Economics Explored

The massive market power of the big tech companies, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, has prompted a renewed interest in antitrust laws. To help us understand antitrust, we’ve invited Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute on to Economics Explained. The Grattan Institute is a leading Australian public policy think tank based in Melbourne.  Danielle is Budget Policy and Institutional Reform P...

So-called surveillance capitalism was one of the big issues for the 2020s identified in the first Economics Explained episode this year. Google, Facebook, and other tech giants have massive amounts of data on us and they are using it for commercial gain. In this episode, Economics Explained host Gene Tunny discusses various perspectives on surveillance capitalism with his good friend Darren Brady...

Australian economist and federal Member of Parliament Dr Andrew Leigh is interviewed about his new book with co-author Professor Joshua Gans Innovation + Equality: How to Create a Future that is More Star Trek than Terminator , published by MIT Press in 2019. This wide-ranging conversation covers a range of issues, including labour market impacts of digital disruption, universal basic income, and...

Several jurisdictions around the world, such as the US states of California and Colorado, have legalised cannabis, also known as marijuana. In Australia, the Australian Capital Territory will become the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise recreational cannabis use on the last day of January 2020. What are the pros and cons of cannabis legalisation? To help us answer this question, we’re join...

Here’s a link to Dr Dan Mitchell’s International Liberty blog .  Use these timestamps to jump right to the highlights: 1:40 – Gene mentions the Optimal size of government in Australia paper co-authored by Griffith University Professor Tony Makin and Economic Society of Australia (QLD) President Julian Pearce 3:00 – Dan notes empirical literature suggests optimal size of government around 20% of GD...

There are currently around 7.7 billion people in the world. The UN is projecting global population will increase to 9.7 billion by 2050 and to nearly 11 billion by 2100. Obviously, this projected growth raises a range of economic, social, and environmental challenges. In this episode, Economics Explained host Gene Tunny discusses global population growth with his good friend Tim Hughes from Urban...

Use these timestamps to jump right into the episode: 2:15 – Larry Summers’s secular stagnation hypothesis (see his Peterson Institute talk ); 4:10 – discussion of Tyler Cowen’s and Robert Gordon’s views (see Cowen’s lecture on Inequality, productivity stagnation and Moore’s Law and check out Robert Gordon’s book The Rise and Fall of American Growth ); 5:45 – On Stiglitz’s attack on Summers and sec...

Use these timestamps to jump right to the highlights: 3:55 – Quiggin on the relevance of the two lessons in economics for responding to climate change;  8:55 – Craig Lawrence on cost-benefit analysis; 12:20 – Di Johnson on personal finance, particularly buying a house or unit; 15:05 – Brendan Markey-Towler on behavioural economics; 17:50 – Nicholas Gruen on digital public goods illustrated with 23...

This episode’s guest Associate Professor Andreas Chai is Discipline Head of Economics and Business Statistics in the Griffith University Business School. He has previously worked at the Australian Productivity Commission and the Australia Treasury. Andreas is well-placed to speak about economic development, as he has consulted to international organisations such as the United Nations Industrial De...

This episode’s guest Dr Leonora Risse is currently a fellow in the Women and Public Policy program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to taking up her Kennedy School fellowship this year, Leonora was a Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. As we discuss toward the end of the episode, Leonora has been a very active board member of the Australia...

This episode’s guest is Professor Pascalis Raimondos , head of the School of Economics and Finance at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and an expert on international taxation and trade issues. Use these timestamps to jump right into Gene and Pascalis’s conversation: 1:45 – are tax avoidance and tax evasion a major concern? 3:40 – thin capitalisation as a way multinationals can minimi...

This episode’s guest is Rebecca Archer, Director of Connect Media Training . Australian listeners may know Rebecca as Rebecca Hyam, former ABC finance reporter. Rebecca still works on a casual basis at ABC Brisbane in addition to running her media training company. Of course, views expressed in this podcast are Rebecca’s personal views, and should not necessarily be attributed to the ABC. As well...

This episode features Professor John Quiggin, author of Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work so Well, and Why they Can Fail So Badly . The book was published earlier this year by Princeton University Press.  Economics Explained host Gene Tunny has reviewed the book on his blog (see Quiggin's Economics in Two Lessons should be on ECON101 reading lists for decades to come ) and he was very hap...

This episode’s guest is Chris Poole, a Senior Consultant at Frontline Health Recruitment , an Australian recruitment agency specialising in the health sector. Frontline Health Recruitment is on the same floor as Economics Explained host Gene Tunny’s business Adept Economics in the Johnson Hotel in Spring Hill, Brisbane.  Highlights of this episode include: excellent tips from Chris on how job seek...

Dr Brendan Markey-Towler is a Senior Consultant at Behaviour Innovation , a Brisbane-based consultancy firm specialising in behavioural change which has undertaken a range of interesting projects include Project Cane Changer . Prior to joining Behavioural Innovation, Brendan researched and taught economics at the University of Queensland and University College London. He is the author of An Archit...

In this episode, Economics Explained host Gene Tunny discusses innovation and digital public goods with his colleague Dr Nicholas Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economics. Nicholas is a well-known Australian economist, entrepreneur, and angel investor. Australia’s former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner once described Nicholas as “Australia’s foremost public intellectual.” Many listeners will know of Nichol...

Many people struggle with managing money. For example, last month, Australian ABC News reported “1.9 million Australians are struggling with credit card debts” and that the average Australian credit card debt is more than $3,000. To discuss personal finance, Economics Explained host Gene Tunny invited Griffith University lecturer Dr Di Johnson onto the program.  Issues for discussion included: Cre...

Economics Explained host Gene Tunny discusses the economics of the film industry with his good friend Tim Hughes, who spent ten years working in the film industry in the UK and Australia. Tim worked as a crew member on TV shows such as Peak Practice , The Bill , and Coronation Street , and on film productions including Tomb Raider , Scooby-Doo , and Swimming Upstream . Currently, Tim’s a Brisbane-...

The gig economy benefits consumers through lower prices and greater choice. Check out how many local restaurants are participating in Uber Eats for example. And obviously the gig economy benefits the platform businesses which have multi-billion-dollar valuations. But does the gig economy benefit the workers, the people working gig-by-gig?  This question and others were considered in a conversation...

Craig Lawrence has three decades of experience as a professional economist and has advised on a wide range of infrastructure projects in Australia, the Pacific, and the Middle East.  Part 2 of our conversation covers, among other things: public private partnerships or PPPs, their pros and their cons; challenges in infrastructure provision in emerging economies; and the geopolitics of infrastructur...

Issues discussed include: drivers of rising incidence of apartment living the nature of strata title issues for apartment owners - body corporate fees, management rights apartment defects crisis in Australia Airbnb economic benefits of pets in apartments Articles relevant to the conversation include: Will 2018 be the year for Airbnb certainty in strata? Pets are good for your health, the budget, a...

Information about our guest Craig Lawrence, Managing Director of Lytton Advisory: https://lyttonadvisory.com.au/craig-lawrence/