A beginner’s guide to competition

Australian consumers tend to suffer higher prices because many of the most important markets are oligopolies, rather than competitive, but what do these economic terms mean?

New challenges and old responses in economics

Redefining economics as “multidimensional management of resources in a democratic society” would encourage new conceptual frameworks and languages to better respond to current environmental and political challenges the current system seems unable to solve, or even confront.

The moral market

The age-old political debate between market forces and central planning is as pertinent as ever, but the ability of markets to aggregate information and satisfy consumer needs can be harnessed in the cause of fairness and equality.

Remembering Geoff Harcourt

Australian economics has lost one of its most internationally renowned and prolific scholars with the passing of Geoffrey Harcourt at the age of 90.

Economics in the real world

The Nobel committee’s decision to award its economics prize for 2021 to David Card, Josh Angrist and Guido Imbens marks the culmination of a revolution in the way economists approach the world that began more than 30 years ago.

8 adventures in “coronomics”

If the 1991 recession is the ‘recession we had to have’ then 2020 is the business slowdown we had to engineer to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, but what will be some of its economic ramifications in Australia and the rest of the world?

Why this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics matters

This year’s trio of winners – Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer received the Nobel Prize for “their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty” but their recognition is important in other ways too.

The perpetual denial of Canberra’s policy trials

The most concerning aspect of Australia’s economic debate at present, with a Federal election promised for May 2019, is the rapidly widening gap between political narratives and the lived experience of voters.

Seven ways to think like a 21st century economist

Economics will matter just as much in the future as it has in the past, but its fundamental ideas are centuries out of date. Kate Raworth argues for a radical transformation in thinking to create a more sustainable and equitable society.

Will Australia choose growth or stagnation?

News that the United States grew by 2.6% in the last quarter of 2017 produced commentary which reflects two vastly different visions and outlooks for modern, Western economies.