New Zealand

New Zealand: strong, sustained growth, 1980–2025

A small, isolated, agriculture-export-driven economy (dairy in particular), New Zealand undertook sweeping free-market reforms in the 1980s ('Rogernomics') that reshaped it into one of the world's most open economies. Between 1980 and 2025, New Zealand's GDP per capita grew from $7,467 to $49,591 (current US$), a compound annual growth rate of 4.3% — strong, sustained growth. Annual GDP growth averaged 2.5% with a year-to-year standard deviation of 1.9 points, reflecting relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Structurally, agriculture's share of the economy moved from 10.0% to 4.0% of GDP (a classic decline as the economy industrialized/modernized), while services rose from 54.3% to 68.2% of GDP, underscoring a shift toward a services-driven economy. On human development, life expectancy rose from 72.8 to 82.0 years, while tertiary school enrollment moved from 80.4% to 77.2%, while the urban population share grew from 83.4% to 84.0%.

What this growth cost: Growth was not without cost: per-capita CO2 emissions rose from 5.92 to 6.01 tonnes CO2e per person.