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 28]
Keith Rankin: Inquiry or Whitewash?
Thursday, 11 May 2000, 9:06 am | Keith Rankin
The inquiry into the operation of monetary policy announced this week looks like being a fairly narrow affair. The inquiry will not investigate whether the Reserve Bank should target inflation, or whether the target should be revised. Rather, the ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Family Politics and Gender Roles
Thursday, 4 May 2000, 8:51 am | Keith Rankin
As I intimated in this column (9 March), Muriel Newman's "Shared-Parenting" Bill has met with a political response. The government, in the form of Laila Harre (Minister of Women's Affairs), and the New Zealand Law Society, have used standard ... More >>
Keith Rankin - Socially Responsible Gambling
Thursday, 27 April 2000, 8:42 am | Keith Rankin
We tend to regard gambling as a vice, but risk-taking as a virtue. Indeed, risk-taking is a virtue. If nobody had ever taken a risk, then no economic development would have taken place. More >>
Inflation: A Decrease In The Value Of Money?
Wednesday, 19 April 2000, 11:52 pm | Keith Rankin
This month the latest inflation rate was announced two days before the scheduled announcement by the Reserve Bank to increase the OCR (official cash [interest] rate) to 6%. The CPI inflation rise, 0.7% for the period from mid-November to mid-February, ... More >>
Opinion: A Cashless Or A Cashmore Society?
Thursday, 13 April 2000, 11:53 am | Keith Rankin
This week, the ANZ bank announced that it would follow WestpacTrust in charging fees whenever its customers used other banks' automatic teller machines. This is a classic example of the "prisoners' dilemma" in which individualist behaviour leads ... More >>
Keith Rankin's Thursday Column: Territorial Leave
Thursday, 6 April 2000, 9:38 am | Keith Rankin
Earlier this week, the news broke that part-time soldiers (Territorials) who volunteer to serve in East Timor may lose their jobs if they go. The Employers Federation, while claiming to be sympathetic, appears to be playing hardball in order to win ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Child Custody and Child Support
Thursday, 30 March 2000, 9:40 am | Keith Rankin
Three weeks ago I wrote about Muriel Newman's Shared Parenting Bill ( http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0003/S00035.htm ), suggesting that it represents a positive step in the depoliticisation of child custody disputes. I noted that there would remain incentives for about-to-separate ... More >>
Keith Rankin's Thursday Column: Lucky Strike?
Thursday, 23 March 2000, 7:45 am | Keith Rankin
On Tuesday, US company Swift Energy announced that there is enough oil in its Rimu well, near Hawera, to make New Zealand self-sufficient in petroleum products. Further, a potentially larger nearby oilfield, Kauri, could make New Zealand into a substantial ... More >>
Rankin: Employment Relation - Some Reflections
Thursday, 16 March 2000, 10:11 am | Keith Rankin
The Employment Relations Bill - introduced into Parliament this week - establishes a midpoint between the 1991 Employment Contracts Act and the previous labour relations' regime which lasted in various guises for 97 years. More >>
Rankin: Sharing Responsibility Negotiating Custody
Thursday, 9 March 2000, 8:46 am | Keith Rankin
Whangarei List MP Muriel Newman should be congratulated for her shared parenting bill, presented to Parliament last week. An Act MP, she is entering into a minefield of family and gender politics, which means that the bill will probably fail. More >>
Keith Rankin: The Health Costs of Inequality
Thursday, 2 March 2000, 9:16 am | Keith Rankin
Yesterday the Herald's editorial writer criticised Jim Anderton's regional development plan - announced on 29 February. The Herald sees Anderton's approach as a trade-off between efficiency (or "competitiveness" which is not always the same thing) ... More >>
Rankin: Retirement Support: What's in a Name?
Thursday, 24 February 2000, 8:48 am | Keith Rankin
On 27 January, the Government announced that New Zealand Superannuation will be raised to 67% of the average weekly wage. In doing so, it missed its opportunity to reintroduce a clawback mechanism for those persons over 65 with significant private incomes. ... More >>
Opinion: Rankin On Thursday - Electoral Integrity
Thursday, 17 February 2000, 9:44 am | Keith Rankin
Submissions to the Select Committee on the "Electoral Integrity Bill" close soon. It's likely to be a done deal, with opposing submissions being ignored. More >>
Keith Rankin's Thursday Column - Boy Joerg
Thursday, 10 February 2000, 9:14 am | Keith Rankin
Rather than over-reacting to Haider's innocent praising of Hitler's full-employment policies, we should be concerned about: (i) why increasing numbers of European voters are voting for racist parties, (ii) why parties to the left of the mildly-right-wing ... More >>
Rankin: John Hawkesby: World Famous in New Zealand
Thursday, 3 February 2000, 9:35 am | Keith Rankin
By what criteria does television pay its newsreaders? One criterion is star quality. Stars are persons who - by dint of their personalities, talents and profiles - can generate revenues for their employers sufficient to justify huge fees or salary packages. ... More >>
Keith Rankin Column - Don Brash has no Plan B
Thursday, 20 January 2000, 9:47 am | Keith Rankin
Yesterday we were subject to the embarrassing experience of the Reserve Bank tightening monetary policy just two hours before the public announcement of a December quarter inflation rate of just 0.2 percent. The Bank had forecast that the inflation rate ... More >>
Balance of Payments and Macroeconomic Policy
Thursday, 23 December 1999, 9:03 am | Keith Rankin
The balance of payments' current account deficit (CAD) in the year to September 1999 was $6,610 million compared with a $6,217 million deficit for the year ended June. These figures, released on Tuesday, do not include an important new class of "invisibles" ... More >>
Rankin on Thursday - Labour has Balance of Power
Thursday, 16 December 1999, 8:50 am | Keith Rankin
How strong can a Labour-led Government be in the MMP environment? Is Labour a dog easily wagged? Is it not true that the Greens have the "balance of power"? Or maybe New Zealand First? I argue here that Labour is strategically placed to dominate ... More >>
Rankin Thursday: No Seattle Washington Consensus
Thursday, 9 December 1999, 8:57 am | Keith Rankin
The "Washington Consensus" is the popular name for the neoliberal policy programme promoted by the Bretton Woods institutions: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the late-born World Trade Organisation (WTO). More >>
Rankin Column: Whither the Greens?
Thursday, 2 December 1999, 8:25 am | Keith Rankin
Following the election results on the Internet, I willed the Green vote over the 5% mark. It was like watching the "runs per over required" statistic in a one-day cricket match. To no avail. As Labour's percentage kept rising and New ... More >>
