In the aftermath of the election, what is striking about many of the policy positions of Canada’s federal parties is their timidity, especially when it comes to climate change.
To understand an economic reality where growth is increasingly more qualitative than quantitative and where environmental constraints need a careful understanding, economics needs a major overhaul.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
The Conversation’s distinguished panel predicts unusually weak growth, dismal spending, no improvement in either unemployment or wage growth, and an increased chance of recession.
Happiness may well be a choice, but it is a difficult choice. And much that might make that choice a little easier depends on the choices of influential others.
We’ve two options of keeping ourselves out of recession, neither of them easy. The government will have to abandon its determination to get the budget into surplus.
It it wasn’t for a surge in government spending economic growth would be extraordinarily weak. As it is, it’s the weakest since the global financial crisis.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
The Reserve Bank cut interest rates on Tuesday because we weren’t spending or pushing up prices at the rate it wanted. On Wednesday we might find things are worse than it thought.
Countries around the world are taking society’s happiness and well-being into account when formulating policy. So, why is Australia so focused on economics as the sole marker of progress?
Economic growth should be reimagined not only at the macro level, but also at the micro, business level. Social enterprises offer new, collaborative approaches to growth that maximize societal impact.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
The Conversation has assembled a forecasting team of 19 academic economists from 12 universities across six states. Together, they assign a 25% probability to a recession within two years.