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Our research programmes have implications for many individuals and groups in New Zealand. In this section you will find publications related to youth, the elderly, Aucklanders, Maori and university graduates.
Motu’s current and recent research into individual and group outcomes includes:
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop
Working Paper
Government income support policies face a balance between providing adequate income, maintaining work incentives, and managing fiscal costs to the government. Recent changes to abatement thresholds in Aotearoa New Zealand aim to improve support and…
Authors: Trinh Le | Thomas Benison
Working Paper
Home equity release refers to financial products that allow people to access the equity that is tied up in their own homes. Home equity is a large part of household wealth in New Zealand, making…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Shannon Minehan
Working Paper
Drawing upon longitudinal data from the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) study, this research looks at the barriers to mothers leaving partners who use violence. The persistence of conflict or abuse experienced by mothers…
Authors: Arthur Grimes | Kate Prickett (nee Chambers) | Jaimie Monk
Working Paper
Income’s role explored,
Kiwi kid’s behaviour studied
Stress, screens may hold keys
This paper explores how a family’s income affects the behavioural development of children.
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop | Lynn Riggs | Trinh Le | Nic Watson
Working Paper
To better understand the potential effects of transport policies, it is important to understand household spending patterns across different transport-related categories, as well as across different households.
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Bronwyn Bruce-Brand
Working Paper
Despite union rules,
doctors’ gender pay gap still
stark. No clear reason.
We use individual-level data from the 2013 New Zealand Census combined with administrative income data from the tax system to estimate the gender…
Authors: Dave Maré | Corey Allan
Working Paper
Do wages increase
when firm performance improves?
Yes, but not as much.
Aotearoa New Zealand, like many other developed countries, has had a decline in the share of total national income that goes to workers. Workers' wage growth during…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jacques Poot
Article
Does commuting increase workers’ exposure to difference and diversity? The uneven spatial distribution of different population subgroups within cities is well documented. Individual neighbourhoods are generally less diverse than cities as a whole. Auckland is New…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Livvy Mitchell | Maanaima Soa-Lafoai | Colleen Ward
Working Paper
This research shows parents are largely not to blame for economic inequality between men and women in Aotearoa New Zealand. Other factors in society, outside parents’ control, are contributing more to ongoing harmful economic gender…
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop | Lynn Riggs
Working Paper
This paper looks at if parents responded to changed work incentives resulting from increasing the abatement threshold for Working for Families as part of the Families Package.
We found no evidence parents responded to this particular…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Nic Watson | Shannon Minehan
Working Paper
This literature review provides background for a forthcoming empirical investigation of the pathways through education that lead to successful labour market outcomes for Māori students with different aptitudes in high school.
It summarises three main areas…
Authors: Dave Maré | Corey Allan
Working Paper
See a summary version of this paper by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Do people from different demographics in Aotearoa New Zealand get equal slices of the pie when their workplace passes profits onto workers as…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Steven Stillman | Eugenio Levi
Working Paper
This research finds that both structural reforms of the government (which led to large negative impacts on some areas in Aotearoa New Zealand) and immigration reforms (which led to large increases in skilled migration in…
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop | Isabelle Sin | Shakked Noy
Working Paper
Workers who lose their jobs involuntarily have lower mental health and economic security in the short term — and lower earnings and physical health in the long term.
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Michelle Poland | Steven Stillman
Working Paper
Work injuries fall more often on Mondays. Blame physiology.
Research consistently finds more workplace injuries occur on Mondays than on other weekdays. One hypothesis is that workers fraudulently claim that off-the-job weekend sprains and strains occurred…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Isabelle Sin | Lynn Riggs
Working Paper
Is gig work growing?
What do we know about it?
More data will help.
The increase in internet-based services has raised policy interest in gig work, which is work done outside formal employer-employee…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jacques Poot
Working Paper
In diverse cities
wages and rents are higher.
Firms gain, folks less so.
This paper revisits whether cultural diversity is a source of local production and/or consumption amenities. We adapt the analytical framework of Roback…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Judd Ormsby
Working Paper
Pacific migrants:
high employment, low pay rates,
trapped by poor English.
