There were few surprises in today’s New Zealand Budget.
The Government had portrayed it as “The Growth Budget”, but it is uninspiring for those concerned about structural issues like weak productivity growth. For instance, a new accelerated depreciation initiative for businesses is only expected to increase real GDP by up to 0.4% over the forecast horizon.
At least for economists, announced funding for a monthly CPI and other monthly indicators will elicit some excitement.
The Government had already flagged that most new (operational) initiatives would be funded by making savings elsewhere in the budget (see table).
