Special Sessions

Economics from inside Government

Case study presentations and panel discussion by NSW Treasury and Commonwealth Treasury on the role of economics in government.

The Economics from inside Government session will promote a broader understanding and awareness of Treasuries as public economic institutions, both NSW and Commonwealth, and the role each play in the state and country’s economy. It will focus on how Treasuries play a key role in shaping economic policies and how these policies aim to make a positive impact on society and create better outcomes for communities.

The session is also an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of government – from delivering key economic advice to support jobs, services, housing, First Nations investments, and a more prosperous future for all. Hear firsthand how economics plays a critical role through case studies on:

• the key findings and recommendations from the NSW Productivity and Equality Commission’s research and how these have informed policymaking in NSW and encouraged a public conversation about how to make housing more affordable in Australia
• the work in Commonwealth Treasury on revitalising National Competition Policy (NCP), and how economics informed the design of the NCP framework and the choice of reforms under NCP
• how the five steps of the First Nations Investment Framework support partnerships with First Nations people and communities when developing and using evidence.

Whether you’re an experienced economist, student, or simply curious about how economic decisions impact society, join us to learn more about how NSW and Commonwealth Treasury advise on economic solutions that can make a positive impact and a meaningful difference to the lives of people in our communities – today and for future generations.

What is the role of economics in government and how does economic policy made by Government shape our lives?

Speaker: Geraldine Carter, Acting Deputy Secretary, Economic Strategy and Productivity, NSW Treasury
Geraldine Carter, Acting Deputy Secretary of Economic Strategy and Productivity at NSW Treasury. Geraldine joined in 2018 after her tenure at the Department of Premier and Cabinet. She leads strategic economic policy advice and has significantly contributed to reviews on infrastructure contributions and housing supply. Geraldine previously worked at Commonwealth Treasury on tax policy and for The Allen Consulting Group on various regulatory and competition policy issues. She holds a Bachelor of Economics with First-Class Honours from Monash University and actively engages with economic strategies while balancing motherhood.

NSW Productivity and Equality Commission – Housing Research

Speaker: Elliott James, Principal Economist, Productivity Reform, NSW Treasury
Elliott James is a Principal Economist at NSW Treasury. Elliott has previously worked at The Cabinet Office (New South Wales) and the Reserve Bank of Australia. He holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts/Commerce (Honours) from the University of Melbourne.

First Nations Investment Framework

Speakers:
Laura Faulkner, Senior Analyst, First Nations Economic Wellbeing, NSW Treasury
Laura Faulkner is a Senior Analyst in NSW Treasury’s First Nations Economic Wellbeing Branch. Laura provides advice on the application of cost-benefit analysis to initiatives that impact on First Nations people and communities. Laura has ten years of experience in economics and public policy, with prior roles in consulting and the (former) NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Eugenia Marembo, Senior Policy Analyst, First Nations Economic Wellbeing, NSW Treasury
Eugenia Marembo, PhD (UNSW), is a senior policy analyst in NSW Treasury. She has over a decade of experience in public policy, providing advice on program and policy evaluation. She has worked on diverse public policy issues and contributed to the development of the NSW Evaluation Guidelines and First Nations Investment Framework.

National Competition Policy

Speaker: Anna Barker, Assistant Secretary, Competition Taskforce, Commonwealth Treasury
Anna Barker is a seasoned economist with around 20 years of experience across Australian, UK, and international public policy and regulatory institutions. Her expertise spans competition policy, economic regulation, consumer protection, and the digital economy. She is currently part of the senior executive team in Treasury’s Competition Taskforce, leading work on National Competition Policy. Anna has held senior roles at the ACCC, the OECD (France), and Ofgem (UK), and began her career at the Productivity Commission and Queensland Treasury. She holds a First-Class Honours degree in Economics from the University of Queensland and a Master of Competition and Consumer Law from the University of Melbourne.

