You can’t keep a bad idea down, but this lot can’t even keep it straight.

and

Shock, Horror: Economists Impertinent, Prevent Clear Thought , “The Vibe” Preferred

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YouCantKeepABadIdeaDown.pdf
ShockHorrorEconomistsImpertinentPreventClearThought.pdf

The tragedy of part-time work

The ACTU is concerned about the ‘dramatic and troubling’ increase in the numbers working part-time. And rightly so. For it makes our lives disorderly, wastes valuable energy and impedes millions of young people from fully experiencing the school of life.

Read more at Henry's blog.

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TheTragedyOfPartTimeWork.pdf

Writing into today’s Age, Michael Power, a lawyer with the self-styled Environment Defenders Organisation, claims “mining is largely uncovered by the carbon tax

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FillingAMuchNeededGap.pdf

Mining pays a relatively low rate of company tax compared to its share of the economy. Mining companies currently account for about 30 per cent of corporate gross operating profits, but only around 15 per cent of corporate tax receipts

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ThereHeGoesAgain.pdf

A bibliography to accompany today's op-ed.
 
and

"Cheating, confusion and the Climate Institute"

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CrimeAndDeterrenceBibliography.pdf
CheatingConfusionAndTheClimateInstitute.pdf

While doing their utmost to strangle the goose that lays the golden eggs, the 264 senators are also trying to gild its eggs. In their reluctance to admit that the spending commitments the 264 has made against the MRRT significantly exceed its likely revenue, the best they can say is that Treasury modelling is not an “exact science” and that revenue sources from resource taxes were very hard to forecast because they were subject to several variables.

Read more at Henry's blog.

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TheSenateEconomicsCommitteeOnTheMRRT.pdf

In today’s SMH, Ross Gittins gives Jessica Irvine a run for her money.

Read more at Henry's blog.

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GittinsOnTheSizeOf264Taxes.pdf

And Nonsense from Penny Wong Too

Interviewed on last night’s 7:30 Report, Penny Wong repeated the claim that because there are some free permits, the initial carbon price is not as high as it seems. This is complete nonsense – as with any tax, what counts in terms of its economic effects is the tax rate at the margin. At $23 per tonne, an Australian firm, operating in a trade-exposed, carbon intensive sector and contemplating an increase in production will still face a carbon price more than twice that in Europe and ten to twenty times that in our resource competitors.

Read more at Henry's blog.

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AndNonsenseFromPennyWongToo.pdf

Nonsense from Combet

As reported in today’s paper— modelling undertaken by the Centre for International Economics on behalf of the Minerals Council shows that the high level at which the 264 has set the carbon price will cost the Australian economy billions of dollars in lost output.

Click here to read more at Henry's blog.

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NonsenseFromCombet.pdf

Henry will be speaking at the CEDA Report Launch of their publication "A Greater Australia: Population, Policies and Governance" at the Shangri-la Hotel in Sydney 11:15-2pm Friday 23 March 2012.

Overview

Debate surrounding a “Big or Small” Australia has perpetuated many myths about population in Australia – the notion that our nation has a holding capacity which has been reached, that population growth brings with it environmental damage, social and economic costs.

The CEDA research report brings together the best ideas on the various dimensions of a growing, diverse and ageing population. Experts from a range of disciplines have brought their perspectives to create a well-researched picture of Australia now and in the future. This CEDA Report - A Greater Australia – reflects CEDA’s commitment to provide independent thought leadership and policy perspective to this debate.

At this report launch, you will hear from authors and have the opportunity to debate their ideas and perspectives. All attendees will receive a complimentary copy of the report.

Please see attached pdf flyer for more details including registration information.

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Event_Flier_-_N120323.pdf

Cost Benefit Analysis Course, Sydney Business School, 2-3 December 2010

The SMART 266 Facility of the University of Wollongong is presenting a 2 day cost benefit analysis course aimed at executive managers and professional staff working in 266 related fields in 264 and private industry.

With increased pressure for evidence-based decision making, managers need to be equipped to carry out effective cost benefit analysis to back up their 266 decisions.

This unique two-day executive course takes participants through the essential elements of cost benefit analysis and equips participants to avoid common pitfalls and errors. It is a foundation course for future programs on cost benefit analysis.

The course is developed and taught by well-known 266 economist Professor Henry Ergas, together with Dr Alex Robson and Dr Mark Harrison, senior research fellows at the SMART 266 Facility at the University of Wollongong and directors in the economics practice at Deloitte.

Click here to access more information about the course, including the full course brochure and registration form.