New Zealand has a long history of migration from the Pacific. Migrants from the Pacific, like all people moving to a new…
Authors: Dave Maré | Omoniyi Alimi | Jacques Poot
Working Paper
Falling in love with
one as educated boosts
inequality.
Educational assortative matching among couples, i.e. the phenomenon whereby the high-educated have partners who are also high-educated, has gained attention in popular media and academic research…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | David Rea
Working Paper
Centre of Auckland
had higher housing support
some gains for tenants.
A major concern with demand side housing subsidies to low-income tenants is the extent to which they may be captured by landlords in the…
Authors: Dave Maré | Isabelle Sin | Eyal Apatov
Working Paper
Postgrad allowance
removed. Students borrow more.
Not much else changes.
From 1 January 2013, students in New Zealand who entered postgraduate qualifications other than Honours were no longer eligible to receive student…
Author: Isabelle Sin
Note
This is the final report in a series of five reports that together use the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) longitudinal survey data to explore how the inability to access affordable childcare affects the…
Author: Isabelle Sin
Note
This is the third in a series of five reports that together use the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal survey data to explore how the inability to access affordable childcare affects the long run…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Richard Fabling | Steven Stillman
Working Paper
Women are paid less,
but aren’t less valuable.
We blame sexism.
As in other OECD countries, women in New Zealand earn substantially less than men with similar observable characteristics. In this paper, we use a decade…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Tue Gørgens
Article
This paper compares two approaches to analyzing longitudinal discrete-time binary outcomes. Dynamic binary response models focus on state occupancy and typically specify low-order Markovian state dependence. Multi-spell duration models focus on transitions between states and…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Wilbur Townsend
Article
This article analyzes earnings dynamics and measurement error using a matched longitudinal sample of individuals’ survey and administrative earnings. In line with previous literature, the reported differences are characterized by both persistent and transitory factors.…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Trinh Le
Note
Filling info gaps
on early childhood sector.
Insights with limits.
This research note summarises results of exploratory research into the ability of Statistics New Zealand’s IDI to support analysis of the early childhood education (ECE)…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | David Card
Article
Although women make up nearly half the U.S. workforce, most studies of earnings inequality focus on men. This is at least in part because of the complexity of modeling both the decision to work (i.e.,…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Richard Fabling | Steven Stillman
Article
As in other OECD countries, women in New Zealand earn substantially less than men with similar observable characteristics. In this paper, we use a decade of annual wage and productivity data from New Zealand's Linked…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Tue Gørgens
Article
There are two common approaches to analyzing discrete-time two-state panel data: one focuses on modeling the determinants of state occupancy, the other on modeling the determinants of transition between states. This note shows that there…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Wilbur Townsend
Working Paper
Job loss hurts workers
low employment and earnings
even with support.
This paper analyses the longer term impacts of involuntary job loss of workers subsequent employment, earnings, and income support in New…
Authors: Dave Maré | Omoniyi Alimi | Jacques Poot
Working Paper
Inequality
is reduced by aging of
our population.
As is the case in most developed countries, the population of New Zealand is ageing numerically and structurally. Population ageing can have important effects…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Wilbur Townsend
Working Paper
Surveys have errors.
Tax data errors are rare,
but they still matter.
This paper analyses measurement error in the classification of employment. We show that the true employment rate and time-invariant error rates…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Wilbur Townsend
Article
This paper analyses measurement error in the classification of employment using matched survey and administrative data from New Zealand. We show that the true employment rate and time-invariant error rates can be identified, given access…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Wilbur Townsend
Working Paper
This paper analyses the measurement error and earnings dynamics of two sources of individuals' annual earnings from Statistics New Zealand's Survey of Family, Income and Employment (SoFIE) and administrative linked employer-employee data (LEED) earnings reported…
Authors: Arthur Grimes | Levente Timar | Richard Fabling
Working Paper
Quake! drop, cover, hold
Then employees recover
and subsidy helps.
The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes caused major upheaval to the people of the region. The second major quake killed 185 people, forced many from…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Nathan Chappell
Working Paper
Ninety day trial.
Controversial policy,
with little impact.
