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.