The Economists‪ ‬ ABC listen

Economics is called the dismal science in part because it is about hard choices — situations where we can't have our cake and eat it too. Last year it seemed as if COVID wasn't one of them. Keeping the virus at bay gave Australia one of the world's lowest death tolls and one of its shortest recessions. The Delta variant changed that and made the "costs" of fighting the pandemic much harder to bear. The Economists discusses the "trade offs" of the pandemic and the road ahead.

Guests:

Stephen Duckett, Health and Aged Care Program Director, Grattan Institute

Peter Harris, Former Productivity Commission chair, former CEO, National COVID-19 Coordination Commission Advisory Board

Professor Richard Thaler has spent his career investigating how people really behave – how we save for retirement, what we choose to eat, how we use energy. Through understanding the many reasons for human misjudgement, such as being too optimistic, or facing too many choices, Richard Thaler's work has helped people make better decisions. The concept is known as "nudge" and nudge units are now commonplace in governments and businesses around the world to develop better policy.

Guest: Professor Richard Thaler, Professor of Behavioural Science and Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 2017 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and co-author of "Nudge".

The underlying strength in the Australian economy has again beat many expectations; the nation's economy rose 0.7 per cent in the June quarter. However, the figures are like a look in the rear-view mirror and do not capture the full pain of the latest lockdowns. Is the latest economic news set to be as good as it gets?

Guests:

Josh Frydenberg, Federal Treasurer

Jo Masters, Chief Economist, EY Oceania

 

 

Huge amounts of information, known as administrative data, are being used by government and researchers to know what you need, even before you need it.  How are linkages between data sets, and tracking types of people and businesses over time helping to improve decision making?  

Guests:

Dr David Gruen, Australian Statistician, Head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics

Bob Breunig, Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Australian National University

A landmark report has urged the world's governments to come up with a better form of national accounting from GDP, to reflect the value and depletion of nature. Plus, an update on carbon markets and the emerging field of biodiversity offsets.

Guests:

Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge

Geoff Summerhayes, Senior Advisor, Pollination, former executive board member, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority

House prices in Australia are climbing at rates we’ve seldom seen. In all age groups, there is more renting and less home ownership than there used to be. Is housing supply part of the problem?

Guests:

Peter Tulip, Chief Economist, Centre for Independent Studies and former senior research manager at the Reserve Bank of Australia

Cameron Murray, Research Fellow, Henry Halloran Trust, University of Sydney

Rachel Ong ViforJ, Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, Professor at the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Curtin University