Everyone is familiar with the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. It comes from an early 20th century American comic strip featuring the social-climbing McGinis family and their struggle to keep up with their more affluent neighbours, the Joneses.
The comic strip is a parody, focusing on what we have come to call conspicuous consumption. But it encapsulates the more fundamental idea that well-being is relative. It is human nature to assess our positions by reference to others.
What is true for families is true also for nations. Hence we have swathes of comparative statistics allowing us to assess how we compare against other nations and against global averages.
As we look ahead to an election to be contested between two new party leaders, here is my attempt at assessing how we fare.
Where we fare well
Starting with the positives, the latest Reserve Bank forecasts have annual GDP growth at just under 4%, with market commentators predicting annual GDP growth exceeding 3% over the next five years. Compared with an OECD average of under 2%, our performance appears rather good.
Projections on government spending – at least over the next four years – are also relatively good. By the time this piece goes to print, the Treasury’s half year economic and fiscal update is expected to have confirmed the government will post a strong surplus for the current year.
Cumulative surpluses are expected to be as high as $10 billion by 2020. Our net fiscal position compares extremely well with our OECD peers, including our closest neighbour and our main trading partners, most of whom continue to run eye-watering deficits.
If these numbers are a bit abstract, then the employment statistics make them more real. Unemployment is under 5% for the first time since the global financial crisis. This compares very well with an OECD average of 6.3% – though well up on Japan’s chart-topping 3% and Germany’s impressive 4.3% (despite record levels of immigration).
Where we are behind
Unfortunately, though, there are many areas where we are failing to keep up.
The housing crisis in our largest city just keeps getting worse. At around 10 times median incomes, Auckland has the fifth least affordable housing in the world. Yet there is neither the political vision nor will to find ways to fund the infrastructure needed to allow Auckland to grow.
As a result, while New Zealand has not experienced the rising income inequality that plagues other developed countries, the rising cost of housing is creating poverty in our poorest communities and causing wealth inequality.
Intractable problems persist in education, too. Despite valiant efforts by outgoing Education Minister Hekia Parata, since the early 2000s our students have tumbled down the international league tables. While the latest results show some improvement, we no longer have an education system that is the envy of the world.
In health, rising costs will soon become a challenge even to Bill English’s prudent fiscal management. Granted, part of the problem lies in an ageing population. But other parts of the health-cost equation are within our control.
A study released by the OECD earlier this year reveals the productivity of New Zealand’s hospitals is among the worst in the developed world. We need to tackle this problem. If we fail to do so, rising health costs, coupled with our generous superannuation scheme, could yet cause our own Mediterranean-style debt spiral.
If this sounds alarmist, you need only read Treasury’s November 2016 The Statement on New Zealand’s Long Term Fiscal Position to understand the risks.
An even bigger problem
Underlying the specific problems in housing, infrastructure, education and health lies a bigger problem. Productivity growth continues to elude us. After a spurt in the 1990s, productivity has lagged OECD averages for nearly two decades.
As a consequence, GDP per capita continues to languish in the bottom half of the OECD’s rankings.
This matters. If we aspire to providing our children and future generations of New Zealanders with the world-class healthcare, and world-class educations other, more prosperous, nations enjoy, we need to lift our sights. We should not just aspire to be average but to be the best.
We should feel confident it can be done. Many of the most prosperous countries in the world are small nations like ours, countries like Switzerland, Norway and Ireland.
Ireland’s transformation is remarkable. A little over 20 years ago, the Irish looked enviously at their richer European neighbours and found the political will to change.
In 1994, New Zealand and Ireland were respectively 20th and 21st in the OECD’s rankings of GDP-per-capita. Today, despite suffering worse than most during the GFC, Ireland is second.
We have moved up too – but only one place, to 19th. We remain stubbornly average. We have not even succeeded in closing the gap with our nearest neighbour, Australia, let alone close in on the leader-board.
Tackling our problems will require persistence. But the lesson we can learn from Ireland is that persistence pays off.
In 2017, the election should not be fought and won over our success in being average. It should focus on how we can really prosper. And not simply by catching up with Australia but by becoming the Joneses other nations aspire to be.