Agency Theory Meets Social Capital: The Failure of the 1984-91 New Zealand Economic Revolution

Abstract

The failure of the New Zealand Economic Revolution of 1984-91 to generate improved economic performance is puzzling and important, since the reforms enacted then have often been cited as a 'textbook' example of how to liberalise an economy, and since the preconditions for success (such as good government, secure property rights and stable capitalist institutions) were all in place, in contrast to the economies of the former Soviet bloc. This paper first documents the extent of failure, and then attempts to explain it theoretically. This is the story: The reform program can be seen as a massive application (or mis-application) of Principal/Agent Theory. The Principal is the small group of economic revolutionaries. The Agents are the people of NZ. The Principal_s sole object is economic efficiency. The Agents enjoy the fruits of efficiency, but also emjoy other things ('slack'), which conflict with efficient behaviour. The Principal introduces policies (deregulation, liberalisation, commercialisation) which raise the opportunity cost of non- efficient behaviour in both private and public sectors. Unfortunately, the Principal has the 'wrong model' of how the economy functions. Slack does not just enter Agents' utility functions, it is also an input into production, where it appears as 'Forbearance' _ the flow variable associated with the stock concept known as Social Capital (the ability of agents to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes through trusting and trustworthy behaviour). Thus, the Reforms actually reduced economic efficiency, for two reasons (1) they forced noncooperative behaviour on agents, and (2) they incurred direct costs of monitoring and enforcement to bring agents' behaviour into line with the principal's objectives. And the total welfare costs exceed the loss of economic efficiency (GDP), since disproportionately more utility-enhancing slack, or forbearance is wiped out. The prediction of increased resources devoted to transaction cost activities, in particular management, is tested in a comparison of New Zealand and Australia (which did not go through such a radical reform process). The data do indeed show a substantial increase in the number of managers in NZ, relative to Australia.