Panel Session
Moderator: Peter Achterstraat, Commissioner, NSW Productivity and Equality
Peter Achterstraat AM was appointed as the inaugural NSW Productivity Commissioner having been appointed in May 2018. In May 2024, the role was enhanced to become the NSW Productivity and Equality Commissioner. Peter was the Auditor-General of NSW from 2006 to 2013. He was admitted as a Barrister in the High Court of Australia in 1985. Peter has University Prizes in Law, Company Finance and Accounting. In 2006 Peter was admitted into the ANU College of Business and Economics Hall of Fame. Peter was a Principal (Infrastructure Advisor) at WorleyParsons from 2013-2016. He was the President of the NSW Division of the Australian Institute of Company Directors from 2015 -2020. He is the Chairman of Bankstown Airport Ltd. He was the Chairman of the Sydney Financial Forum from 2016 – 2022.

Speakers:
Michael Gadiel Deputy Secretary, Procurement Reform and Banking, NSW Treasury
Michael Gadiel is the Deputy Secretary of the Procurement Reform and Banking Group. Prior to this he led Treasury’s Centre for Economic Evidence. He has extensive experience in Treasury, leading various initiatives including economic strategy and budget reform. Before joining Treasury in 2007, he served as a Senior Policy Advisor and coordinated the efforts of the Labor Council of NSW. Michael holds a Bachelor Degree in Science and a Masters in Economics with First Class Honours from the University of Sydney, winning the 2008 University of Sydney Econometric Modelling Prize. He has received multiple awards for his contributions, including the 2023 Treasury Inclusivity Award.
Cass Wilkinson Executive Director, Centre for Economic Evidence, Economic Strategy and Productivity, NSW Treasury
Cassandra Wilkinson OAM was recently appointed Executive Director of the Centre for Economic Evidence division at NSW Treasury after a decade in budget development roles. Prior to joining NSW Treasury, she had roles in public and private sector including as Director of Microeconomic Reform at COAG Reform Council, Director in the Economic practice in Deloitte and as Director of Policy for Treasurer Michael Costa. Cass is the Executive Sponsor for the NSW Treasury Reconciliation Action Plan and Executive Sponsor for Cultural and Linguistic Diversity. Cass is a non-executive Director of SBS where she chairs the audit and risk committee.
Anna Barker Assistant Secretary, Competition Taskforce, Commonwealth Treasury
Anna Barker is a seasoned economist with around 20 years of experience across Australian, UK, and international public policy and regulatory institutions. Her expertise spans competition policy, economic regulation, consumer protection, and the digital economy. She is currently part of the senior executive team in Treasury’s Competition Taskforce, leading work on National Competition Policy. Anna has held senior roles at the ACCC, the OECD (France), and Ofgem (UK), and began her career at the Productivity Commission and Queensland Treasury. She holds a First-Class Honours degree in Economics from the University of Queensland and a Master of Competition and Consumer Law from the University of Melbourne.
Christine Duke Assistant Secretary, Aged Care, Veterans and Care Workforce, Commonwealth Treasury
Christine Duke leads the Aged Care, Veterans and Care Workforce Branch in Budget Group in the Commonwealth Department of Finance. Prior to this, Christine worked at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet providing advice on the COVID-19 Health Response. Christine has also worked as a consultant at Deloitte Access Economics, as a Ministerial Adviser and commenced her career as a graduate at Treasury. She holds a Master in Economics from ANU and Bachelor degrees in political science and chemistry from the University of Melbourne.

The Economics of Housing Policies

Facilitator: Prof Rachel Ong ViforJ, Curtin University

Australia is grappling with a significant and persistent housing affordability problem that some have described as a national crisis. Over the past three decades, the dwelling price to income ratio has climbed rapidly, especially in major cities. The private rental sector continues to be plagued by rental affordability stress and tenure insecurity, especially for low-income groups. There are around 170,000 households on the public housing waitlist, and the number of homeless persons has risen from 95,000 to 122,000 in the two decades to 2021.