An amendment to legislation in 2009 enabled New Zealand firms with fewer than 20 employees to hire new workers on trial periods. The scheme was…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Steven Stillman
Article
Between 1984 and 1993, New Zealand undertook comprehensive market-oriented economic reforms. In this paper, we use census data to examine how the internal mobility of Māori compares to that of Europeans in New Zealand in…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Tue Gørgens
Working Paper
This paper examines dynamic binary response and multi-spell duration model approaches to analyzing longitudinal discrete-time binary outcomes. Prototypical dynamic binary response models specify low-order Markovian state dependence and restrict the effects of observed and unobserved…
Authors: Michelle Poland | Steven Stillman | Jackie Cumming
Working Paper
The New Zealand government introduced a Primary Health Care Strategy (PHCS) in 2001 aimed at improving access to primary health care, improving health, and reducing inequalities in health. The Strategy represented a substantive increase in…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jason Timmins | William Power | Suzi Kerr
Other
What characteristics push people to move and what pulls them to a new location? Evidence from the US has suggested that people are pulled to cities with a high population density and with large concentrations…
Dataset
This data documents the status of unoccupied dwellings in 2006. Only a select few area units (Patea, Moerewa, Wairoa, Waipukurau, Takapau, Mataura, Horotiu, Makarewa, Whakatu, Fairton, Paeora, Clive) and territorial local authorities (Hastings District, South…
Author: Dave Maré
Article
This paper estimates the impact of different categories of employment policy interventions on subsequent outcomes for jobseekers. We generate a range of estimates to help us distinguish programme effects from selection effects. We also examine…
Authors: Isabelle Sin | Steven Stillman
Working Paper
Between 1984 and 2003, New Zealand undertook comprehensive market-oriented economic reforms. In this paper, we use Census data to examine how the internal mobility of Māori compares to that of Europeans in New Zealand in…
Author: Dave Maré
Article
This paper examines the degree of geographic concentration of employment in New Zealand, using summary measures proposed by Ellison and Glaeser (1997) and Maurel and Sedillot (1999).
We use Statistics New Zealand Business Demography data for…
Authors: Dale Warburton | Philip Morrison
Article
While the employment rate of women has risen steadily in New Zealand over the last two decades, employment is still highly variable by ethnicity and age. One of the groups least engaged in paid employment…
Authors: Deborah Cobb-Clark | Steven Stillman
Other
We use the first three waves of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to examine the retirement plans of middle-aged workers (aged 45–55).
Our results indicate that approximately two-thirds of men and…
Authors: Arthur Grimes | Jacques Poot | Philip McCann | Matthew Roskruge
Article
In this article, we link unique data on local social infrastructure expenditure with micro-level individual survey data of self-reported social capital measures of trust and participation in community activities.
We use both probit and tobit models…
Authors: Michelle Poland | Steven Stillman | Janis Paterson | Lana Perese | Sarnia Carter | Wanzhen Gao
Article
Using data from the "Pacific Islands Families: the first two years of life" (PIF) study, this paper explores the factors associated with the living arrangements of mothers with a one-year-old Pacific child. Three living arrangements…
Authors: Arthur Grimes | Dave Maré | Melanie Morten
Article
This paper analyses local labour and housing market adjustment in New Zealand from 1989 to 2006.
We use a panel vector autoregression approach to examine the adjustment of employment, employment rate, participation rate, wages, and house…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jacques Poot | Öumlzer Karagedikli
Article
Among developed economies, New Zealand is one of the countries that experienced a large increase in personal income inequality since the mid 1980s.
This paper focuses on income inequality at the regional level. Smith (2000) and…
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop
Article
Educational attainment increased markedly in New Zealand between 1986 and 2001, while the income premia for higher qualifications first increased and then stabilised or decreased over the 1990s.
We first document the growth in qualification-based skills…
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop
Article
This paper analyses income distribution changes in New Zealand between 1983 and 1998. We use a semi-parametric kernel density approach and a range of inequality summary measures to assess the distributional effects of changes in…
Authors: Yun Liang | Michelle Poland | Steven Stillman | Jackie Cumming
Article
Objective: To identify the characteristics of New Zealanders who utilised primary healthcare services prior to the implementation of the New Zealand Primary Healthcare Strategy (PHCS).
