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.
This is a recession – we’re just not calling it one
Economic Policies, Publications, The Australian Economy | 9th September 2021Op-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 2021Jessica 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 2021A 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 2021The 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 2021Virtual 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 2021A 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 […]
Bursting the Housing Bubble
Australian Society and Politics, Economic Policies, Housing, The Australian Economy | 3rd August 2021Podcast of a discussion with Janet Ge, Associate Professor in the School of Built Environment at University of Technology, Sydney and Matt Grudnoff of the Australia Institute, a think tank, hosted by Toby Hemmings of Think: Business Futures, focussing on the consequences of and reasons for the continued escalation of Australian residential property prices.
The Economics of Immigration
Australian Society and Politics, News, The Australian Economy | 3rd August 2021Talk to the Sydney Institute, 3rd August 2021. The margin by which Australia’s economic growth rate has exceeded the average for all ‘advanced’ economies over the past two decades is almost entirely attributable to Australia’s immigration program. But that’s not the criterion against which it should be judged. Australia’s immigration program has made a small […]