The current policy focus is primarily on addressing constraints to new supply. Whilst such constraints are undoubtedly important, there are system-wide complexities driving our housing challenge that include, but go beyond, new supply concerns. This special session will feature various policies beyond new supply measures that influence housing outcomes, including monetary policy (James Graham), stamp duty and land taxes (Gianni La Cava), and the income tax treatment of the family home (Peter Siminski). Together, these papers address the challenges of housing unaffordability, inefficiency and inequality perpetuated by current policy settings. In doing so, the session will shed light on the multidimensionality of Australia’s housing challenge, all of which require policy consideration.

Monetary policy and the home ownership rate
This paper studies how monetary policy affects the homeownership rate. While much of the existing literature treats tenure choice as fixed, we focus on transitions into and out of homeownership, which are central to how monetary shocks are transmitted through the household sector. Higher interest rates raise mortgage costs and reduce income, discouraging home purchases. But they also lower house prices, which can make housing more affordable. These opposing forces imply that the effect of monetary policy on homeownership is theoretically ambiguous.
We build a heterogeneous household model calibrated to key features of the Australian housing market, including income risk, housing tenure choice, and long-term mortgage contracts. The model includes three institutional features specific to Australia. First, mortgages are mostly on floating rates, so policy changes pass through quickly. Second, offset accounts are common, increasing liquidity and reducing effective interest costs. Third, macroprudential rules impose a debt-servicing constraint at origination, based on surplus income and a buffer over the prevailing interest rate.
Rather than solving for a full general equilibrium, we follow Chen et al. (2020), Wong (2021), and Eichenbaum et al. (2022) in modeling the macroeconomy via an exogenous first-order Markov process. This process governs the joint evolution of interest rates, aggregate income, and house prices, and is estimated from a structural Vector Autoregression (VAR) using Australian data. Monetary policy shocks are identified via a Cholesky decomposition of the error covariance matrix. Households form expectations consistent with this VAR: they understand that an interest rate increase is typically followed by declining income and house prices. We use the calibrated model to study the homeownership response to a contractionary monetary shock. Following a 100 basis point increase in the interest rate, income falls by 0.3 percent over two years and house prices fall by 2 percent within one year. Homeownership initially declines by 1 percentage point, driven by fewer transitions into ownership and more exits into renting. But after the first year, the ownership rate rises to 0.75 percentage points above steady state and remains elevated for several years. This medium-run expansion reflects increased housing affordability: lower house prices allow some renters to purchase homes, and these purchases persist even as prices recover.
To isolate the contribution of different transmission channels, we conduct a decomposition exercise similar to Kaplan et al. (2018) and Auclert (2019). We simulate the model with only one aggregate variable responding to the monetary policy shock at a time—interest rates, income, or house prices—holding the others fixed. Higher interest rates alone reduce homeownership sharply by raising financing costs and tightening credit constraints. Income effects are small, as aggregate income responds only modestly. By contrast, falling house prices raise homeownership significantly, with a delayed but persistent effect. Thus, the medium-run rise in ownership after a monetary contraction is entirely due to the indirect effect of lower house prices.
Finally, we explore how non-monetary housing market features affect this response. We vary credit conditions by changing the tightness of borrowing constraints; we adjust mortgage structure by altering maturities and removing offset accounts; and we modify household expectations over future macroeconomic variables. In each case, the volatility of the homeownership response increases. This amplification occurs mainly through the interest rate channel, suggesting that institutional details around mortgage finance and credit regulation matter significantly for how monetary policy affects tenure choice.
Our results yield three key conclusions. First, monetary policy affects not only consumption and investment but also the composition of household tenure. Second, although a monetary contraction initially reduces homeownership, the resulting decline in house prices can increase ownership over the medium term. Third, institutional features of the mortgage market and household expectations formation amplify the homeownership response, particularly through the credit channel. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for tenure transitions and housing market institutions when evaluating the distributional consequences of monetary policy in economies like Australia, where housing plays a dominant role in household balance sheets.

