John Quiggin

Given that Millennials are now approaching middle age, could someone compile all the 1990s cliches about Boomers for recycling, rather than doing it piecemeal? Then we can use the Millennial stuff (lazy, entitled, not like in my day) on Generation Z. Personally, I’m waiting to hit Generation Trump. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

That’s the message being given to Australian social science and humanities researchers from the systems of journal rankings adopted in many disciplines. This point was made to the Senate recently by historians from opposite ends of the political spectrum, Greg Melleuish and Stuart McIntrye, who are more interested in researching and arguing about Australian history than in following Northern hemisphere fads Here’s a submission I wrote in relation to Economic Analysis and...

On Facebook, my frined Timothy Scriven pointed to an opinion piece by classics professor Ian Morris headlined In the long run, wars make us safer and richer It’s pushing a book with the clickbaity title War! What is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots.”. Timothy correctly guessed that I wouldn’t like it. Based on the headline, I was expecting a claim along the lines “wars stimulate technological progress” which I refuted (to my own...

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page   and at my Economics in Two Lessons page Like this:Like Loading...

That’s the self-explanatory headline for my latest piece in The Conversation , written with Robin Smit of Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER), who did the research. It’s another point showing the falsity the Morrison governments claim that Australia can “do its bit” to reduce emissions even as his government does nothing. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

Lately whenever I watch advertising-funded TV (including SBS), something like a third of the ads are for gambling, and all of these promote gambling in an irresponsible fashion. In particular, the ads are now primarily for racing and sports betting rather than, as in the past, for lotteries. Decades ago, I did a lot of research into gambling and reached the conclusion that lottery gambling is mostly harmless fun, but that all the other forms (pokies, casinos and sports betting) are...

Live in the Kenmore area? Think we could use a more sustainable economy and want to take action locally?   Join us this Thursday Oct 10th, 6:30 for 7pm, at the Kenmore Library when Transition Town Kenmore hosts UQ’s John Quiggin. He’ll give us his big picture take on where things are heading with a  talk on “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren: Why Keynes was wrong in 1930, but might be right today.” Free and open to all. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

Another review of Economics in Two Lessons has come out. It’s by David Henderson and appears in Regulation, published by the Cato Institute (link to PDF). There’s a blog post with extracts here. Unsurprisingly, given the source, it’s mainly critical of the analysis, but still has some kind words about the book. This para gives the flavour Quiggin is a good writer who lays out much of the economics well. His analysis of rent control and price controls in general is a thing of...

A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. Like this:Like Loading...

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page   and at my Economics in Two Lessons page Like this:Like Loading...