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Monthly Archives: July 2016
SME business confidence & conditions up – NAB
The NAB’s June quarter survey of SME businesses (released today) shows both business conditions and confidence up in all states, although SA and WA (in particular) lag behind other states. Nationally, multiple measures of business conditions – particularly trading and profitability – were up, although employment conditions remain “lacklustre”. The business confidence index is up […]
SA green shoots but soft fundamentals – NAB
The NAB’s latest State Update for South Australia and State Economic Handbook (the latter covering all states) both indicate that some “green shoots” are emerging in SA, but SA’s economic fundamentals remain “soft” relative to other states. Both reports are available here. The green shoots include improvements in business conditions, business confidence, household income and […]
EU sanctions on Russia: Quo Vadis? – Hein Roelfsema
A few weeks ago, the EU extended its sanctions against Russia for another 6 months. However, some days before that move Russia had already extended its sanctions on the EU for one and a half years. So, this fight is turning out to be a battle of wills or, better, a War of Thrones. Currently, […]
The three ‘C’s for policies to improve national productivity – Dean Parham
The election showed the electorate is fractious and demanding. With narrow-interest parties now elected to parliament, policymaking in pursuit of the long-term national interest is going to be challenging, if not problematic. This comes at a time when the need for Australia to adjust to more-difficult times has become even more pressing.
In the background to […]
The Citizens Jury and the Proposed Nuclear Dump – Dick Blandy
“Citizens’ jury questions economics of nuke dump” is the headline to Rebecca Puddy’s article on page 2 of The Australian on Monday 11 July, 2016. Ms Puddy’s article begins: “The bid to establish a nuclear waste facility in South Australia has suffered a further setback, after an independent “citizens’ jury” raised concerns about the economic […]
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Voting again beats minority government – Paul Kerin
In an article in today’s Australian, I expand on the argument I made on the Adelaide Economic Policy Forum article last Monday (available here) that unless one party can form a majority Federal government, it would be in the public interest to go back to the polls. The key point is that a majority government […]
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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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Services the key to post-election growth – Christopher Findlay
As we move into the post-Federal-election period, there is continuing debate about where growth will come from and what voters thought of the pitches on this question made by the various parties. Data always helps these debates and here’s an example. This is a story about exports – and services exports in particular.
An article on […]
Federal election: should we vote again to save the economy? – Paul Kerin
In my January column in Company Director, titled “The election effect” (and available here), I pointed out that economic research shows that in the year leading up to an election, business investment is (on average) about 5% lower than it otherwise would be. As business investment accounts for about 15% of GDP, a typical election […]
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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 […]