Archived publication for August 2008
Recent publications
A Reform Agenda for Western Australia
In conjunction with the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation. Launched 27 August 2008 in Perth by John Hyde and Ron Manners.
Intellectual Property and the Australian economy
Emissions Trading: Towards the biggest economic change in Australian history
‘Placing a limit and a price on emissions will change the things we produce, the way we produce them, and the things we buy', states the Federal Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper, which compares the economic impact...
So now you have bought an emissions trading scheme
What is it? The emissions trading scheme, or ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme', is a ‘cap and trade' system. This requires firms to obtain a government ‘permit' if they emit greenhouse gases. The government caps the level of...
What has happened to modern art
Photographs of naked thirteen-year-old girls, crucifixes immersed in urine, and videos of chickens being decapitated: this is modern art. So you'd think, at least, if you went by what gets the most attention in the news, and never visited art...
Flat tax in the Caucasus
‘We lost the twentieth century' was how Paata Sheshelidze described Georgia's experience of the Soviet occupation from 1920 to 1990. Sheshelidze is President of the New Economic School in Georgia (NES), a free-market think tank in Tbilisi. I...
Would you swap climate change for acid rain?
‘Climate change is happening so quickly that mankind may need to pump sulfur into the atmosphere to survive', argued Tim Flannery, 2007 Australian of the Year, in May. Flannery has suggested the sulfur be dispersed by jet fuel as a last...
Volume 60 Number 4
The Emissions Trading Scheme: What is it, what does it mean, is it the right way to go? With commentary from Christian Kerr, Alan Moran, Chris Berg, Sinclair Davidson, John Abott and John-Paul Fenwick. Also, Mitch Fifield on government spending,...
Alexander Solzhenitsyns challenging legacy
It would not be possible to stare down the Soviet Union for as long as Alexander Solzhenitsyn had without deep personal courage. When he died in August this year, he had out-lived the regime that imprisoned him by nearly two decades. For nearly...
Undermining Mitigation Technology: Compulsory licensing, patents and tariffs
The incentives to develop the technologies to reduce global CO2 emissions are being undermined. Internationally, a campaign is being run to undermine the intellectual property that incentivises research and development on CO2 mitigation...