Methods: This paper uses data from the 1996/97 and 2002/03 waves…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jason Timmins | Simon Chapple | Suzie Ballantyne
Article
We know quite a lot about cross-sectional child poverty rates. But we want to move closer to answering the dynamic question of why children move into and out of poverty.
Using a longitudinal data set developed…
Author: Steven Stillman
Working Paper
This report was produced as a New Zealand Department of Labour Research Paper.
Limited information is currently available on youth activity in New Zealand.
This paper uses data primarily from the Household Economic Survey (HES) to provide a…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jason Timmins | Adrian Slack | Jackie Cumming
Working Paper
This was produced on behalf of Health Services Research Centre as HSRC Discussion Paper No. 7.
New Zealand governments in recent years have required government agencies to promote ‘better and fairer access to services’, including geographic accessibility (Upton 1991; Creech 1999).…
Author: Kerry Papps
Working Paper
Produced as IZA Discussion Paper 1365.
A number of authors have documented an increase in earnings or income inequality in New Zealand during the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period of major economic reform, however…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jason Timmins | Peter Mawson
Working Paper
This paper was produced as New Zealand Treasury Working Paper 01/09.
This paper presents an analysis of the distribution of socio-economic deprivation throughout New Zealand. The analysis focuses on the three census years 1986, 1991, and…
Authors: Dave Maré | Steven Stillman
Working Paper
Produced as a Families Commission Research Fund report for the Families Commissions, Wellington.
This study examines whether differences in parental education are reflected in differences in children's scores on cognitive tests, drawing attention to the role…
Authors: Steven Stillman | Geoff Lewis
Working Paper
Presented as New Zealand Treasury Working Paper 05/08
In this study we investigate Auckland's economic performance relative to other large cities in New Zealand, to medium-sized urban centres and to small towns and rural areas.
Measures of regional economic…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Steven Stillman | Sarah Crichton
Working Paper
This started as a LEED Research Report being produced on behalf of Statistics New Zealand
This paper uses an experimental dataset under development at Statistics New Zealand, the Linked Employer-Employee Database (LEED), to examine labour market outcomes for…
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop | Jason Timmins
Working Paper
This was produced as New Zealand Treasury Working Paper 03/35
This paper summarises the changing nature of qualifications across the working age population in New Zealand over the period from 1986 to 2001, and investigates the relationships between…
Authors: Dave Maré | Dean Hyslop
Working Paper
This paper was produced as New Zealand Treasury Working Paper 01/21
This paper presents an analysis of changes in the distribution of gross household income and income inequality over the period 1983 - 1998.
The analysis applies a semiparametric…
Authors: Dean Hyslop | Steven Stillman | Sarah Crichton
Working Paper
Produced as the LEED Research Report for Statistics New Zealand in Wellington
New Zealand has a comprehensive accident insurance system that pays much of the direct cost of accidental injuries, and compensates workers 80 percent of their earnings…
Author: Suzi Kerr
Working Paper
"Economics as a 'trade' does very well in New Zealand. Economists are taken relatively seriously in government policy processes. For better or worse, economic ideas were major drivers of the reforms in the late 1980s…
Authors: Sholeh Maani | Barbara Wolfe | Rhema Vaithianathan
Working Paper
In this study we extend the literature (e.g. Deaton, 2002a; Kennedy and Kawachi, 1996; Wilkinson, 1996) by proposing a new mechanism through which income inequality can influence health.
We argue that increased income inequality induces household…
Authors: Dave Maré | Sylvia Dixon | Andrew Coleman
Working Paper
This draft book chapter provides an overview of Maori economic development during the past 150 years, drawing on readily available statistical and historical sources.
The path of Maori economic development that we have traced through statistical…
Author: Dave Maré
Working Paper
This paper provides an overview of the analysis of the indirect effects of active labour market policies. Indirect effects arise where some of the improved labour market outcomes for programme participants come at the expense…
Authors: Dave Maré | Sylvia Dixon
Working Paper
This paper uses census data to identify the main changes in the individual-level income distribution of working-aged Maori between 1991 and 2001, and to analyse the effects of changes in the distribution of socio-demographic attributes…
Authors: Dave Maré | Sylvia Dixon
Working Paper
This paper reports findings from a study of changes in Maori income levels and income dispersion between 1997 and 2003.
