Reality check on recession-talk needed
His view comes after Reserve Bank chief economist Paul Conway's speech to the KangaNews New Zealand Capital Markets Forum this week, urging Kiwis to accept they are poorer so it can get inflation under control.
Alexander says first, the economy’s 0.6 per cent shrinkage in the December quarter came after 1.7 per cent growth in the September quarter and 1.6per cent growth in the June quarter.
“The economy is still 2.2per cent bigger than a year earlier, 6.6 percent bigger than before the pandemic, and the growth rate this past year all up, of 2.4 per cent, was only just below the average since 1989 of 2.7per cent.”
Second, just because people are told there is woe around them does not mean that the economy shrank during the March quarter nearly-ended and that a recession is, in fact, underway, he says.
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