My latest regular email ….

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Hi all,
Another edition of my regular email. Also, I’d appreciate any compliments, brickbats, suggestions on things I should say more or less about and so on. [email protected]
I’ve had a pretty busy week in terms of public events, and also some progress on the academic research front.
Following my presentation at the Australian Conference of Economists on post-school education, I talked to Steve Austin of ABC Radio Brisbane http://www.abc.net.au/radio/brisbane/programs/mornings/mornings/8733698
On Sunday 30 July, I did an interview with Ten News about Shorten’s proposal to tax distributions from trusts at a minumum rate of 30 per cent. Having banged on about this topic for at least 20 years, http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/johnquiggin/news97/trust9704.html it’s good to see some action.
On Wednesday 2 August, I was interviewed by Peter Switzer on Sky, about the Australian economy and my book, Zombie Economics. You can see the interview here http://www.switzer.com.au/video/john-quiggin-20170802/
On Thursday 3 August, I gave the annual Colin Clark lecture, as an emergency substitute when the invited lecturer, Richard Holden, fell ill. Hopefully, he’ll be able to come next year. I talked on Unscrambling The Toll Road Egg: How Toll Roads Locked Irrational Pricing And Options For A More Effective Approach You can see the slides here https://www.dropbox.com/s/cysw0wccoz4n85u/RoadPricing%20John%20Quiggin.pptx?dl=0 I’ll be giving a shorter version of the talk in Sydney next week. https://sensibletransport.org.au/seminar/
On Friday 4 August (today), I did an interview with Robyn McConchie of the ABC Country Hour on ways in which money currently allocated to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, and proposed to be lent to the Adani rail line could better be spent improving the sustainability of Australian agriculture. It hasn’t appeared on the website yet.
The interview was based on a study I did for Farmers for Climate Action http://www.farmersforclimateaction.org.au/ which is due to be released on Sunday.
Also today, I had an article in Inside Story, with the self-explanatory title Remember the nuclear renaissance? Well, it’s over http://insidestory.org.au/remember-the-nuclear-renaissance-well-its-over
Last but not least, again on the climate front, a journal article I submitted to the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, The importance of ‘extremely unlikely’ events: Tail risk and the costs of climate change” has been accepted for publication. Adding this to the list above, I was struck by the time lags in academic research compared to writing for the public. This is an article I started in 2014, and first submitted for publication in 2016. It probably won’t appear before 2018. By contrast, my Inside Story article was written on Monday in response to a news story about the abandonment of a reactor project appearing that same day.

Blog posts
A trolley problem http://johnquiggin.com/2017/07/26/a-trolley-problem/ An unsuccessful attempt to use a philosophical thought example to discuss the case against wars of humanitarian intervention

Tertiary education should be universal, non-profit and free http://johnquiggin.com/2017/07/28/tertiary-education-should-be-universal-non-profit-and-free/ Self-explanatory

Unscrambling the Toll Road Egg http://johnquiggin.com/2017/07/31/unscrambling-the-toll-road-egg/ A preview of the Sydney talk

Twitter feed https://twitter.com/JohnQuiggin

The nuclear renaissance dies, forgotten and bankrupt http://johnquiggin.com/2017/08/02/the-nuclear-renaissance-dies-forgotten-and-bankrupt/ A short note preparing for the Inside Story Article. Also at Crooked Timber, with more discussion http://crookedtimber.org/2017/08/02/the-nuclear-renaissance-dies-forgotten-and-bankrupt/