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Melbourne Business School

Melbourne Business School is the University of Melbourne’s graduate school in business and economics, and 55% owned by the business community. It is one of the Asia Pacific region’s top MBA schools and home to Mt Eliza Executive Education, Australia’s No. 1 ranked provider for executive education.

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Displaying 41 - 60 of 74 articles

Under new chief Andrew Mackenzie, BHP’s focus has clearly moved from expansion to cost reduction. AAP

Iron born: BHP steels itself for the future

What are investors who buy BHP Billiton shares buying into? BHP shares are a bet on two things. First, commodity prices and especially the price of iron ore, hydrocarbons and copper. Second, the ability…

Northern Zone a brilliant thought bubble

Kevin Rudd’s proposal for a “northern zone” with low company tax rates to attract businesses has been widely ridiculed in the media as another crazy thought bubble. I think it is a great idea. As long…
Lawrence Summers is a frontrunner to replace Ben Bernanke as US Federal Reserve head; but he is considered controversial. Flickr/Fortune Live Media

Who will be next to head the Fed?

When Ben Bernanke succeeded Alan Greenspan as Chair of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve in early 2006, macroeconomists were busy trying to understand the “Great Moderation…
The Australian dollar has lost its dazzle as the US economy steadily improves. Image from www.shutterstock.com

Making cents of a falling Australian dollar

After weeks of rapid depreciation, many commentators are wondering just how low can the Australian dollar go. Slowing growth in China and signs of a recovery in the US have renewed pressure on the dollar…
Australia’s unemployment is 5.5%. How does that stack up internationally? APH

FactCheck: is our unemployment rate low by world standards?

“Australia has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world.” - Finance minister Penny Wong, The Drum opinion article, 14 January. Several ministers, including finance minister Penny Wong…
The idea that women bring “special” qualities to a boardroom is actually counterproductive to increasing their participation. Shutterstock/Andrey_Popov

Is the idea of “unique” female business qualities a stereotype?

There is a common theme in public debate on gender diversity – a focus on the unique benefits women bring to boards, the warm, inclusive and ultimately unquantifiable merits of a gender diverse boardroom…
How to deal with our demographic future of an ageing population? One was is the status quo - hike taxes - but the other requires the courage to grapple funding to health and the elderly. AAP

Australia’s choice: keep hiking taxes, or grapple with our spending on health and the aged

More than a decade ago the federal treasury produced the first Intergenerational Report (IGR), warning of the challenges facing the Australian economy due to demographic change. The IGR warned that the…
Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said today that the bank’s board judged that a further decline in the cash rate was appropriate to encourage sustainable growth in the economy. AAP/Alan Porritt

RBA cuts interest rates to 2.75%: the experts respond

The Reserve Bank of Australia today cut the cash rate by 25 basis points to a record low of 2.75%, but some experts have questioned whether the central bank cut too soon. In a statement issued today, central…
From hire to liar: honesty is not always the best policy in workplace negotiations. Image from www.shutterstock.com

Sweet little lies: how men and women use deception in negotiations

Negotiations, by their nature, tempt individuals into an ethical slide. Even the most principled negotiator would consider it acceptable to withhold some information from an opponent, just as a self-protective…
Marius Kloppers will retire as BHP Billiton’s CEO in May. AAP Image/Paul Miller

Kloppers retires as BHP chief, leaving corporate and political legacy

Marius Kloppers, who today announced his intention to resign as CEO of mining firm BHP Billiton, leaves behind a formidable legacy in both mining and politics as head of a firm that campaigned for a scaled-down…
The US Federal Reserve has made explicit the economic targets it wants to reach through its monetary policy. AAP

US Fed stimulus names its targets in new policy direction

The announcement by the US Federal Reserve Bank that it would link its monetary policy to the achievement of specific economic targets beyond inflation is a new development in its approach to policy. In…
Two-thirds of Australia’s ASX500 firms have no female executives, a census released by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace agency has found. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dangoorevitch/

Australian firms trail world for women in top roles

Australian companies have the lowest percentage of women in top executive roles compared to other countries with equivalent corporate structures, a new report has found. The 2012 Australian Census of Women…
Stanford University’s Alvin Roth (pictured) and UCLA’s Lloyd Shapley were given the Nobel prize “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design”. AAP

Match-making economists earn Nobel prize for economic engineering

The Nobel prize for economics is often awarded for relatively abstract theoretical work. Rather less often, it is awarded for work with clear practical relevance. This year, the committee responsible for…
New research has found many industries have recommended the use of quotas to increase women in leadership roles, although their use also evokes negative reaction. Flickr

Exploring the use of quotas for women in leadership roles

In Australia and many other countries, increases in the number of women in senior leadership roles within most corporations have been small and slow to occur. The underemployment and under-utilisation…
Negotiations by women at work continue to be influenced by traditional gender attitudes. Flickr/Seattle Municipal Archives

A lose-lose proposition: what’s really happening when women negotiate

The “equal pay for equal work” dream is yet to become a reality. Not only do women earn, on average, 17.6% less than men, there are worrying signs that this wage gap may be starting to increase. What this…
The increasing trend of outsourcing drug production is leading to shortages in cancer drugs. Flickr

Risky business: the human cost of outsourcing drug production

It’s the pharmaceutical industry equivalent of the butterfly effect: a drug manufacturing plant in Ohio shuts down production after regulators on two continents uncover contamination problems. Suddenly…

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