Speaker: James Graham, University of Sydney
James Graham is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, specialising in Macroeconomics. His research focuses on housing markets, household behaviour, and cyclical fluctuations in the macroeconomy. He has incorporated both empirical analysis and quantitative macroeconomic modelling in studies of house prices, homeownership, credit conditions, household spending, neighbourhood choice, education, labour markets, and monetary and fiscal policies. His work speaks to both academic and policy audiences, with a recent focus on the challenges of housing affordability in Australia. James graduated with a PhD in Economics from New York University in 2020. Since then, he has published in leading academic economics journals, and he is currently the Editor of New Zealand Economic Papers. He previously worked at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and has held research internships at the Bank of England, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

The effects of stamp duty on home purchase, mobility and prices
Stamp duty is widely viewed as an inefficient housing tax, yet its precise effects remain contested. We examine a sharp increase in stamp duty for owner-occupiers in Queensland in 2011 using a natural experiment framework. Purchase volumes fell by 13% relative to other states and investor buyers, with two percentage points attributable to re-timed transactions. Household mobility declined by 10%. These effects are consistent across types of housing, price points, and moving distances. Strikingly, there was no impact on housing prices, suggesting equal effects on buying and selling incentives. Our findings offer robust evidence of the efficiency costs of stamp duty.

Speaker: Gianni La Cava, e61 Institute
Gianni La Cava is the Research Director at the e61 Institute. Gianni previously held several senior positions at the Reserve Bank of Australia, including establishing and leading a research team – Micro Analysis and Data (MAD) – dedicated to examining macroeconomic issues using microeconomic data. He also worked at the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. Gianni holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts/Commerce from the University of Sydney.

Housing, Income Inequality and Progressivity of Taxes and Transfers
We examine the implications of housing income for inequality and tax progressivity in Australia. Positioning lifetime Haig-Simons income as our benchmark, we argue that it is defensible to treat accrued capital gains from owner-occupied housing as income. We construct new measures of imputed rent and accrued capital gains for the HILDA Survey, covering 2001 to 2023. Our measure of accrued capital gains uses inflation-adjusted, hedonic price indices. Remarkably, total income from owner-occupied housing exceeded total disposable (cash) income in 2021; in some other years, it was negative. Our preferred capital gains measure smooths these fluctuations while still capturing heterogeneity in the timing and location of home purchases and sales. Average income of outright home owners is 34% higher than for renters, but 86% higher when housing income is included. Housing income has major implications for both the level of income inequality and its trend, as well as the demographic profile of the rich and the poor. When imputed rent and accrued capital gains—neither of which are taxed—are included in the income base, measured income tax progressivity is reduced by 40%. The progressivity of government transfers is also reduced, by 16%, since housing is exempt from welfare means testing.

Speaker: Peter Siminski, University of Technology Sydney
Peter Siminski is a Professor of Economics at UTS. His research is in applied microeconomics and microeconometrics in the fields of inequality and economic mobility, education, health, labour and public economics. Much of his work applies modern impact evaluation techniques to estimate the causal effects of Australian government policies and programs on people’s lives. The measurement of inequality and intergenerational economic mobility is a key theme of his work, and the topic of a new ARC Discovery Grant held with Roger Wilkins, Nathan Deutscher and Bhash Mazumder. He has published in leading journals such as the American Economic Review, AEJ: Applied Economics, the Journal of Labor Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. He is Co-Editor of the Economic Record.

Trump Tariffs and International Trade

Trade and tariffs – adapting to a new system
Liberation day tariffs have accentuated a steady rise in protectionist policies over the last decade. In this presentation, Professor Adnan Khan, will share his global economic outlook in light of such policies and assess their impacts in today’s dynamic and increasingly uncertain world. With potential for US tariffs and wider protectionist measures to reshape the global trading system, the presentation will explore the adaptation strategies for proponents of the rules-based system.

