A drunkard searches for keys under a street lamp. When asked if he lost them there, he replies: "No, but the light is better here." Economists can also seek solutions to poverty, inequality and social problems in familiar places. Other factors, like the economics of land use and urban development, are overlooked.
I joined The New Zealand Initiative last week after a rather unconventional journey. As a half-Austrian, half-Kiwi "third culture kid," I lived a contemplative life and studied consciousness at Victoria University. Economics was not my original path.
