Economic Policies
The Nobel Prize winning economist James Tobin once said that the study of economics “offered the hope, as it still does, that improved understanding could better the lot of mankind”. One of the ways in which it does this is through the implementation of economic policy that helps to ameliorate boom-and-bust cycles, reduces unemployment, contains inflation or lifts people’s living standards in sustainable ways.
What should be – and what will be – in the 2018-19 Australian federal budget?
Economic Policies | 3rd May 2018Talk to a ‘Policy in the Bar’ event hosted by the Australian National University’s College of Business and Law, Canberra, 3rd May 2018
Economist Saul Eslake looks ahead to the budget
Economic Policies, News | 26th April 2018Kumi Taguchi | ABC-TV’s 7:30 | 26th April 2018 Saul discusses the Government’s decision to dump its proposed increase in the Medicare Levy (to fund additional spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme) and provide for income tax cuts in the forthcoming 2018-19 federal Budget With the Government announcing its plan to scrap a proposed […]
Submission to the Productivity Commission’s Review of Horizontal Fiscal Equalization
Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies | 10th November 2017The Productivity Commission (PC) is conducting a review of the way in which the revenue from Australia’s goods and services tax (GST) is shared among Australia’s States and Territories, with a view to evening out their capacity to provide a similar range and standard of public services to their citizens, having regard both to differences […]
Local Government in the Macro-Economic Picture
Economic Policies | 11th September 2017Presentation to the Local Government New South Wales Finance Summit in Sydney on 11th September 2017, focussing on the role and financing of infrastructure investment
Inequality, Inefficiency and Australia’s System of ‘Horizontal Fiscal Equalization’
Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies | 29th August 2017Keynote address to a Workshop on Federal Relations and Tax Reform hosted by the University of Adelaide’s School of Economics, in Adelaide on 29th August.
The 2017-18 Budget
Economic Policies, The Australian Economy | 11th May 2017Presentation to a post-Budget breakfast hosted by accounting firm Moore Stephens in Melbourne on 11th May 2017
Fixing Australia’s budget deficit – analysis of Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison’s “Bloomberg Address”
Economic Policies, Publications | 25th August 2016Saul Eslake | The Conversation | 25th August 2016 Scott Morrison has correctly diagnosed the problem, but needs to be flexible about solutions Federal treasurer Scott Morrison’s diagnosis of the risks and challenges confronting the Australian economy, as set out in his Bloomberg Address in Sydney, is hard to fault.Australia has become very dependent on continued […]
The Australian resources boom and its aftermath – Review of ‘Balancing Act’ by George Megalogenis
Economic Policies, Publications, The Australian Economy | 15th June 2016Saul Eslake | Quarterly Essay | Issue No 16 2016 In reply to George Megalogenis’s Quarterly Essay, Balancing Act: Australia Between Recession and Renewal. George Megalogenis writes about today’s economy with a grasp of the broad sweep of Australian history and an awareness of the social consequences of economic performance and policy – attributes which have been […]