Business Editor-at-Large Liam Dann explains the Reserve Bank's decision to fight inflation by raising the Official Cash Rate.
Video / Cameron Pitney / Mark Mitchell
What's going to happen with interest rates?
How worried should we be about the economy?
I don't know if these are the two biggest questions in economics, but they are the two I'm asked most often.
The first is specific and goes straight to the heart of the financial system.
The second question seems bigger, its existential and philosophical.
The Reserve Bank currently forecasts the official cash rate to peak at 3.9 per cent in June 2023, which implies one-year and two-year fixed mortgage rates will hit about 6 per cent over the next year.
But this is a base-case scenario.
When I look at scenarios and consider which way things have been skewing of late - I'm inclined to expect more downside.
Seven per cent would be extremely tough on people who have bought homes in the past five years.
Research released by Canstar last week showed the average mortgage interest rate was 3.3 per cent at the end of 2021. Now it's 4.23 per cent.
For those with mortgages in excess of $800,000 (80 per cent of the median house price) - that translates to extra payments of about $1000 more per month.
At rates of around 6 per cent, these new homeowners will face increased monthly payments of almost $1750.
That's something to ponder that next time we're feeling grumpy about the price of cheese.
If I am it will hopefully mean that inflation has started to subside sooner than I assumed.
Although it might mean that the economy has slowed faster than expected, limiting the RBNZ's capacity to hike rates.
That would be a worry.
Which brings us to my other big question. How worried should we be?
I usually answer that with: How worried do you want to be?
It's a lighthearted response but not dismissive of the question.
I just think it's important to acknowledge that for most of us there is some choice around how much we worry.
There are people who really need to worry about things.
Highly leveraged property developers spring to mind.
Or, sadly, people so close to the breadline that inflation and rising rents could make them homeless.
But I'm generally being asked by middle-aged, middle-class people with their mortgages and finances under control.
Of course, a good conversation about economics is usually grim.
In the 19th century, economics was dubbed the dismal science by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle in response to the gloomy predictions of population collapse made by his contemporary Thomas Malthus.
Carlyle also described economics as "dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite abject and distressing".
It says something about human nature that it is such a popular topic.
Its got enough gravitas that it is never frivolous but it's also abstract enough to distract us from more pressing and emotional personal concerns.
Only twice in my professional career have I felt genuinely sick with worry about the economy - September 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed and in March 2020 as the world went into its first lockdown.
In both cases, it was fear of the unknown. In both cases, the economy has muddled its way back to stability.
Last week the World Bank and OECD put out reports which definitely met Carlyle's definition of economics.
They both made big downgrades to global GDP growth and highlighted risks of extended inflation.
But they also looked through this cycle with a heartening lack of emotion.
The OECD said New Zealand's growth outlook "remains solid".
And the World Bank confronted this year's iteration of the "how worried" question.
Are we still in control of the post-Covid rebalancing? Or are we sliding back to a more serious, structurally broken era of the 1970s and 1980s?
The report acknowledged that the current environment resembled the 1970s.
We've had supply shocks and elevated global inflation.
They were preceded by a protracted period of highly accommodative monetary policy and fiscal expansion, it said.
There's been no shortage of economic worries this year. Photo / AP
And we now have prospects for weakening growth over the longer term.
But there are some big differences on our side, it concluded.
We really yet haven't had anything like the supply shock of the 1970s.
Oil prices quadrupled in 1973-1974 and doubled in 1979-1980.
Currently, they are up about 50-60 per cent on where they were prior to the invasion of Ukraine.
But in inflation-adjusted terms, oil prices are only two-thirds of what they were in 1980.
The World Bank noted that the balance sheets of major financial institutions were a risk in the 1970s while today "they are generally strong".
"Economies across the world are also more flexible than they were in the 1970s, with fewer structural rigidities involving wages and labour markets," it said
"Importantly, policymakers are in a better position today to stave off stagflationary headwinds."
Monetary policy frameworks were more credible - with clear price stability mandates for central banks.
Long-term inflation expectations were better anchored.
We also had technology on our side, it argued.
"Existing technology and capital have the capacity to provide massive increases in supply, holding down price expectations."
In other words, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that we'll get through this cycle in good shape to start worrying about the next one.
