[scottLobster]

Pretty disingenuous comparison. You leave out:

Exposure to cross-border travel:

Louisiana: Home to one of the largest commercial shipping ports in the world, serving as an import/export hub for the largest national economy in the world. Has extensive land borders with said nation and large amounts of interstate travel daily.

New Zealand: Has a small export market largely focused on agriculture and a small tourism market. Is an island nation over 1300 miles away from the nearest other significant economy. All movement in/out of the nation has to go through tightly controlled ports or airports.

[renewiltord]

I don't understand why HN users always jump into these things like it's a cage fight. The right way for you to respond is to help us collectively arrive at truth (which your qualitative statement aids mildly in) and leave out all the parts that claim bad faith from your fellow users. Jesus Christ, I even included density which points the opposite way. Now because I don't have a preconceived notion of which direction I want the results to show why NZ is performing better, I can conclude that the result is either:

* The factors described are washed out by the other factors

* These factors don't have a significant impact

* It isn't any of these that determines difference in outcome between NZ and others but action taken

No wonder you guys hate social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram if you run around calling everyone insincere at the first sign of the mildest degree of disagreement.

[bogomipz]

I don't know if I would call New Zealand's tourism market small. Small compared to New York or London maybe but relative to the size of the country, it's GDP and population? 3.8 million people visited New Zealand in 2019[1]. The population of New Zealand is only 4.8 million.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_New_Zealand