Research note: a revised set of New Zealand wealth estimates

Abstract

In the February 2015 issue of Policy Quarterly I presented a table and chart tracing New Zealand’s national wealth from 1980 to 2014, including private wealth figures drawn from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s household-sector balance sheets. Expressed as percentages of GDP, these figures provided estimates of Thomas Piketty’s beta (the ratio of national wealth to national income) over those 35 years. In the February 2015 article I compared my results with the beta values calculated by Piketty for a number of other OECD countries over much longer time spans. New Zealand seemed at that point to have a lower beta than the typical developed economy, though with a parallel rising trend.