For the last few Budgets, Treasury has predicted that things will get worse before they get (a lot) better. Compared to last year’s budget, real GDP growth has been revised down for 2016-17 and 2017-18; unemployment is expected to be a bit higher for a bit longer; and wages won’t grow by as much. But... Continue Reading →

ISA’s recent ISR System Review described Australia as “an incremental innovator, with generally low levels of new-to-market innovation”. Compared to other OECD nations, the proportion of Australian firms engaging in “new to market” innovation is quite low (23rd out of 31 countries). Indeed, we seem to be better at adopting existing innovations, rather than creating... Continue Reading →

When the steamship was invented at around about the turn of the 19th Century, it was slow, costly and inefficient — certainly no match for sailing clipper ships. In the early years, most of a steamship’s cargo space was actually taken up by fuel-storage. Slowly however, steam technology progressed. And after about a century, the... Continue Reading →

Rebecca is 38 years old. She is married with two kids, a boy (four) and a girl (17). They live in a detached three-bedroom house in Toowoomba, with a $377 thousand mortgage and is on the brink of "housing stress". She completed year 12 but did not pursue tertiary education, and now works 40 hour... Continue Reading →

The ABS estimates that only about 45 per cent of Australia’s firms are “innovation active”. These are the firms that tick “yes” when asked did were they innovative in the Business Characteristics Survey. “During the year ended 30 June, 2015, did this business introduce any new or significantly improved goods or services?” (BCS 2014-15 survey... Continue Reading →

Almost one in every two dollars spent at a coffee shop in the United States is at a Starbucks. And if you’re not spending it there, then you’re probably buying a Blueberry Latte from Dunkin’ Donuts. Combined those two conglomerates control 65.4 per cent of the American coffee market. The Australian café scene by comparison,... Continue Reading →

In 2007 Crisitna Fernandez Kirchner (CFK) was elected President of Argentina. CFK was a charismatic populist who appealed to the suburban working class and rural poor (though she failed to win over the upper middle class elites in the larger cities of Buenos Aires and Rosario). She served as President until 2015. Leading into the... Continue Reading →

The German chicken industry was left decimated by the Second World War. And as a result, chickens became something of a luxury, produced at high cost by just a few domestic operators. In the late 1950s, American chicken farmers saw this opportunity and began to export frozen American chickens by the tonne. Cheap, frozen, American... Continue Reading →

For its first 32 years, American Express was not a financial services provider. It was in fact a courier company that competed with the US Postal Service (USPS). Legions of expressmen traversed the continent on horseback, moving letters and packages faster and cheaper than the USPS, and to places where they did not venture. At... Continue Reading →