This Month
Australia must choose the right metric to tax the digital economy
The three theories of value – activity, intellectual property, infrastructure – that the government could use to determine taxation must be closely examined.
January
Economics explains Donald Trump’s bid for Greenland
The United States has realised that leasing military access from Denmark is an incomplete contract fraught with intolerable transaction costs.
November 2025
Why the productivity payoff from AI at work is so poor
The technology is ready. The problem is our workplace relations framework requires prior permission to use artificial intelligence.
September 2025
Universities are not businesses and can’t be run like one
When non-profit organisations are managed as if they were for-profit firms, problems emerge. Economists have long warned of this.
August 2025
Why AI is an industrial relations challenge for business
Australia will miss the productivity gains from artificial intelligence unless we fix the laws that stop firms from reorganising how work gets done.
Six problems with having a company cash-flow tax
Corporate tax should be predictable, transparent and stable. The cash-flow tax, for all its theoretical elegance, offers none of these.
May 2025
Forget Trump and Harvard. Australian universities have an AI problem
Many students now lack the general knowledge, or even specific knowledge, to know when the AI tools are hallucinating.
April 2025
10 per cent tariffs are what Trump-style mercy looks like
Donald Trump thinks we’ve been subsidising our lifestyles at the expense of his constituents. He is not entirely wrong and doesn’t care that he is slightly wrong.
January 2025
Trump makes everyone a winner on bitcoin
The launch of $Trump is a clear signal that the president is serious about leaning into American exceptionalism and driving that innovation on cryptocurrencies.
August 2024
Sponsorship money doesn’t grow on trees and less popular sports will lose out
As we saw when tobacco advertising was banned, elite sports had little difficulty is attracting new sponsors, but non-elite ones will struggle.
July 2024
There is a respectable economic argument for nationalised nuclear
The bottom line is that there are sound public choice arguments for the government to build and own nuclear power plants.
January 2024
How government became its own drag on productivity
If Anthony Albanese wants to do something about the cost of living, he could start by looking inside his own house first.
April 2023
The RBA review had surprising omissions
A report that recommended profound changes lacked any evidence to show it was not a set of solutions in search of a problem.
February 2023
In defence of Philip Lowe and the RBA
The populist pile-on against Philip Lowe should really be directed at Canberra. We are now paying the inflation and interest rate price of the borrowing and spending through the pandemic.
September 2022
Despite the ‘crypto winter’, the technology is here to stay
Australia needs to look beyond the low token prices and hold a serious inquiry into the global opportunities presented by blockchain and web3.
May 2021
Another bitcoin bear market, but blockchain business here to stay
Elon Musk’s tweets are good theatre, but the main game remains the technology that allows new business models to industrialise trust.
January 2021
The ABC no longer has a purpose, except pleasing itself
The national broadcaster is an icon. But it would work so much better if it were in different hands. The ABC should be privatised.
May 2020
Why JobKeeper cannot be for keeps
The wage subsidy is a temporary solution for a temporary health problem. It has no part to play in getting back our lost prosperity.
March 2020
In this peril, remember Australia's success secret
Do not toss out the globalisaton, comparative advantage and liberal government that made this nation strong enough for tests like this one.
