The aftermath of Christmas is a good time to think about where consumer-capitalism is getting us. The sad fact is that, with these values, our society can never be ecologically sustainable or just. Accelerating…
The focus of the recently concluded G20 summit was economic growth. The final communiqué begins: “Raising global growth to deliver better living standards and quality jobs for people across the world is…
It has been a long road back for Britain from the economic crisis of 2007/8. The chancellor’s Autumn Statement is an indication of how he aims to keep growth on track, but the prime minister has already…
Nietzsche’s much quoted line “God is dead” was not, as it is often presented, a statement of triumphant atheism but was a warning and a call to action. We had killed God with rationalism and science. With…
Despite Australia’s best efforts, climate change muscled its way onto the G20 agenda. The summit’s final communique included one paragraph restating the importance of international negotiations in Paris…
The G20 leaders have reaffirmed a commitment to raise global growth, saying if more than 800 agreed measures are “fully implemented”, GDP will grow by an additional 2.1% by 2018, adding more than US$2…
Focusing on growth, the Brisbane G20 leaders’ summit has not grappled with three key issues. How much more growth can the planet survive? How can poorer nations raise their living standards to parity with…
The recent US-China climate announcement is a significant development in humanity’s equivocal response to the climate crisis. Despite over four decades of political engagement with climate change, tangible…
The G20 summit must “go structural, go social and go green”, says OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria. Speaking at Griffith University’s pre-summit conference in Brisbane, Mr Gurria said trade, investment…
Charis Palmer, The Conversation and Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
At the G20 meeting in Brisbane on the weekend we are going to hear a lot of talk about current accounts, GDP, CPI as well as a whole blizzard of more obscure acronyms and economic measures. To help you…
Whichever way you look at it, the UK is going through a stormy period in its relationship with the European Union. David Cameron has promised to renegotiate the UK’s relations with the EU and to hold a…
When the G20 finance ministers agreed in February to significantly raise global growth, they locked in a goal of lifting collective GDP by more than 2%. This was a cumulative goal - that is a total of…
Suppose that on the evening of November 16, the G20 leaders release a 25-page communique with hundreds of recommendations on global health, security, climate change, human rights etc. Would this be regarded…
Many Australian women will know the G20 summit is coming up in Brisbane, but they may not think it has much relevance to their daily lives. But that is not the case. Joe Hockey needs us, and he may not…
“But who do you think’s right, Prof? The optimists or the pessimists?” At the end of my sustainability economics course in 2007, students were challenging me to end 20 years of professional fence-sitting…
The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems – the problems of…
Since 1990, GDP per person in China has doubled and then redoubled. With average incomes multiplying fourfold in little more than two decades, one might expect many of the Chinese people to be dancing…
Last week the IMF revised its 2014 global economic growth forecast down to 3.3% from the 3.7% expected six months ago, confirming that most economies around the world, Australia included, continue to underperform…
What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy…
A newly released report called Better Growth, Better Climate draws the seductive conclusion that “we can create lasting economic growth while also tackling the immense risks of climate change”. But while…
Principal Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, and Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne