SAUL ESLAKE

Economist

SAUL ESLAKE

‘Welcome to my website …
I’m an independent economist, speaker, company director
and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Tasmania’

The Australian Economy


Australia hasn’t had a recession – in the widely used sense of two or more consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth – since 1991. Since then, Australia’s ranking among nations in terms of per capita GDP has risen from 22nd to, in the last four years, either 12th or 13th, behind only the United States, Norway, Switzerland and a number of other smaller states which are predominantly either oil producers or financial centres. Australia’s economic performance reflects a combination of luck and management – the relative importance and quality of which have varied significantly from time to time. Monitoring the performance of and analysing the prospects for the Australian economy has been the major part of my ‘day job’ since I completed my university degree in 1979.

Housing Grants: more harm than good

Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies, Housing, News, Recent Media Interview, The Australian Economy | 15th September 2021

Saul talks to Tasmania Talks’ Mike O’loughlin on 14th September, 2021 about housing affordability crisis 


Housing affordability crisis with Brooke Corte

Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies, Housing, News, Recent Media Interview, The Australian Economy | 14th September 2021

Saul talks to 2GB‘s Money News‘ Brooke Corte about housing affordabilty crisis


This is a recession – we’re just not calling it one

Economic Policies, Publications, The Australian Economy | 9th September 2021

Op-ed published in the Australian Financial Review of 9th August 2021 –  arguing (1) that we are in a recession now, irrespective of whether we have two consecutive quarterly contractions in real GDP, and (2) that although it shares some of the ‘responsibility’ for this second recession, the federal government’s fiscal policy response to it […]


Spoiler alert: we’re in a recession, even if it’s not ‘official’

Publications, The Australian Economy | 31st August 2021

Jessica Irvine, senior economics columnist with the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age newspapers, discusses Saul’s views on the meaning of the term ‘recession’ and whether Australia is once again in one now


Is Australia having a Second Recession?

Australian Society and Politics, News, Publications, The Australian Economy | 16th August 2021

A recession is commonly defined as two or more quarters of negative growth in real GDP. But that’s a silly rule – and it isn’t used in the US, where the body which officially delineates recessions last month said that the 2020 recession lasted just two months. If the bushfires of late 2019 and early […]


Reflections on the 2021 Intergenerational Report

Economic Policies, Taxation, The Australian Economy | 15th August 2021

The 2021 IGR, released some six weeks ago, suggests that Australia will be running budget deficits for the next 40 years. But that’s only because of the quite arbitrary assumption that tax collections will remain ‘capped’ at 23.9% of GDP, forever more. There’s no reason why that should be the case.


The Economics of International Mobility

Australian Society and Politics, Economic Video, The Arts, The Australian Economy | 12th August 2021

Virtual presentation to the Australian Performing Arts Market ‘Gathering’ on 12th August 2021, looking at trends in (and consequences) of international mobility of goods and services, capital and people, both pre- and post-Covid, and the consequences of Covid for the performing arts. Scroll down to view the recording.


The effective rate of unemployment

Labour Market, The Australian Economy | 11th August 2021

A submission to the Senate Select Committee on Job Security, examining the difference between the unemployment rate as published (in accordance with long-standing international statistical conventions) by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and alternative measures which take account of some of the ways in which Covid-19 (and the restrictions imposed in response to it) have […]


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Saul Eslake online presentation


“You are the best economic thinker in the country hands down”

Sheryle Bagwell, recently retired Senior Business Correspondent (and sometime Executive Producer),
ABC Radio National Breakfast


“Just want to congratulate you Saul on the unbelievably good set of slides you just presented, possibly the best I have ever seen. You have set the bar very high.”

Dr Joe Flood, Adjunct Fellow, RMIT University, Pandemicia


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Andrew Trembath, economist, Victorian and Australian Government agencies


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WHAT'S NEW

Most Recent Articles, Talks and Presentations


The next four years will be difficult for Tasmania
News, Tasmania
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Some initial reflections on the outcome of the 2024 Tasmanian State election
Australian Society and Politics, Tasmania
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Tasmania’s fiscal position
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Tasmania
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The massive $50bn GST revenue distribution blow out (with Gary Adshead)
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Tasmania’s senior secondary education reform
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Distribution of GST Revenue: the Worst Public Policy Decision of the 21st Century to date.
Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies, The Australian Economy
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Insights on Asian Elections 2024 mentioned in The Economist
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Alternatives to interest rates
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Reflections on ‘Australia Day’
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VIDEO

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TESTIMONIALS

What Others Say


“You are one of the best at what you do in the world”
Gail Fosler, Chief Economist, The Conference Board, New York, December 2002

“I have never known an economist to have such a knowledge of world economic facts and to be able to bring to bear so much information in answering a question without notice”
Charles Goode, Chairman, ANZ Bank, July 2009

“Saul Eslake is … a highly regarded independent economist with the highest degree of integrity"
John Durie, Columnist, The Australian, July 2009

“… one of the few people in this world who can have so many oranges up in the air at the same time but still manage to catch them"
Andrew Clark, journalist, Australian Financial Review, November 2008

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