Analysis suggests import restrictions on bananas in Australia are a classic rent‐seeking policy, leaving Australians to subsidise each grower by more than $250,000 a year.
Aggregate demand is being hit by the concentration of income growth among the top earners and is now a drag on economic growth.
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News that Australian CEO pay has soared to a 17-year high at a time when ordinary workers’ wages are flatlining is ultimately bad news for economic growth and prosperity.
Give a man the means to borrow, so the argument goes, and he can work himself out of poverty. But do microfinances’ claims stand up?
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Small loans from governments and philanthropists are often held up as a route out of poverty. But proper research into whether they work is thin on the ground.
When academics are pushed to publish and to compete, teaching and research can take a back seat.
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More must be done to develop mechanisms based on intrinsic motivations of committed, quality academics. It’s important to limit the harms currently being caused by rent seeking.
The notion of South African exceptionalism runs deep. Many people in the country believe that in some cases they are superior to the rest of the continent.
There is a gaping hole in South Africa between those who are wealthy, and the working poor
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South Africa’s inequality levels are stark. The rich are super rich, the poor very poor. There’s a gaping hole in the middle and this is the greatest threat to stability.
Rather than an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of economic advance, increased inequality that results from rent-seeking is arguably cancerous.
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Tax is back in the spotlight with coalition MPs and the Australia Institute talking about getting rid of some of the exemptions to the GST. There has also been a lot of talk about whether or not corporate…
Has our use of economics language been a real driver of economic growth?
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Do the words we use to speak of economic matters, matter? I believe they do, but not by the propagation of textbookish jargon. Rather, the main way they matter is in shaping public ethics. Economics has…