On April 28, 2016, during the "Social Progress-What Works?" event in Reykjavik, Chief Economist and Deputy Secretary, Macroeconomic, International & Economic Research, New Zealand Treasury, Girol Karacaoglu presented the factors that help his country exceed expectations on the Social Progress Index. Watch the video of his presentation here: https://youtu.be/cJra6o46VBo?t=3h15m.

1. WelcomeRaising living
standards for all
New Zealanders
NZ Treasury’s
Living Standards Framework

2. Purpose of Public Policy
To help people live the kinds of lives they have
reason to value …
… by increasing their opportunities and
capabilities, and incentives, to contribute to
economic and social life, and benefit from their
contributions.

3. Potential Economic
Growth
Equity
Social Cohesion Sustainability
Resilience
Intergenerational Wellbeing
Human CapitalNatural Capital
Economic CapitalSocial Capital

4. NZ Social Wellbeing Domains
• Health
• Knowledge and Skills
• Paid Work
• Economic Standard of Living
• Civil and Political Rights
• Cultural Identity
• Leisure and Recreation
• Safety
• Social Connectedness
• Life Satisfaction

5. Key Success Factors - History
• Immigrants brought institutional knowledge and broader
human capital
• They then attracted direct investment
• Initial high income then enabled us to build even
stronger institutions
• The initial high performance of our institutions meant
that we gained a social norm of high performance
• Our initial ethnic mix came from countries that valued
high performing social institutions
• Reasonable homogeneous (bi-cultural) society with
increasing emphasis on social cohesion

6. Key Lessons
• Starting point – history is critical
• Institutions are critical
• Culture is critical
• Values are critical
• Adaptability is critical

7. Key Challenges
• From bi-cultural to multi-cultural society
• “Wicked problems” all require cross-
Agency collaboration and delivery
• Current institutional settings need to be
changed to meet this challenge

8. Key Opportunities + Current Policy Focus
• Data
• Analytics
• Social investment approach