scholarly journals Panic Buying and Consumption Displacement during COVID-19: Evidence from New Zealand

Economies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
C. Michael Hall ◽  
Peter Fieger ◽  
Girish Prayag ◽  
David Dyason
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
Retail Sector ◽  
Purchasing Behavior ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Response Strategies ◽  
Hoarding Behavior ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Black Friday ◽  
Transactional Data

Panic buying and hoarding behavior is a significant component of crisis- and disaster-related consumption displacement that has received considerable attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding such purchasing and stockpiling behavior provides critical information for government, disaster managers and the retail sector, as well as policy makers to adjust crisis response strategies and to better understand disaster management, including preparedness and response strategies. This study examines consumer purchasing behavior, retail spending and transactional data for different retail sectors between January 2017 and December 2020 using data for the greater Christchurch region in New Zealand. Once COVID-19-related panic buying began, overall spending increased sharply in anticipation of lockdowns. Transactional spending increased and subsided only slowly to a level higher than pre lockdown. The magnitude of the panic buying event far exceeded historical seasonal patterns of consumer spending outside of Christmas, Easter and Black Friday, although daily spending levels were comparable to such consumption events. The results of the study highlight the importance of comparing panic buying to other events in terms of purchasing motivations and also considering that so-called panic buying may contribute to greater individual and household resilience. The volume of sales alone is not adequate to define panic buying. Instead, the extent of divergence from the normal daily spending value per retail transaction of a given population provides a much more accurate characteristic of panic buying.

scholarly journals Small firms and the COVID-19 insolvency gap

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Oliver Dörr ◽  
Georg Licht ◽  
Simona Murmann
Keyword(s):  
Financial Distress ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
English Summary ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Large Wave ◽  
Using Data

AbstractCOVID-19 placed a special role on fiscal policy in rescuing companies short of liquidity from insolvency. In the first months of the crisis, SMEs as the backbone of Germany’s economy benefited from large and mainly indiscriminate aid measures. Avoiding business failures in a whatever-it-takes fashion contrasts, however, with the cleansing mechanism of economic crises: a mechanism which forces unviable firms out of the market, thereby reallocating resources efficiently. By focusing on firms’ pre-crisis financial standing, we estimate the extent to which the policy response induced an insolvency gap and analyze whether the gap is characterized by firms which were already struggling before the pandemic. With the policy measures being focused on smaller firms, we also examine whether this insolvency gap differs with respect to firm size. Our results show that the COVID-19 policy response in Germany has triggered a backlog of insolvencies that is particularly pronounced among financially weak, small firms, having potential long-term implications on entrepreneurship and economic recovery.Plain English Summary This study analyzes the extent to which the strong policy support to companies in the early phase of the COVID-19 crisis has prevented a large wave of corporate insolvencies. Using data of about 1.5 million German companies, it is shown that it was mainly smaller firms that experienced strong financial distress and would have gone bankrupt without policy assistance. In times of crises, insolvencies usually allow for a reallocation of employees and capital to more efficient firms. However, the analysis reveals that this ‘cleansing effect’ is hampered in the current crisis as the largely indiscriminate granting of liquidity subsidies and the temporary suspension of the duty to file for insolvency have caused an insolvency gap that is driven by firms which were already in a weak financial position before the crisis. Overall, the insolvency gap is estimated to affect around 25,000 companies, a substantial number compared to the around 16,300 actual insolvencies in 2020. In the ongoing crisis, policy makers should prefer instruments favoring entrepreneurs who respond innovatively to the pandemic instead of prolonging the survival of near-insolvent firms.

The battle over employers’ demand for “more flexibility”

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 886-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erling Rasmussen ◽  
Barry Foster ◽  
Deirdre Farr
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Survey Design ◽  
Postal Questionnaire ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Employer Attitudes ◽  
Legislative Changes ◽  
Employment Legislation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to place empirical research on New Zealand employers’ attitudes to collective bargaining and legislative change within the context of the long running debate of flexibility. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional survey design using a self-administered postal questionnaire, covering private sector employers with ten or more staff and including employers within all 17 standard industry classification. To explore particular issues, an additional in-depth interviews were conducted of 25 employers participating in the survey. Findings It is found that employers support overwhelmingly recent legislative changes though there are variations across industries and firm sizes. There is also considerable variation in terms of which legislative changes are applied in the workplace. Despite fewer constraints on employer-determined flexibility, there was a rather puzzling finding that most employers still think that employment legislation is even balanced or favouring employees. Originality/value Cross-sectional survey findings of New Zealand employer attitudes to legislative changes are few and provide valuable data for policy makers, unions, employers and employment relations researchers. The paper also contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of pressures to increase employer-determined flexibility in many western countries.

scholarly journals Coping with emotion in New Zealand Business schools

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alice Scahill
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Business Schools ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Systemic Factors ◽  
Emotional Demands ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Using Data

