Many eyebrows would have been raised at reading the result of a recent international survey called the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Gem). Out of 29 participating countries New Zealand ranked in the top five, ahead of even the United States. You would want to know more about that survey before opening the champagne. Each country surveys itself, using the same measures as the rest.
The New Zealand study, conducted by Unitec's centre for innovation and entrepreneurship, questioned 2000 people aged 18 to 64 and more closely interviewed a number of local entrepreneurs, educators, politicians and businesspeople, paying special attention to Maori entrepreneurship. We gave ourselves pretty high marks.
Not only were our scores in the top five, with Mexico, Australia, Brazil and South Korea, but we had the world's highest proportion of female entrepreneurs, especially in the younger (25 to 34) category. Yet we also had the world's highest proportion of senior entrepreneurs (aged 35 to 64). And Maori were every bit as enterprising as Pakeha. No group seems to be missing this bus.
Entrepreneurship - the ability to see and exploit an opportunity - has sometimes seemed the missing ingredient in our economic recipe. For most of New Zealand's history the major investment decisions have been made by the state, either directly, as in the foundation of Tasman Pulp and Paper, Air New Zealand and Telecom, or through import licensing and regulatory protection.
In 1984, the Treasury's calculations suggested the country's overall return on investment was below par and probably to blame for our declining wealth by comparison with countries with living standards we would like to share.