Prof Adnan Khan, FCDO Chief Economist and Director of Analysis
Professor Adnan Khan is the Chief Economist and Director of Analysis Directorate in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). He is seconded from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he is Professor in the School of Public Policy.
Adnan has focused his career on advancing the understanding of development economics, political economy, entrepreneurship, and public sector reform. He has taught courses at the London School of Economics on development economics, public organisations, and political economy. He has taught at Harvard Kennedy School and has also been an Academic Director at the School of Public Policy.
Adnan has used real-time, cutting-edge analytical work that feeds directly into policy. He has also applied frontier research on real-world questions conducted through collaboration with policy partners to achieve policy and academic impact.
Adnan co-chaired LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development. He continued to work on the theme of fragile states through the follow-up Reducing Fragilities Initiative. He has published in journals on issues such as promoting value-for-money in public procurement, building state capacity by motivating civil servants to perform better, and on promoting entrepreneurship and social protection.
Adnan served as Research and Policy Director at the International Growth Centre (IGC) at the LSE. He led research and policy initiatives aimed at promoting economic growth through policymaker-researcher collaboration and by generating ideas based on frontier research on important drivers of economic growth.
Adnan has spent more than a decade in policy roles in different capacities and in various government departments. He originally trained as an engineer but moved to public policy and economics, studying at Harvard Kennedy School and Queen’s University.

Why Trump’s Tariffs Are Better Than You Think—And Much Worse
Donald Trump is wrong that foreigners will pay his tariffs. But he’s not all wrong. When large countries trade, they move prices. And that means foreigners do effectively pay some of their tariffs. Economists have known about the so-called ‘optimal tariff’ argument since at least an 1844 essay by John Stuart Mill. The terms of trade effect means that, for a large country, a moderate tariff could be welfare-enhancing under certain conditions, even after retaliation from other countries. However, any net benefit to the large country would come at the cost of longer-term damage, such as disrupted supply chains and reduced trust in international agreements with it. So even if the United States could win a trade war, it would likely regret it over the long run. This presentation reviews the theory and evidence regarding optimal tariffs and trade wars and applies them in the current context.

Gene Tunny, Adept Economics
Gene Tunny is a Senior Associate at Lateral Economics and Director of Adept Economics. Gene is an Adjunct Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and an Adjunct Lecturer in economics at Griffith University. Since June 2024, Gene has been the President of the Queensland branch of the Economic Society of Australia. He is a former Australian Treasury official.

Tariffs, Myths and the Big Picture. “Making America Great Again”
The refocussing of US tariff policy under President Trump is potentially the most important shift in “world economic” policy in the last three quarters of a century. We discuss how US and world economic outcomes generated this tectonic shift, the policy relationships to basic economic theory, empirical research and “big picture” facts and myths in the US and other economies.

Prof Bob Gregory, ANU
Bob is Professor Emeritus (ANU), ex Board member Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Science and Technology Council. He held the Chair of Australian Studies, Harvard, 1983-84,. He has been President of the Economic Society of Australia (1996-1999), Editor of the Economic Record and was awarded the Economic Society Distinguished Fellow Award (2001). Previous academic appointments include University of Melbourne, London School of Economics, Australian National University, Northwestern University, and visiting positions at The Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, Washington, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. He was Head of the Economics Department, RSSS, ANU, 1986-2006. His research interests include international trade, labour economics, income support systems.

Dr Rob Bray, ANU
Rob Bray has been a research fellow at POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research, at the Australian National University since 2010. This follows a long public service career with a focus on the interaction of economic and social policies, culminating in the award of a Public Service Medal recognising his role as a policy analyst and researcher. At the ANU he has been involved in major research and evaluation projects including childcare, employment services and conditional welfare. His 2018 PhD considered the evolution of the Australian minimum wage and family support from the Harvester Decision to today.

History and Role of Indigenous Economic History

Chair: Prof Hugh Harley, University of Sydney

Our overall objective is to place the current situation of indigenous Australians in long-term historical context, and to provide a balanced view of the current situation and potential paths forward. The importance of trust-building will be an important theme.

Professor Boyd Hunter will set the scene with a long-run historical narrative, including 60000 years of demography and the impact of colonisation. A particular focus will be a discussion on what economics can contribute to understanding this long journey.

