Adam Smith’s Islands: New Zealand’s Incomparable Restructuring: 1980-1995.

Abstract

Critics of the restructuring of the New Zealand economy in the 1984 to 1993 period have suffered from there being no good defence of the changes that were made. There are memoirs by various actors and the odd academic article, but they do not address the two elephants in the room. Namely: why was the restructuring associated with the decade of a stagnant economy (and why were there no changes in the underlying growth rate afterwards) and why was it necessary to downgrade the role of equity in economic policy and substantially increase economic inequality? One might therefore welcome a study by Canadian historian John Weaver, a Distinguished University Professor at McMaster University. But one will be greatly disappointed.