<p>Emotion is an integral aspect of organisational life and this thesis examines the emotional demands that academics experience in their workplace and the consequences this has for them. At a more specific level, the thesis examines the strategies that academics use to cope with these emotional demands, and how these strategies develop and change over the duration of their career. Using data collected from interviews with academics from business schools across the New Zealand tertiary education sector, findings are presented which demonstrate how academics develop coping strategies and how the organisation provides support. The implications from these findings could have significant effects for organisational practice. Firstly, these findings illustrate that academics experiences emotion in relation to personal, interpersonal, and systemic factors. Secondly, academics adopt a wide array of coping strategies, which have been personally developed by each individual over time. They are not given any organisational training or support for their development of these strategies. In addition, academics use coping strategies both in the workplace and at home in order to attempt to mitigate the negative impacts of the emotional demands of their roles. Finally, academics in their early career lack adequate coping strategies, and appear to have the lowest levels of organisational commitment.</p>

scholarly journals The Costs and Benefits of Covid-19 Lockdowns in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lally
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Vaccination Campaign ◽  
Quality Adjusted Life Year ◽  
Mitigation Strategy ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Quality Adjusted Life Years ◽  
Life Years ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Quality Adjusted Life

This paper considers the costs and benefits of New Zealand's Covid-19 nation-wide lockdown strategy relative to pursuit of a mitigation strategy in March 2020. Using data available up to 28 June 2021, the estimated additional deaths from a mitigation strategy are 1,750 to 4,600, implying a Cost per Quality Adjusted Life Year saved by locking down in March 2020 of at least 13 times the generally employed threshold figure of $62,000 for health interventions in New Zealand; the lockdowns do not then seem to have been justified by reference to the standard benchmark. Using only data available to the New Zealand government in March 2020, the ratio is similar and therefore the same conclusion holds that the nation-wide lockdown strategy was not warranted. Looking forwards from 28 June 2021, if a new outbreak occurs that cannot be suppressed without a nation-wide lockdown, the death toll from adopting a mitigation strategy at this point would be even less than had it done so in March 2020, due to the vaccination campaign and because the period over which the virus would then inflict casualties would now be much less than the period from March 2020; this would favour a mitigation policy even more strongly than in March 2020. This approach of assessing the savings in quality adjusted life years and comparing them to a standard benchmark figure ensures that all quality adjusted life years saved by various health interventions are treated equally, which accords with the ethical principle of equity across people.

scholarly journals Adoption of Natural Gas Vehicles – Estimates for the U.S. and the State of Texas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen (Sarah) Xu ◽  
Liang-Chieh (Victor) Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Diffusion Models ◽  
The State ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Fuel Taxes ◽  
Natural Gas Vehicles ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The U.S

Natural gas vehicles (NGV) have attracted more and more attention from policy makers since natural gas is a clean substitute for traditional fossil fuel that is also readily accessible. In some areas such as the state of Texas, vehicles that do not use traditional fossil fuel (e.g., NGVs) are exempt from paying fuel taxes. Government financial incentives have motivated substantial adoption of NGVs. This paper studies NGV adoption behavior in both U.S. and Texas markets to estimate the dynamics of NGV diffusion. This research employs well-known Bass diffusion models applied to NGV adoption, using data from both the U.S. and Texas. Among several interesting results, we find that NGV adoption through an imitation effect appears to be significant for the U.S. NGV market.

scholarly journals Should New Zealand Shirk Its Obligations? A Critical Perspective on Private Law Scholarship

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 429
Author(s):  
Bevan Marten ◽  
Geoff McLay
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Compensation Scheme ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Party Autonomy ◽  
Accident Compensation

This article concerns the role of the private law scholar in New Zealand, and how such scholars use their skills to improve the law. It argues that while an obligations scholar's preference may be to engage with the courts and other academics in their scholarly activities, a focus on statutory reform better suits New Zealand conditions. Scholars should share their talents with policy makers, law reform bodies and legislators, helping to explain the importance of a coherent system of private law, and how this may be achieved. The authors then go a step further by suggesting that, in the New Zealand context, the preferable approach to reform may be one involving policy-based solutions exemplified by the accident compensation scheme, as opposed to approaches based on traditional private law principles such as party autonomy.

scholarly journals Attenuation of peak ground accelerations in some recent New Zealand earthquakes

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Dowrick ◽  
S. Sritharan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Strong Motion ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Fault Rupture ◽  
Motion Data ◽  
Peak Ground Accelerations ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Event Based

The attenuation of peak ground accelerations was studied for eight New Zealand earthquakes which occurred in the period 1987 to 1991. These events were of medium size with moment magnitudes in the range Mw = 5.8 - 6.7, with depth to centroids of the fault rupture ranging from 4 to 60 km. Attenuation of peak ground accelerations was examined for each event, based on the slope distance from the rupture surface to each strong motion data site. The mean regression attenuation curve for each event was compared with those derived by others using data sets from other parts of the world, allowance being made for source mechanism and depth. Excepting the 1988 Te Anau event, the other seven New Zealand events as a set closely match a Japanese model, but give significantly stronger accelerations than those predicted by the models from western USA and Europe.

scholarly journals "Settling Some Very Important Principles of Colonial Law": Three "Forgotten" Cases of the 1840's

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Hickford
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Chief Justice ◽  
Local Ordinances ◽  
Colonial Government

This article reintroduces the "forgotten" cases of R v Taylor, Attorney-General v Whitaker and Scott v Grace and considers their specific historical contexts. They raise controversial questions about the extent of the New Zealand governor's ability to grant lands outside of the provisions of local ordinances and imperial statutes by using the prerogative. The article notes the flow-on effects of the policy lacuna created by these judgments. The judgments of Justice Chapman and Chief Justice Martin caused considerable unease on the part of the colonial government and policy-makers in London as well as some New Zealand Company operatives. This in turn led to the subsequent legislative and policy efforts to qualify the reach of prerogative powers in colonies. The text of the cases is appended to this article.

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