Rankin
While the millennium year didn't exactly feature a surfeit of historical reflection or futurist speculation, history is nevertheless making a bit of a comeback, in particular through biographies that are as much about past times as they are about their subjects. ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Peasants versus Pedants
Monday, 15 January 2001, 8:46 am | Keith Rankin
I hesitate to bring up the divisive topic about which millennium is the real millennium. But I do so for two reasons. First, I am interested in the sociology of the divide. Why did the issue polarise us to the extent that we lost interest in what should ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Vector Vexation
Thursday, 21 December 2000, 9:54 am | Keith Rankin
In 1999, Vector, formerly Mercury Energy and before that the Auckland Electric Power Board, paid a dividend of $107m to its owner, the Auckland Energy Consumers Trust (AECT) (see press release on Scoop ). The raison d'être of the AECT is to distribute ... More >>
Keith Rankin: The New American debate
Thursday, 14 December 2000, 9:47 am | Keith Rankin
At last there are signs in the United States that at least some influential people realise that, if we are to distribute income equitably in the world's modern high productivity economies, the labour market that we take for granted just cannot do ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Home Expensive Home
Thursday, 7 December 2000, 9:33 am | Keith Rankin
The OECD report on the New Zealand economy released last Thursday suggested, among other things, that the New Zealand government should tax the imputed income on owner occupied housing. Minister of Finance, Dr Michael Cullen, promptly dismissed the ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Autistic Economics?
Thursday, 30 November 2000, 9:42 am | Keith Rankin
In June this year, a group of economics students at one of France's leading tertiary institutes, the École Normale Supérieure, revolted. They were objecting to the obsession with abstract mathematical modelling that dominates economics education worldwide. ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Demand Versus Supply
Thursday, 23 November 2000, 9:39 am | Keith Rankin
Labour MP Georgina Beyer said in Parliament a couple of weeks ago that "prostitution is a demand-driven activity". She's wrong. Sure, all goods and services that are freely sold have a demand. But a demand-driven industry is one that expands when ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Premature Congratulation?
Thursday, 16 November 2000, 9:36 am | Keith Rankin
Who'll be inaugurated as president of the United States in January? Should we care? George Bush junior was congratulated as the winner more than a week ago. But it may be a while yet before we can be sure, given the time that the American legal system ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Maori: colonised or colonist?
Thursday, 9 November 2000, 8:59 am | Keith Rankin
The "colonisation debate" in New Zealand suffers because too few non-Maori New Zealanders know our country's history, and too many Maori know how to exploit that historical illiteracy. The irony is that a film released this year, Feathers ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Oh Auckland!
Thursday, 2 November 2000, 8:39 am | Keith Rankin
Auckland’s public policymakers have a longstanding problem; indecisiveness. One Tree Hill is just the latest example. More >>
GDP Gloom?
Thursday, 26 October 2000, 11:05 am | Keith Rankin
The economy seems to be stagnating. Real GDP (gross domestic product) for the three months to June 30 is, on a seasonally adjusted basis, 0.7 percent down on the previous three months. Yet, if we look a bit deeper, we find that real GDP for the June quarter ... More >>
The Public Stake In Private Business
Thursday, 19 October 2000, 10:21 am | Keith Rankin
John Carr, a disillusioned neoliberal American kiwiphile, has published in the Herald two full-page open letters on the state of the New Zealand economy. The second was on Monday, 16 October (see www.ilovenz.co.nz/letter2.htm). One interesting statement ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Super Solution. What's the Problem?
Thursday, 12 October 2000, 9:41 am | Keith Rankin
Michael Cullen's public superannuation scheme is a bit of a worry. Like the self-regulating free-market economy it's an elegant, indeed clever, solution. One problem, though, is that an elegant solution imposed upon an inelegant world becomes a straightjacket. ... More >>
Keith Rankin: The Big S-Word
Thursday, 5 October 2000, 3:14 pm | Keith Rankin
Don Brash said it for the first time since 1982. Stagflation. Sounds like a rush of male deer. But it's a case of mixed metaphors. Dr Brash has scared the horses. More >>
Keith Rankin: Bronze, Gold and Silver
Thursday, 28 September 2000, 9:58 am | Keith Rankin
Once again, New Zealand is experiencing the biennial disappointment of athletic underachievement. Even our ratio of bronze medals per capita doesn't look that brilliant. More >>
