Category Archives: Economics and public policy

Vale David Savage, behaviouralist extraordinaire

Posted on May 12, 2021 by Paul Frijters

We lost David Savage this week to a heart attack at the age of 48, leaving a wife Deborah and many colleagues around the world. He was a Queensland boy who got educated in Brisbane and then quickly made it … Continue reading →

Posted in Art and Architecture, Dance, Death and taxes, Economics and public policy, Education, Geeky Musings, Social | Leave a comment

Lockdown cost-benefit analysis for Australia by Martin Lally

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Martin Lally is a kiwi economist who late in 2020 decided to calculate for himself what his own country was losing by locking itself away from the world, coming to the conclusion that New Zealand was sacrificing something like 26 … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Economics and public policy, Employment, Health, Politics - national, Science, Social Policy | 108 Comments

Joy Braddish on homelessness after the COVID measures

Posted on April 7, 2021 by Nicholas Gruen

I’d like to introduce Joy Braddish who’s studying for a Master of Journalism at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism.  She’s undertaking an internship at Lateral Economics where one of the things she’s helping us with is making … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Employment, Social Policy | 2 Comments

Guest post from Gene Tunny: Freeing Fiscal Policy from political tinkering – podcast discussion with Nicholas Gruen

Posted on April 2, 2021 by Nicholas Gruen

This podcast is quite a lively exploration of a proposal of mine that is – frightenly – a quarter of a century old! Below is Gene Tunny’s introduction to his podcast interview with me. NG Last month, in a Financial … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, History | 4 Comments

Uncertainty, Part 1: McGurk

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Paul Frijters

As one the best illustrations of the way our minds deal with uncertainty, consider the following video. Please listen and watch at least 30 seconds so you can experience the three sequences of spoken words. Pretty much all humans who … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Life, Media, Philosophy, Political theory, Science, Social, Theatre | 21 Comments

A World Anti-Hysteria Organisation?

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Paul Frijters

The essential governance problem in March 2020 in Western countries was the overwhelming demand of the vast majority of the population to do something dramatic in response to their fear. There was a clamour to be ‘led to safety’ by … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Democracy, Health, Information, Innovation, IT and Internet, Metablogging, Politics - international, Science, Society, Terror | 27 Comments

What would a wellbeing budget look like? Hint: Not like New Zealand’s

Posted on March 6, 2021 by Nicholas Gruen

Herewith a podcast interview of me setting out my case that the New Zealand Wellbeing Budget has a relationship to wellbeing which corresponds to a Pirates Ball’s relationship to pirates. It’s ‘themed‘ as promoting wellbeing rather than being thoughtfully crafted … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Innovation | 7 Comments