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Category: Economic reform
Electricity and the perils of second-best thinking – Paul Kerin
In an article in Wednesday’s Australian, Paul Kerin argues that our governments should focus on “first-best” environmental and energy policies to best serve the overall public interest. He warns that the negative consequences of second-best policy choices (such as the large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) and the maximum price cap (MPC) on wholesale electricity) are […]
Benefits of free trade and better FTA governance – Paul Kerin on Alan Jones
Paul Kerin appeared on Alan Jones’ radio program yesterday making the case for free trade and the need to improve governance arrangements that would help ensure that future Free Trade Agreements deliver more of the considerable benefits that are potentially available. This follows on from the article that 7 leading economists (including former Industries Assistance […]
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Showing the benefits of Europe – Hein Roelfsema
There is an atmosphere of cautious waiting in the Brussels air. Major elections to come in France, Germany, as well as here in the Netherlands. But already some very worrying first drops start to come down. A very undecided ‘State of the Union’ speech by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker succeeded in the goal of […]
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Apple tax decision European Commission implied powers – Hein Roelfsema
Although last week’s taxation decision by the European Commission (EC) was widely anticipated, the €13bn size of the Apple ruling last week caused a shockwave within the European Union (EU) as well as between the EU and the US. As a university professor at the start of the academic year, the Apple case provides for […]
Call for key reforms in trade negotiations
I was honoured to be one of the economists who put their names to a major feature in today’s Australian, titled “Free trade mythology”. Despite the title, we are very much pro free trade – but we call for a number of reforms to our trade negotiation and communication governance processes and a renewed emphasis on […]
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Governance arrangements and trade negotiations – Bill Carmichael
Bill Carmichael, the legendary former Chairman of the Industries Assistance Commission, was a very influential figure behind major economic reforms that have delivered substantial benefits to Australia. We are delighted that Bill has submitted an important paper titled Governance arrangements for future trade negotiations to the Adelaide Economic Policy Forum. Bill’s paper is about the […]
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Brexit: another economics crisis? – Andreas Cebulla
Outside the monetarist and free-marketeer camps, few UK economists advocated Brexit (the few notable exceptions included Cardiff University’s Patrick Minford). In fact, the UK’s most prominent independent economic research centres – the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Centre for Economic Performance – went as far as […]
Fixing Australia’s Infrastructure Problem – Garry Bowditch
Garry Bowditch, Executive Director of the University of Sydney’s Better Infrastructure Initiative, makes the case for reforming our approach to infrastructure investment… All too often I attend infrastructure forums where policymakers and industry leaders call for the urgent need to fix the infrastructure deficit, by building more assets and deliver more projects. This point of […]
Brexit: Its not over! – Hein Roelfsema
Hein Roelfsema, a recent visitor to the University of Adelaide and Associate Professor of International Macroeconomics at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, has a unique perspective on the implications of Brexit… There is no doubt about the significance of the impact of the UK’s choice to exit the EU on its economy. The market’s assessment […]
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Beef with knock-back of Kidman sale: a lost foreign direct investment opportunity – Christopher Findlay & Paul Kerin
In their article in The Weekend Australian, Christopher Findlay and Paul Kerin argue that the Federal Treasurer’s rejection of the sale of the S. Kidman & Co. cattle stations to a consortium 80% backed by private Chinese businesses has not been in Australia’s public interest. As well as forgoing the usual benefits that foreign direct […]