With major employers heading offshore and employment numbers decimated, what will emerge from the ashes of Australia’s manufacturing industry? And what role should manufacturing play in the federal government’s…
With the failure of international agreements to fight climate change, the way is open to viewing the role of renewables as more than agents for reducing carbon emissions. Indeed is it possible for countries…
As part of its budget cuts, the federal government plans to disband the Water Accounting Standards Board, which looks after water accounting. But is this leaving business high and dry? Water accounting…
This year’s news on Australia’s global innovation ranking could be a lot worse, and probably will be in the future if the Federal Government gets its way with proposed budget cuts to our already inadequate…
As Australian prime minister Tony Abbott arrives in Canada to talk investment and trade, both countries are facing similar challenges to their respective manufacturing bases, particularly in the automotive…
As Australia laments the decline of its manufacturing sector, China is actively taking steps to accelerate its move up the value chain. Historically a low-cost operating environment, China was once an…
If China is the world’s factory, then one of its core production lines is playing up. Last month, mass protests kicked off in the southern manufacturing city of Dongguan. Some 40,000 workers went on strike…
Australian innovation has stagnated in the past 50 years, and could be reinvigorated by focusing on key areas, according to Donald Hector, President of the Royal Society of New South Wales in an interview…
Peter Doherty: Thinking in terms of Australia’s future, how important is it for us to expand activity in the innovation/high technology sector? Donald Hector: It’s critically important. If you look at…
In the lead up to the budget, the story of crisis has been hammered home, but there’s more to a country than its structural deficit. So how is Australia doing overall? In this special series, ten writers…
A year has now passed since an 8-storey building in Dhaka known as Rana Plaza collapsed killing 1,134 workers in just an hour. Much of the commentary since has focused on the need for Western brands to…
One year ago on the 24th of April 2013, the horrific Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh claimed at least 1,129 lives and galvanised industry and government into action. Worldwide condemnation for lax safety…
When Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill mine proposal secured the multi-billion dollar financing deal needed to proceed last week, questions were asked about the US$694.4 million coming from the US Export-Import…
Building serious infrastructure – such as energy supply, energy distribution, road and rail – is a big undertaking. It takes a long time to build, but an even longer time to plan and to generate enough…
The current vogue for heralding the recovery of the British manufacturing should not lead us to complacency about the very real difficulties currently faced by the sector. George Osborne’s budget offered…
The UK’s workforce is getting older and older, and manufacturing will be particularly hard hit. However, wiser firms will make the most of the opportunities this opens up – older workers have the skills…
John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science; Anna Valero, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Joao Paulo Pessoa, London School of Economics and Political Science
The latest data from the ONS show that the UK’s productivity gap with other G7 nations is at its widest since 1992. This bad news comes against the backdrop of increased optimism as the economy seems finally…
The debate about the future of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) has largely focused on the issue of immediate costs to business. But if we’re thinking about Australia’s long-term economic interests…
Australia and South Korea are entering a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), but before you think “advanced Western country gains access to a large Asian market”, think again. Economic powers have shifted seismically…
Alcoa’s decision to close the Point Henry smelter, at a cost of almost 1000 jobs in Geelong and elsewhere, comes amid a perfect storm buffeting Australia’s aluminium industry. Point Henry will be the second…
Incoming Director of the Australian Institute of Business and Economics at UQ, and Professor of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University