Data from Statistics New Zealand's Income Survey are used to describe and evaluate the main changes…
Authors: Dave Maré | Isabelle Sin
Working Paper
This paper investigates several factors that may be important for improving Maori outcomes, and the extent to which their importance varies by iwi. Specifically, it examines the extent to which controlling for differences in characteristics…
Authors: Dave Maré | Jason Timmins | Simon Chapple | Suzie Ballantyne
Working Paper
This paper considers the dynamics of child income poverty in New Zealand.
Annual movements into and out of poverty by children's households in New Zealand over the 1997/98, 1998/99, and 1999/2000 periods are analysed. The annual…
Working Paper
Many studies show that individuals from ethnic minority groups receive low levels of job-related training, raising the question of whether lower expected wage benefits contribute to this lack of training.
In this paper, unit record data…
Authors: Arthur Grimes | Nicholas Tarrant
Working Paper
This paper documents a comprehensive database for the populations of 60 New Zealand towns and cities (henceforth "towns"). Populations are provided for every tenth year from 1926 through to 2006. New Zealand towns have experienced…
Authors: Arthur Grimes | Dave Maré | Richard Fabling
Working Paper
We examine the relationship between performance pay systems and wages, paying particular attention to gender differences in outcomes.
At the firm level, estimates suggest average wages are unaffected by changes in performance pay practices, but that…
Author: Andrew Coleman
Working Paper
This paper analyses how much different cohorts can expect to contribute into the PAYGO-funded New Zealand Superannuation scheme, and contrasts it with the amount each cohort can be expected to obtain in benefits if the…
Authors: Arthur Grimes | Chris Young | Steven Stillman
Working Paper
We investigate the effects of home-ownership on parents' involvement in local school elections.
We use 2007 New Zealand school board of trustees data to examine whether schools where parents have high rates of home-ownership experience high…
Author: Andrew Coleman
Working Paper
This paper examines how increasing longevity affects the housing choices of working age and retired people using a heterogeneous agent overlapping generations model that incorporates owner-occupier and rental sectors, credit constraints, detailed tax regulations, and…
Author: Jacques Poot
Presentation
Until the 1960s, migration flows between Australia and New Zealand were quite balanced. In 1966 there were around 52,000 New Zealand born living in Australia and 43,000 Australia born living in New Zealand. Since then,…
Author: Victor Lavy
Presentation
This lecture will discuss the effect of teachers' monetary incentives in an experiment among English and mathematics teachers in high schools in Israel.
The program has much in common with performance-pay initiatives being tested in the…
Author: Nicholas Mays
Presentation
This presentation discusses the situation of the National Health Service in England when Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister in 1997, outlines the main phases and elements in New Labour's NHS reforms and assesses their…
Author: Joop Hartog
Presentation
While uncertainty abounds in almost any decision on investment in schooling, it is mostly ignored in research and virtually absent in labour economics text books.
This paper:
documents the scope for risk,
discusses the tough disentanglement of heterogeneity…
Authors: Anna Robinson | Steven Stillman
Presentation
Social progress can be exactly measured by the social position of the fair sex (its plain ones included).
Karl Marx, 12 December 1868
This presentation examines:
Background: What’s interesting about Russia?
What’s happened to the pay gap in transition?
The rank…
Author: Stephen Jenkins
Presentation
This presentation explores factors associated with receiving and moving off social welfare benefits in Britain. There is much interest in the dynamics of receiving welfare and in comparing these dynamics across countries.
The research presented here…
Author: Ron Crawford
Working Paper
This paper uses the New Zealand Linked Income Supplement (LIS) to investigate the annual transitions in hourly earnings of working age individuals over the years 1997 to 2004.
I first construct transition matrices for annual changes…
Authors: Dave Maré | Sylvia Dixon
Working Paper
This paper examines the incidence of involuntary job loss and its impact on the employment and earnings of affected workers, using data from the Survey of Families, Incomes and Employment (SoFIE) for the 2002–09 period.…
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