Archived publication for 2008
Recent publications
A critique of the ACCC analysis of the FuelWatch scheme
Much has been made of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission analysis of the Western Australian FuelWatch scheme. This paper investigates the ACCC analysis published last December and comments briefly on the additional analysis the...
How many football teams should there be?
Competition is good for consumers-it leads to lower prices and better quality, with less efficient firms exiting the industry. Sports, apparently, are an exception to that rule. Consumers are better off when teams compete on the playing field, but...
Can we starve the government beast?
‘This reckless spending has got to stop'. With those words Kevin Rudd outflanked John Howard's economic policy from the right. Australia's traditional centre-left party won the 2007 election with smaller government rhetoric than the...
Submission to the Select Committee on State Government Financial Management
The Growth of Australia's Regulatory State: Ideology, accountability and the mega-regulators
Regulation is a political activity. It sets the framework for the market economy by defining the boundaries between private action and government action. Yet those boundaries are not fixed. Australian governments are growing the body of regulation...
Briefing Paper: The politics of wheat
The inconvenient truth of public transport success
Since its privatisation in 1999, Melbourne's public transport system has recorded the largest patronage increases in the country. Sadly, ideological opponents of privatisation will go to any lengths to not only hide this fact, but to actually...
20 years reveals gigantic strides in international trade
The politics of trade policy often obscures what should be an unambiguously positive story about the globalisation of the world economy. Goods which were previously produced on a single site are now produced in a virtual international factory-each...