Professor Dennis Foley will give a more contemporaneous perspective on the current state of play for indigenous Australia, including sharing his expertise in indigenous business enterprises.

Professor Stefanie Schurer will conclude with by exploring her research on using advanced quantitative techniques to understand the successes and pitfalls of policy interventions directed at indigenous Australians, with a particular emphasis on the importance of trust and trust-building.

The session will conclude with Q+A.

Indigenous Economic History and Demography

Speaker: Professor Boyd Hunter, ANU
Boyd Hunter is an Emeritus Professor associated with the Centre for Social Research and Methods, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He has been President of the Australian Society of Labour Economics and isa Fellow of IZA. Boyd has been the Managing Editor and Editor of the Australian Journal of Labour Economics and the Australian Journal of Social Issues. His main area of research and teaching involve the economic history of ‘The Indigenous Economy’ and the implications for contemporaneous social and economic policy. In addition to his extensive engagement with labour economics and social policies debates, he has considerable expertise in econometrics, economic history, geography, poverty studies, survey design and analysis, and Indigenous economic policy. He conducted the first longitudinal analysis of Indigenous jobseekers. He has worked with Indigenous researchers on numerous projects including the recently concluded, ‘Making Indigenous-Friendly Businesses’. Boyd is currently working on an ARC Discovery Project (DP220101336)), ‘Historical frontier violence: drivers, legacy and the role of truth-telling’, where he works to estimate the spatial distribution of Indigenous population prior to colonisation, and to ultimately facilitate the analysis of the effect of historical frontier violence on contemporaneous social and economic outcomes

Current Perspective on Indigenous Australia

Speaker: Professor Dennis Foley, University of Canberra
Dennis Foley is from the Cammeraigal clan, of the Gai-mariagal first nations peoples of Sydney. He has lived and worked around Australia, Hawaii, the Pacific and Aotearoa. Several years were spent in Vietnam, and adjoining countries. Employment has been eclectic from National Parks law enforcement to Corporate Banking, Tourism Management to a multidisciplined academic.

Academically he helped establish the research area that is Indigenous Entrepreneurship. He has researched and taught extensively in Australia, Ireland, Aotearoa, and Hawaii. Professor Foley is a Fulbright Scholar and dual Endeavour Fellow. His publications focus on social inclusion and the Indigenous cross disciples including Literature, History, Business Management (Entrepreneurship) land use/resource management, tourism, including the discipline of education understanding Indigenous Epistemology and Pedagogies.

Using data to improve policy and trust outcomes

Speaker: Professor Stefanie Schurer, University of Sydney
Stefanie Schurer is a Professor of Economics in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney. She has produced a program of research on lifecycle dynamics of inequality in health, non-cognitive skills, and economic preferences. In recent years, she has shifted her focus of attention to the question of whether and how public policy should deal with alleged problem behaviours that have negative externalities for families and the community. She is particularly interested in the cost and benefits of paternalism in decision-making. In her research, she uses linked administrative, cohort and longitudinal survey data, in combination with solid causal identification strategies (where possible). Prof Schurer is a chief investigator on several (sensitive) linked administrative data projects in Australia, which she has used to study the consequences of Australia’s most paternalistic policies for (Indigenous) children. Professor Schurer has been deeply engaged with Indigenous researchers and research on Indigenous children in the past years. She leads the NHMRC-funded Against the Odds: Indigenous Youth Wellbeing project, has led multiple evaluations on the impact of the Northern Territory’s controversial income management and alcohol restriction policies, is a co-investigator on multiple evaluations of the NSW child protection system where Indigenous children are heavily over-represented. She is the secretary and board member of the international Association for Economic Research of Indigenous Peoples, and a member of the Charles Perkins Centre’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Steering Committee. Since 2020, she is also a member of the National Economic Panel of the Economic Society of Australia. In 2021, she was awarded the Economic Society of Australia’s Young Economist of the Year award and the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Teaching and Research. She is a co-Editor of Labour Economics, a leading international, peer reviewed journal for cutting-edge policy evaluations in the context of labour economics and related fields. At University of Sydney she teaches modern policy evaluation methods and is currently the program director of the School of Economics’ prestigious Honours program.

