With the global economy in crisis, there is great need for a deeper understanding of Australia's economic place in the world – both today and throughout history. This new edition of Barrie Dyster and David Meredith's highly successful book is fully updated and includes three new chapters covering until the end of 2011. The book explores the evolution of Australia's position in the global economy from the start of the twentieth century through to the present day, examining the international and local economies of five key historical periods. With a focus on trade, foreign investment and immigration, the book considers periods both of growth and decline. By using historical perspectives to explain the present and give direction to the future, this unique book presents a rich account of Australia's position within a global economic context. It is an essential resource for students and lecturers of Australian economic history.
Features a summary and review section in each chapter, Review questions, Definitions of key terms in the margin, Cross-references to relevant and useful web destinations, Clear design and layout, A comprehensive glossary providing a ready reference for over 350 key economics terms and concepts and two appendices, one covering key economic skills, the other providing extension material beyond the HSC Economics syllabus for students seeking an extra challenge.
This book is the first comprehensive account of how Australia attained the world's highest living standards within a few decades of European settlement, and how the nation has sustained an enviable level of income to the present. Why Australia Prospered is a fascinating historical examination of how Australia cultivated and sustained economic growth and success. Beginning with the Aboriginal economy at the end of the eighteenth century, Ian McLean argues that Australia's remarkable prosperity across nearly two centuries was reached and maintained by several shifting factors. These included imperial policies, favorable demographic characteristics, natural resource abundance, institutional adaptability and innovation, and growth-enhancing policy responses to major economic shocks, such as war, depression, and resource discoveries. Natural resource abundance in Australia played a prominent role in some periods and faded during others, but overall, and contrary to the conventional view of economists, it was a blessing rather than a curse. McLean shows that Australia's location was not a hindrance when the international economy was centered in the North Atlantic, and became a positive influence following Asia's modernization. Participation in the world trading system, when it flourished, brought significant benefits, and during the interwar period when it did not, Australia's protection of domestic manufacturing did not significantly stall growth. McLean also considers how the country's notorious origins as a convict settlement positively influenced early productivity levels, and how British imperial policies enhanced prosperity during the colonial period. He looks at Australia's recent resource-based prosperity in historical perspective, and reveals striking elements of continuity that have underpinned the evolution of the country's economy since the nineteenth century.
The authors trace the relationship between Australia's economic well being and the international economy from the late nineteenth-century onwards. This book fills the need for an introductory text in this area for undergraduate students of economics, politics and history and for the general reader who wishes to understand how the Australian economy operates.
In a highly globalised trade and investment environment, businesses in regional areas must learn to take advantage of the benefits that stem from their geographical location. This book explains the immense value regional businesses bring to local communities and to Australia as a whole through case studies. The case studies are diverse in nature and highlight how regional businesses utilise their competitive advantage to introduce innovative practices and use local expertise, knowledge, skills, and networks to benefit from local social capital in a synergetic manner. The case studies in the book will help readers better understand the processes of industrial localisation. The examples of how innovative regional businesses have used innovative practices, local resource leverage, social and entrepreneurial skills and knowledge of international markets to develop and expand their businesses will provide insights into how regional businesses can achieve growth and secure jobs in an innovative and sustained manner.
