Professor Robert MacCulloch: NZ's Stagnant GDP as 184th out of 195 countries in the world....

IMF October 2024 Report Issued Today Ranks NZ's Stagnant GDP as 184th out of 195 countries in the world

The IMF has reported how much GDP is growing in 195 countries across the entire world. New Zealand is stagnant, at 0%, whilst nearly every other country is surging ahead. For 2024, Tables A1 to A5 (in the link below) show our ranking is 184th out of 195 countries. There are 11 nations doing worse than us: Argentina, Finland, Slovak Republic, Estonia, Haiti (civil war), Kuwait, Sudan (civil war), South Sudan (civil war), Yemen (civil war), Ireland (that has until this year been one of the world's fastest growing economies) and Austria. In terms of our Current Account balance, measuring exports minus imports as a fraction of GDP, we are 3rd lowest out of 41 developed nations, with Greece and Cyprus below us.

Ironically, the three gentlemen & one woman most responsible for this situation are former Finance Minister Mr Grant Robertson, now Vice Chancellor of Otago University (all previous VC's had the "Doctor" title), paid $624,000; Reserve Bank Governor, Adrian Orr on $830,000 whose contract was renewed by Robertson; together with former PM Ardern, recently knighted in Windsor Castle, and busily ploughing carbon emissions into the atmosphere courtesy of back-to-back long haul flights; as well as former PM, now Opposition Leader, Chris Hipkins, who is trying to be New Zealand's next PM. As for the Otago University Professors who wrote in the British Medical Journal how NZ's Covid policies went hand-in-hand with amazing economic outcomes (even though none of them had studied economics) maybe they should retract that paper. For the lot of them, talk about pay (and status) for (non) performance.

Sources:
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2024/10/22/world-economic-outlook-october-2024

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.