By Morris Dalton
On Monday August 20 at 6pm at the University of Melbourne members were addressed by a panel of three distinguished speakers, Ross Gittins, Max Corden and John Daley at a forum examining the policy implications of the high Australian dollar.
By Professor Max Corden
At the recent Q & A of ESSA many points were made about immigration. What kinds of immigrants do we want? What should be the proportion between humanitarian, family reunion and the skills programme?
The word is in from the students – ESSA’s inaugural Q&A was a resounding success. Featuring some of the University’s most famed economists (Max Corden and Neville Norman) and some of the nation’s leading economic commentators (George Megalogenis, Stephen Koukoulas, Stephen Long and James Paterson), it was an event, from my perspective, full of high-spirited discussion and insightful analysis about where Australia is as a country and as a world-leading economy.
Watch it all here!
Amid quips of whinging farmers, painful two-speed bicycle analogies and “slavery” at the IPA, the panel, consisting of James Paterson, W. Max Corden, George Megalogenis, Neville Norman, Stephen Koukoulas and moderator Stephen Long, gave the ESSA Q&A audience quite a few insights into the immigration and two-speed economy debates currently embroiling Australia.
This semester ESSA’s flagship event is a Q&A, where we have invited six illustrious panellists to share their viewpoints and discuss two issues that confront Australia on a nationwide scale: Immigration and the two-speed economy. With the event just around the corner, you might like to know a little more on each of our guests. Read on for a short bio on each of the panellists and discover what unique experiences each of them brings to the discussion.
Many of you would be aware that ESSA is hosting a Q&A event on the evening of Thursday August 16th, where our brilliant panel will be answering questions on immigration and the two-speed economy. In honour of Q&A, I have decided to continue my series on structural changes (read the first installment here) with an analysis of the two-speed economy. This article attempts to provide a snapshot of the key issues surrounding our two-speed economy and the main policy implications. I also consider some of the potential questions that our panel may be forced to contend with on the night!
The focus of my final post will be the first session of the ACE Business Symposium, titled ‘Structural Adjustment: The Dutch Disease and Public Policy in Australia’.
The session opened with a methodical and articulate speech from Professor Max Corden of the University of Melbourne, summarising his findings in a recent paper for the Melbourne Institute[1]. He defined the term ‘Dutch Disease’ as the real appreciation in the home currency, which has both positive and negative effects, depending on the industry.
By W. Max Corden
When I was a student at Melbourne University’s Commerce Faculty immediately after the war – from 1946 to 1949 – the memories of our parents, and of the ex-servicemen who came back from the war, were of the Great Depression. Never again! It was a memory of unemployment and of real misery, either experienced directly or endlessly heard about from our parents.
Richard Downing was a young and charismatic lecturer in the Faculty who had spent time first at the University of Cambridge and then in Geneva with the International Labour Office. He brought back to Melbourne the message that economists had found a solution to the problem. There need not be another depression. This solution has come to be known as Keynesian economics, and in subsequent years has provided the basis for undergraduate textbook macroeconomics.