The COVID-19 pandemic struck the global economy after a decade that featured a broad-based slowdown in productivity growth. Global Productivity: Trends, Drivers, and Policies presents the first comprehensive analysis of the evolution and drivers of productivity growth, examines the effects of COVID-19 on productivity, and discusses a wide range of policies needed to rekindle productivity growth. The book also provides a far-reaching data set of multiple measures of productivity for up to 164 advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies, and it introduces a new sectoral database of productivity. The World Bank has created an extraordinary book on productivity, covering a large group of countries and using a wide variety of data sources. There is an emphasis on emerging and developing economies, whereas the prior literature has concentrated on developed economies. The book seeks to understand growth patterns and quantify the role of (among other things) the reallocation of factors, technological change, and the impact of natural disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This book is must-reading for specialists in emerging economies but also provides deep insights for anyone interested in economic growth and productivity. Martin Neil Baily Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution Former Chair, U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers This is an important book at a critical time. As the book notes, global productivity growth had already been slowing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and collapses with the pandemic. If we want an effective recovery, we have to understand what was driving these long-run trends. The book presents a novel global approach to examining the levels, growth rates, and drivers of productivity growth. For anyone wanting to understand or influence productivity growth, this is an essential read. Nicholas Bloom William D. Eberle Professor of Economics, Stanford University The COVID-19 pandemic hit a global economy that was already struggling with an adverse pre-existing condition—slow productivity growth. This extraordinarily valuable and timely book brings considerable new evidence that shows the broad-based, long-standing nature of the slowdown. It is comprehensive, with an exceptional focus on emerging market and developing economies. Importantly, it shows how severe disasters (of which COVID-19 is just the latest) typically harm productivity. There are no silver bullets, but the book suggests sensible strategies to improve growth prospects. John Fernald Schroders Chaired Professor of European Competitiveness and Reform and Professor of Economics, INSEAD
In this in-depth overview of Australia's economy, Michael Enright and Richard Petty — leading scholars on international competition—look at the data behind the news reports to offer a complete view of Australia's stable and wealthy economy. The book compares Australia with other similarly sized OECD economies as well as other Asia-Pacific economies and looks at fifteen international sources of data on competitiveness. It features a large-scale survey on Australian companies and offers deep insight on the country's future in terms of economics and economic policy. Revealing an honest assessment of Australia's true position in the world, the book looks at how Australian businesses see themselves and offers policy positions for government and firms to make the most of Australia's unique global economic position. Backed by CPA Australia, one of the world's largest accounting bodies Written by two global authorities on economic competitiveness Captures the thinking of more than 6,000 business leaders both within and outside of Australia Explains how Australia has weathered the global recession and looks at Australia's relationship with China For business leaders and policy makers in need of an in-depth look at the current and future state of Australia's economy, this book offers valuable and comprehensive information.
The growing interconnectedness of national economies and an expanding awareness of global interdependence in the 1990s have generated lively debate over the future of national governance. In a world of mobile capital, are states vital to the social and economic wellbeing of their citizens? A number of changes in the state's domestic and international environment - ranging from regulatory reforms and welfare state restructuring to the proliferation of intergovernmental agreements - have promoted the view that globalisation has a negative impact, compromising state capacities to govern domestically. This book challenges the 'constraints thesis'. Covering vital areas of state activity (welfare, taxation, industrial strategy, and regulatory reform), the contributors focus on a range of issues (finance, trade, technology) faced by both developed and developing countries. The contributors argue that globalisation can enable as well as constrain, and they seek to specify the institutional conditions which sharpen or neutralise the pressures of interdependence.
Maps capture data expressing the economic complexity of countries from Albania to Zimbabwe, offering current economic measures and as well as a guide to achieving prosperity Why do some countries grow and others do not? The authors of The Atlas of Economic Complexity offer readers an explanation based on "Economic Complexity," a measure of a society's productive knowledge. Prosperous societies are those that have the knowledge to make a larger variety of more complex products. The Atlas of Economic Complexity attempts to measure the amount of productive knowledge countries hold and how they can move to accumulate more of it by making more complex products. Through the graphical representation of the "Product Space," the authors are able to identify each country's "adjacent possible," or potential new products, making it easier to find paths to economic diversification and growth. In addition, they argue that a country's economic complexity and its position in the product space are better predictors of economic growth than many other well-known development indicators, including measures of competitiveness, governance, finance, and schooling. Using innovative visualizations, the book locates each country in the product space, provides complexity and growth potential rankings for 128 countries, and offers individual country pages with detailed information about a country's current capabilities and its diversification options. The maps and visualizations included in the Atlas can be used to find more viable paths to greater productive knowledge and prosperity.
The recently-adopted OECD convention outlawing bribery of foreign public officials is welcome evidence of how much progress has been made in the battle against corruption. The financial crisis in East Asia is an indication of how much remains to be done. Corruption is by no means a new issue but it has only recently emerged as a global issue. With the end of the Cold War, the pace and breadth of the trends toward democratization and international economic integration accelerated and expanded globally. Yet corruption could slow or even reverse these trends, potentially threatening economic development and political stability in some countries. As the global implications of corruption have grown, so has the impetus for international action to combat it. In addition to efforts in the OECD, the Organization of American States, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations General Assembly, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have both begun to emphasize corruption as an impediment to economic development. This book includes a chapter by the Chairman of the OECD Working Group on Bribery discussing the evolution of the OECD convention and what is needed to make it effective. Other chapters address the causes and consequences of corruption, including the impact on investment and growth and the role of multinational corporations in discouraging bribery. The final chapter summarizes and also discusses some of the other anticorruption initiatives that either have been or should be adopted by governments, multilateral development banks, and other international organizations.
