Richard Holden
Vital Signs: Climate-linked financial crises loom, but the fix isn’t up to central banks
The Bank for International Settlements – the “central bank” for central banks – made headlines this week with a report outlining how the next...
The end of the checkout signals a dire future for those without skills
There has already been a fair number of jobs lost to automation over recent decades – from factory workers to bank tellers....
Vital Signs: Australia’s nation-building opportunity held hostage by the deficit daleks
As anticipated, the Australian government downsized a number of its economic forecasts in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) released this...
Vital signs: Australia’s wafer-thin surplus rests on a mine disaster in Brazil
On Monday the Australian government will release the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO). This will – as required by the Charter...
Good and bad, low rates do much more than just lift house prices
With the Reserve Bank of Australia cutting official rates to 0.75 per cent on Tuesday, there has been a wave of commentary...
Trump’s antics could burn a hole in Australia’s economy
US President Donald Trump is at it again. He triggered trade tensions with China in January 2018 by imposing tariffs on Chinese...
Why we need those tax cuts now – all three of them
In an enormous week for economic news at the start of the month, Parliament passed the government’s three-stage personal income tax plan,...
Before the Kiwis, Australia laid out a wellbeing framework
Amid all the fanfare around New Zealand’s so-called “well-being budget”, you would be forgiven for thinking our neighbour to the east had...
If we fall into a recession (and we might) we’ll have ourselves to blame
The facts are not in dispute. Annual GDP growth has fallen to 1.8%. On a per-capita basis we have had three consecutive...
So far, it’s more of a house price blip than a bust in the making
Home prices slid in 2018, in some places by quite a lot. According to the widely-used CoreLogic Hedonic Home Value Index, home...