Monetary policy settings: hawks, doves and the seat of the pants
If higher interest rates now will lower the risk of financial instability later, how much will they lower it, what are the benefits of so doing, and what are the costs? Read More
Author: Nicholas Gruen
Competitive neutrality: Camels, pinballs, tilted playing fields and five minute arguments …
Former Productivity Commission member Nicholas Gruen says the debate over giving citizens access to government super is getting the five-minute argument, and it's still too politically complicated to contemplate government entities competing in an open market. Read More
What’s the beef with Krugman? Gruen on the disciplinary incentives of economics
Nicholas Gruen gets to the nub of his beef with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. Read More
Deep strategisation: the schlock of the new
A government or other body might want to have a strategy, but equity is relevant to a vast number of policy decisions taken every day, says Nicholas Gruen. Read More
A lucky boy from a golden age of economics
When the financial crisis struck, it was back to the economics Max Corden learned in the 40s and 50s — a golden age of economics in… Read More
Now is the time for complacency: Bank of England vs Reserve Bank edition
Part two of Nicholas Gruen's exploration of how central banks use their statutory independence. For decades the "people's bank" was only accessible to the banking elite, and profits flowed accordingly, then came digital. Read More
Now is the time for complacency: RBA vs Bank of England edition
Lateral Economics CEO Nicholas Gruen considers the concept of statutory independence, and what government bodies like the Productivity Commission or the Reserve Bank could do with it if they were bolder and less bureaucratic. Read More
Nicholas Gruen: the academy and partners try wellbeing frameworks
Economist Nicholas Gruen looks at problems with various attempts to measure wellbeing and the struggle to get from noble principles to practical outcomes. Read More
Nicholas Gruen: hacking wellbeing for the biggest returns
There are some commonsense 'hacks' government could use to improve Australians' wellbeing, argues economist Nicholas Gruen. Read More
Nicholas Gruen: what have wellbeing frameworks ever done for us?
Government agencies around the world have been discussing wellbeing for a long time, but this has not filtered through to action on the ground, argues economist Nicholas Gruen. The first of a four-part essay series about failures of policy debate to translate into outcomes. Read More
Cutting through waste: taking competitive neutrality seriously
Allowing the Reserve Bank to provide retail services could generate massive savings, argues economist Nicholas Gruen. And why shouldn't all Australians be able to access high-performing public service super funds? Read More
Nicholas Gruen: Information and the structure of institutions, W. H. Hutt edition
William Harold Hutt's ideas about what improves private sector productivity can tell the public sector much about its production of public goods. Nicholas Gruen explores a quirky story from the 1930s with a message for today's data-driven government. Read More
Nicholas Gruen: evaluation knowledge comes not from numbers, but questions
As policymakers look back for answers to what worked — like PM&C's $40m for evaluation of Indigenous programs — the pass/fail approach won't, in itself, help find the answers that government will need as circumstances change. Read More
Leadership without careerism: is it possible?
Is there a better way of selecting leaders than through self-assertion? Nicholas Gruen on his experience with a Citizen Jury and what it means for trust in the public sector if it promotes a culture of selflessness. Read More
Review: The Last Man in Europe
This is a novel about George Orwell and 1984, an unsentimental tribute to the political writer who grasped with greatest penetration the meaning of the European catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century. Read More