Club Troppo

Equality of opportunity was one of the big themes of Gough Whitlam's 1969 and 1972 campaigns. His 1972 policy speech promised "a new drive for equality of opportunities" through reforms to education, health and urban planning. He argued that opportunity depends on the kind of...

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I just came across an article in PNAS (the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) with the catchy title 'Female Hurricanes are deadlier than male hurricanes'. It is doing the rounds in the international media , with the explicit conclusion that our society suffers fr...

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Human Capital Effects of Anti-Poverty Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Housing Voucher Lottery by Brian Jacob, Max Kapustin, Jens Ludwig - #20164 (CH ED HE PE) Abstract: Whether government transfer programs increase the human capital of low-income children is a question of...

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And the US has had better growth than Japan or Europe!

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The Australian government education minister Christopher Pyne has made his wishes clear for the tertiary education sector: he is following the wishes of the GO8 Vice-Chancellors and wants to remove the caps from the HECS fees asked of domestic students. This seems to fit in a...

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The French economists Thomas Piketty recently published a long-prepared book on the growth of inequality in the Western World over the last few centuries. His main contention, as I see it, is that wealth inequality is rising rapidly again and that we are returning to 19 th cen...

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A decent society is one whose institutions do not humiliate people - Avishai Margalit The Great Depression stripped many Australian workers of their dignity. For many, applying for government relief was like begging for charity. Instead of giving unemployed workers cash, state...

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With people living longer and with societies becoming more forward-looking as to how to handle the long post-retirement years, the issue of optimal pension systems is big in Australia and elsewhere. Have a look at this excellent interview between John Piggott and Jan Libich wh...

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According to the Australian , the Abbott government's first budget will include tough new "learn or earn" Measures designed to force young people off the dole and into education, training or work. "One thing the government doesn’t want to do is to continue to pay people to sta...

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In an everyday political sense I suppose we can't really blame Little Bill Shorten for cynically and dishonestly demonising the Abbott government's mooted tax increases and spending cuts. After all, Abbott cynically, dishonestly and very successfully demonised Labor's carbon a...

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Last night I attended the unveiling of a facsimile of a portrait of my father painted when he was fresh off the boat in 1941. Thanks go to Bruce Chapman above all, but to many others for organising. To Erwin Fabian, who pained the portrait all those years ago. It's been over 1...

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My own university, the University of Queensland, has around 6 flagship courses that it puts online for free, in a deal that involves universities from around the world who put up the courses that they excel in. It typifies the current reality of online courses: it is free; it...

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You know the drum. There's a film festival on and these are the films that rate four stars or more. Living is Easy with Eyes Closed In 1966, John Lennon was determined to leave the Beatles to become an actor, and arrives in Almería to shoot 'How I Won the War'. Antonio, a scho...

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Terms of Reference Phase 1 Report (the one that’s caused most of the uproar). Submissions from Organisations and Business Submissions from Individuals The humane alternative

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Just a note to let people know of the unveiling of a magnificent portrait of my father , discovered some years after he died. It's in Canberra on Tuesday afternoon. Here's the invitation. Perhaps I'll see you there. Professor Rabee Tourky Professor Bruce Chapman Emeritus Profe...

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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="397"] Life is miserable: run, run, run[/caption] I've always been struck by how we debate flexibility in the labour market without paying attention to the other problem in the labour market which is that it's extremely difficult to find...

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[video width="480" height="360" mp4="http://clubtroppo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/yt1s.com-Christopher-Hitchens-Why-Women-Still-Arent-Funny_360p.mp4"][/video] I have a strange habit of looking for bargain books. Why is this a strange habit? Because it looks awfully like...

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The ARR scheme so far has cost taxpayers just over $2.2 million and as of December 2013 has delivered a total of 7,800 royalty payments, to 800 artists (or estates) with a median value of about $105 per payment. The scheme has, in three and a half years, only generated a total...

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Michael Luca Digital Discrimination: The Case of Airbnb.com (pdf) Online marketplaces often contain information not only about products, but also about the people selling the products. In an effort to facilitate trust, many platforms encourage sellers to provide personal profi...

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French economist Thomas Piketty has been picking up a lot of attention in the rest of the English speaking world – well mainly the US – thanks to the publication of an English translation of his recent book Capital in the 21 st Century . Never heard of him? Don't fret about it...

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