School of Accounting and Commercial Law – Te Kura Kaute, Ture Tauhokohoko: Chair in Public Finance: Working Paper Series

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://ir.wgtn.ac.nz/handle/123456789/21218

The Chair in Public Finance is located in the school of School of Accounting and Commercial Law. The aims of the Chair in Public Finance are to build up expertise in the area of public finance (broadly defined) and to promote research, debate, policy analysis and advice on public finance matters. For further information about the chair please refer to the Chair in Public Finance website.

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Open Access
Fifteen Years of a PBRFS in New Zealand: Incentives and Outcomes
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2021) Buckle, Robert A.; Creedy, John; Ball, Ashley
This paper examines the transformation of New Zealand universities following the introduction in 2003 of the Performance-Based Research Fund System (PBRFS), which assesses performance quality using a peer-review process, and allocates funds based on individual researcher performance. The analysis, based on a social accounting framework, utilises longitudinal researcher data available from the three full assessment rounds, in 2003, 2012 and 2018. The longitudinal data enable identification of entry, exit and quality transformation of researchers and their contribution to changes in university and discipline research quality. The dynamics are found to be closely related to the new incentives created by the assessment system According to the quality metric used by the PBRFS, the research quality of NZ universities increased substantially over the period, although the rate of increase was much slower during the second period, 2012 to 2018, and considerable heterogeneity across universities and disciplines was revealed. Much of the improvement can be attributed to the high exit rate of lower-quality researchers. New entrants consistently reduced the average quality of all groups, reflecting the difficulty of recruiting high-quality researchers. Changes in the discipline composition of universities made a negligible contribution compared to improvements in the quality of the stock of researchers.
Open Access
Is External Research Assessment Associated with Convergence or Divergence of Research Quality Across Universities and Disciplines? Evidence from the PBRF Process in New Zealand
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2019) Buckle, Robert A.; Creedy, John; Gemmell, Norman
Performance-based research quality measures have been adopted in many countries as a basis for allocating funding to universities. The question arises of whether this produces a divergence of research quality across universities and academic disciplines, or convergence whereby initially lower-quality institutions and disciplines catch-up? This paper examines whether the introduction of the New Zealand Performance-Based Research Fund process produced convergence or divergence in research quality scores of universities and disciplines between the 2003 and 2012 assessments. Anonymous individual researcher quality scores in 2003 and 2012 were used to derive average quality scores for disciplines and universities. Substantial convergence in average research quality is found over the period. With few exceptions, the hypothesis that rates of convergence have been uniform across almost all universities and disciplines is supported.
Open Access
A quarter of a century of fiscal responsibility: The origins and evolution of fiscal policy governance and institutional arrangements in New Zealand, 1994 to 2018.
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2018) Buckle, Robert A.
The foundations for New Zealand’s current fiscal policy governance and institutional arrangements were established nearly 25 years ago by the Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994 (FRA). This Act placed an emphasis on fiscal principles and reporting provisions which were regarded as world-leading fiscal reforms when first introduced. These fundamental reforms have been embraced by successive New Zealand governments, and in 2005 were incorporated into the Public Finance Act 1989. This paper traces the evolution of the principles and reporting provisions during the past quarter of a century in response to the fiscal challenges posed by intergenerational issues and population ageing, avoiding unsustainable government expenditure growth during economic booms, the coordination of fiscal and monetary policy, recognition of the economic and social importance of the Government’s balance sheet, and the demands for greater transparency in fiscal policy decisions and performance. The paper concludes with a discussion of contemporary issues and challenges.
Open Access
A Schumpeterian Gale: Using Longitudinal Data to Evaluate Responses to Performance-Based Research Funding Systems
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2020) Buckle, Robert A.; Creedy, John; Ball, Ashley
Performance-based research funding systems (PBRFS) have been introduced in many countries for allocating funding to research institutions. There continues to be considerable debate about the effectiveness and consequences of these systems. This paper provides a new approach to this debate. It utilises longitudinal researcher data available from the New Zealand PBRFS, which assesses institutional performance and allocates funds based on individual researcher performance. The longitudinal data enable identification of entry, exit and quality transformation of researchers and the contribution of these dynamics to changes in university and discipline research quality, in a manner similar to Schumpeter’s description of the impact of firm dynamics on productivity and economic growth, in terms of a ‘gale of creative destruction’. The approach enables a deeper understanding of individual and institutional responses to PBRFSs, the sustainability of changes, and the contributions of changes in researcher quality and discipline composition to changes in institutional performance.
Open Access
Thirty years of inflation targeting in New Zealand: The origins, evolution and influence of a monetary policy innovation.
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2018) Buckle, Robert A.
Nearly thirty years ago New Zealand ushered in a revolutionary approach to monetary policy. This was formalised by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 which specified price stability as the primary function of monetary policy and provided operational independence for New Zealand’s central bank. This innovation spawned the spread of more central banks around the world with a mandate to prioritise inflation targeting. This paper explains the historical origins of the RBNZ Act, its design and the ideas that influenced its design. It reviews how the practice of inflation targeting and the choice of policy instruments have evolved. The paper includes a review of research evaluating the impact of inflation targeting in New Zealand and concludes with a discussion of contemporary issues including a proposal before the New Zealand Parliament to introduce significant changes to the Act which could have important implications for future monetary policy.

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