Australia's Economy

Tax and spend US President Joe Biden may be grabbing the global headlines by boosting world growth with his big spending and international security with his telephone diplomacy. But US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seems to be doing the real heavy lifting in restoring American credibility in

A welcome change is underway in the international effort to combat dangerous global warming. It will have big implications for the Australian economy. The United States, European Union and China – the world’s three biggest emitters – are now all targeting net zero emissions by mid-century (

Hide and seek It says a lot about the extent of the pandemic cash splash and the domestic politics of the federal budget that an unexpected rise in development aid spending didn’t even make the Treasurer’s speech. Aid spending will rise about 4% this year, confounding expectations that this

Homeward bound While Australia’s embrace of economic sovereignty has so far involved more rhetoric than real financial resources, cash incentives for reshoring manufacturing are gathering pace in other countries. Last week’s €100 billion (A$162 billion) economic stimulus program from French

Taking one for the team Spare a thought for Japanese company Kirin, which entered Australia in the vanguard of new ambitions for Asian economic engagement but is now a victim of an undeclared trade war with China. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s move to prevent Kirin selling its unsuccessful Lion

The Morrison government’s plan for defence spending outlined in the Defence Strategic Update last month has been incorporated into the Canberra consensus, with Labor offering no criticism and the mainstream press largely supportive. Yet as the government grapples with debt and deficit as the

Clayton Christensen’s 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma provides a series of compelling examples of companies ignoring or dismissing the disruptive potential of immature technologies until it’s too late, only for their upstart competitors to consign them to the dustbin of

Switch hitting If Australia’s senior international ministers were surprised by the sharpness of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s approach to economic dependence on China at the recent AUSMIN talks, they should have studied the US trade data the previous day. A great divergence

Deal or no deal Global trade experts meeting in Australia this week have expressed some confidence that an interim deal will be reached by the end of the month. As markets swoon amid the latest rumours about US-China trade negotiations, global trade experts meeting in Australia&

How does Australia’s economy align with those of our Asian neighbours? What are the development challenges facing nearby South East Asian countries? And just how large is China’s economy? These questions are of particular interest this week as the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit is held in Sydney

The expert panel on the ABC’s Q&A program earlier this month was hopelessly confused in comparing Donald Trump’s cut in US company tax with the proposed company tax cuts in Australia. Although it’s often useful to compare domestic economic policy initiatives with those

Negotiations for the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) entered extra time this week, as negotiators agreed to add an 11th round (the 7th since leaders reactivated the initiative in March 2016) after negotiations in November failed to produce a final deal

Intellectual property is the current focus of President Trump’s economic team. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross published a Financial Times op-ed ('American genius is under attack from China'; paywalled), quoting figures from the recent report of the high-level Commission on the Theft of American

When the federal government embraced the concept of economic diplomacy back in 2014, the key pitch was that listening more to business would take foreign policy beyond traditional 'peace and security' to 'peace and prosperity'. With the country's peak business groups having provided submissions for