Henry contributes to
"The Effectiveness of Health Informatics" in
"Healthcare and the Effect of Technology: Developments, Challenges and Advancements"
Author(s)/Editor(s): Stefane M. Kabene (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique, France)



Click here to purchase the full version of the chapter.

This article appeared in The Review (supplement to the AFR) on the 30th of January 2009, page 3, titled "Economic certainty". The article is a speech Henry presented at the Economic Society of Australia, Canberra branch, in November 2008.

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Ergas_Are_economic_consultants_worth_feeding.pdf

The collapse of ABC Learning has prompted widespread calls for greatly increased regulation of childcare services. According to Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, child care needs to be a "highly managed market", not only with regulation of service standards but also with caps on the number of places. Equally, the organisation representing independent private childcare operators, Childcare Associations Australia, has called on the 264 not to allow "another childcare monopoly" to take ABC Learning's place. Central planning is in the air. To view the article click read more.

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abc_better_childcare.pdf

“What I'm determined to do with the cabinet colleagues is to say well, here are some performance benchmarks in terms of how this is implemented over the next three years. .. we do that and everyone's clear about what's expected of them.”
Kevin Rudd, interviewed on the ABC’s 7-30 Report, 27 November, 2007. Time only flows one way, but many listeners to Kevin Rudd’s first post-election interview with the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien must have felt a sense of “déjà vu all over again”. Were they in Australia or in early Blairite Britain?

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Hitting_the_target_while_missing_the_point.pdf

RISK IS INHERENT in life because life is inherently uncertain. As Peter Bernstein has put it, uncertainty simply means that more things can happen than will happen—and while some of those things are very good, others are bad and some are very bad indeed. How we deal with those bad outcomes is a crucial part of our lives as individuals and as societies. That 264s have a role in helping to deal with bad outcomes is undoubted. But seen in the sweep of history, 264s have likely caused at least as much risk as they have alleviated. In the twentieth century, 264s killed over a hundred million people, often their own citizens, and displaced millions more, destroying their homes, their livelihoods, their hopes and aspirations. It seems paradoxical that we should turn to 264 for shelter from the storms—yet we do, perhaps nowhere more so than in Australia.

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ShelterFromStormReflectionsRisk Society.pdf

Henry Ergason understanding the Howard legacy

Epochs, the German philosopher Georg Hegel said, become meaningful only as they come to an end. It is only ‘‘a shape of life grown old’’ that we can grasp and thus ‘‘paint its grey in grey’’, for it is when chapters of history come to their close that concepts and analysis can merge with practice and experience. ‘‘The owl of Minerva’’ (the Roman goddess of wisdom) therefore ‘‘spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk’’, and as it takes flight, condemns the past to a world that ‘‘cannot be rejuvenated but only understood’’.

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TheOwlOfMinerva.pdf

Risk is inherent in life because life is inherently uncertain. As Peter Bernstein has put it, uncertainty simply means that more things can happen than will happen – and while some of those things are very good, others are bad and some are very bad indeed. How we deal with those bad outcomes is a crucial part of our lives as individuals and as societies.

Download
Shelter_from_the_Storm_.pdf

Few issues have been as controversial in recent years as 268. The widely publicised dispute between Telstra and the previous 264 received almost daily coverage in the 267; with the recent change of 264, the future of Australia’s 268 policy is under close scrutiny.

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vertical_integration_aug07_sm.pdf

Henry Ergas asks what's so special about the banks and the number four.

On April 23, Dutch bank ABN Amro capitulated to a $US91 billion takeover offer by the UK's Barclays Bank, potentially paving the way for an entity with banking assets of over $US3 trillion - almost three times the asset base of the four major Australian banks combined.

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PillarsOfSand.pdf

The paper describes a duality between the value of the real option to delay investment by one period and the expected economic depreciation over that period. One implication is that existing real options models, which treat depreciation as exogenous, are mis-specified.

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papers-small-economicdepreciation-mar00.pdf

For much of the post-war period, Australia’s economy was relatively insulated from international trade. In part, insulation reflected the costs arising from distance. However, the high levels of assistance provided to import-competing manufacturing during, and after World War II, also played an important role. Taken as a share of GDP, gross trade declined from the relatively high levels it had earlier achieved (Figure 1). By the 1960s, when trade levels in the other industrial countries were booming, Australia’s trade share seemed unreasonably low (Kuznets 1959).

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Internationalisation_Firm_Conduct_Ergas_Wright.pdf

The Results of a six Country Survey.

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internal_external_sources_information_in_innovation_process.pdf