新西兰：选定问题

©2025International Monetary FundNEW ZEALANDSELECTED ISSUESApril 29,2025. NEW ZEALANDSELECTED ISSUESApproved ByAsia and PacificDepartmentPreparedbyMonica Petrescu, withcontributionsfrom DanZheng and guidance from Evan Papageorgiou.NEW ZEALAND’S PRODUCTIVITY CHALLENGE _____________________________________2A. Productivity Growth and Factors of Production ______________________________________2B. In Search of New Zealand’s Gazelles _________________________________________________7C. Financing Availability ______________________________________________________________11D. Constraints to Expansion, Innovation, and Competition ___________________________14E. Policy Implications _________________________________________________________________19FIGURES1. Young, High Growth Firms _________________________________________________________102. Equity and Debt Markets ___________________________________________________________123. Innovation and R&D _______________________________________________________________154. Competition________________________________________________________________________18References____________________________________________________________________________21CONTENTS 2INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUNDNEW ZEALAND’S PRODUCTIVITY CHALLENGE1Weak productivity growth poses a significant challenge for New Zealand’s long-term economicprospects. Low productivity growth partly reflects structural factors, including New Zealand’s remotegeography and small markets, as well as the relatively large role of the tourism and agriculture sectors.However, it also reflects costs and incentives for investment and innovation, which in turn are shapedby features of the business environment and limited financing options. The current juncture, with pricepressures normalizing and an incipient economic recovery underway, presents an opportunity for amulti-pronged reform agenda to address this productivity challenge. This Selected Issues paperexplores New Zealand’s productivity growth in a cross-country perspective, reflects on businessdynamism in New Zealand and its implications for productivity, and considers some of the factorsshaping the costs and incentives for investment and innovation towards a more productive economySection A evaluates trends in productivity growth in New Zealand and peer advanced economies inrecent decades, both on aggregate and at the sector level; it also considers drivers of productivitygrowth and the interplay of capital and labor inputs. Section B evaluates business dynamism in NewZealand relative to peers, with a focus on the experience of young, high-growth firms with thepotential to make meaningful contributions to productivity growth. Section C discusses the availabilityand range of financing options for New Zealand’s firms. Section D considers impediments to businessdynamism and productivity growth that emerge from regulatory frameworks, the pace of innovationand technological diffusion, and infrastructure gaps. Section E provides some policy recommendationsto address the obstacles to productivity growth identified in previous sections.A.Productivity Growth and Factors of Production1.This section examines trends in productivity growth in New Zealand and peeradvanced economies in recent decades.It considers the balance between labor and capital inputsand drivers of labor productivity growth. It also reflects upon changes in labor productivity andemployment across sectors, and to what extent New Zealand’s experience differs from that in otheradvanced economies. Topics explored align with and are intended to complement recent analysesfrom the New Zealand Treasury and Productivity Commission on these matters.22.Productivity growth in New Zealand has been lagging that in peer advancedeconomies (AEs). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many advanced economies, including NewZealand, experienced a prolonged productivity growth slowdown, reflecting a broader structuraltransformation in the global economy. This slowdown compounded pre-existing productivitygrowth challenges in New Zealand. Over the past five decades, labor productivity growth in NewZealand has lagged that in peer AEs, resulting in a widening gap between New Zealand’s GDP perhour worked and that in peers. As a result, by 2022, GDP per hour worked was well below levels incomparable economies. For example, while New Zealand’s GDP per hour worked was close to levels1Prepared by Monica Petrescu with contributions from Dan Zheng.2See particularlyThe productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections;Achieving NewZealand’s Productivity Potential; and New Zealand Productivity Commission Annual Reports, 2018-2023. INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUNDin Scandinavian peers (Denmark, Finland, Sweden) in 1970, it was on average 40 percent lower by2022.3.With slow labor productivity growth, New Zealand’s economic expansion has beensupported by rapid growth in labor inputs.Growth in total hours worked in New Zealand over thelas