Weekly roundup Saturday 23 August
Someone has to pay for it
Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.
Australian economics – the productivity roundtable
Productivity – an explainer: Improving productivity is a great idea, but it’s hard to interpret the data.
Setting the productivity agenda: So far so good: the policy challenge is to keep the hard task of economic reform on the agenda.
The Productivity Commission’s pitch to the roundtable: They’re going for many small reforms, but they have omitted the need to develop government capability.
Who pays for roads: A look at an area where productivity-improving reform has been forced on to the agenda.
Artificial intelligence and the nature of work: If you’re not doing something in the real economy your job could be replaced by AI.
Sharing the work: The dividend of productivity improvement can be realized in more leisure – an established Australian tradition.
Tax reform: Principles of tax reform and ways to collect more public revenue are now on the productivity agenda. That’s promising.
Productivity in a broader and longer-term context: It’s really quite complicated.
Public ideas
The right’s attraction to Putin’s Russia: It’s a repeat of the left’s attraction to the Soviet Union.
Rumours of the death of neoliberalism are greatly exaggerated: Neoliberals may not like Trump’s anti-market policies, but they have shaped his way of looking at the world.
Musical productivity
Mozart Symphony no 25 in G minor, K 183: Movement 1 Allegro con Brio.
If you have comments, corrections, or links to other relevant sources, I’d like to hear from you. Please send them to Ian McAuley — ian, at the domain name ianmcauley.com