Celebrating Women Economists in the Past 100 Years

This session honours the contributions of women economists who have shaped the discipline over the past century in Australia — across academia, public policy, and industry. Speakers will reflect on the legacies of pioneering figures, highlight ongoing challenges, and discuss the progress made in fostering a more inclusive economics profession. The session aims to inspire the next generation by showcasing the impact and leadership of women in economics, both past and present.

Speaker: Professor Deborah Cobb-Clark, University of Sydney
Deborah Cobb-Clark AO FASSA is Professor and Deputy Head (Research) in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney. She is Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families Over the Life Course; an Officer of the Order of Australia; an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia; and a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia. She is passionate about preventing poor children from becoming poor adults. Her research centres on building psychological concepts (locus of control, self-control, risk attitudes) into economic models of family decision-making. She studies the way that poverty affects the attention (cognitive capacity) parents have available; the role of depression, risk attitudes, and welfare receipt in risk-taking behaviour; the role of locus of control and self-control in human capital formation; and the link between parents’ self-control and children’s outcomes.

Speaker: Dr Luci Ellis, Chief Economist at Westpac Banking Group
Luci Ellis has been Westpac Group’s Chief Economist since October 2023. Prior to joining Westpac, Australia’s first bank, Luci held various senior positions over a three-decade career in central banking, including RBA Assistant Governor (Economic) 2017–2023, RBA Head of Financial Stability 2008–2017 and stints at the Bank of International Settlements and the European Central Bank. She has a PhD from UNSW, a Masters in Economics from ANU and a B.Com (Hons) degree from University of Melbourne. Luci has been a member of the Australian Statistical Advisory Council since 2015 and is a member of the Melbourne Institute Advisory Board.

Speaker: Dr Jenny Gordon, Non-resident Fellow at the Lowy Institute and Honorary Professor at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University
Dr Jenny Gordon is a Honorary Professor at POLIS: the Centre for Social Policy Research at the Australian National University. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute, one of Australia’s leading think tanks on foreign policy. Jenny serves on the Asian Development Bank Institute’s (ADBI) Advisory Committee, and is a non-executive director for NCEconomics, part of the Alluvium Group. In 2024 Jenny was a visiting fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School at Harvard University and at Blavatnik School of Government and Business at Oxford University. Jenny was a member of the Australian International Agricultural Research Centre’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisory Panel from 2020 to 2024, and in 2023 she served as a co-chair for the Taskforce on Peace, Stability and Governance for the T7, organised by the ADBI. Jenny was the Chief Economist at DFAT from 2019 to 2021, joining DFAT from Nous Group, where she was the Chief Economist. Jenny spent 10 years with the Australian Productivity Commission as Principal Adviser (Research) from 2008. From 1995 to 2008 worked at The Centre for International Economics (TheCIE), becoming a pattern in 2002. She has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and started her professional career at the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Policies to support Australia’s superpower opportunity

Presentations and discussion in this session will include:

• Australia’s comparative advantage in a decarbonising world, and its ‘superpower’ green export opportunities;
• the Australian and international implications of superpower exports — economic and environmental;
• the macroeconomic implications of policies for decarbonising the Australian economy and supporting superpower exports; and
• a closer look at green iron as a potential superpower industry.

Australia’s comparative advantage in renewable energy
Decarbonisation will bring large shifts in the global energy trade. Current trade patterns, such as Japan and Korea importing around 90 percent of their energy, reflect the low costs of transporting fossil fuels. Zero-carbon energy is, unfortunately, extremely expensive to move over long distances. This will drive major structural change.

The new energy trade will be in embedded energy—a trade in energy-intensive products such as steel and aluminium. Energy-intensive industries will relocate to countries with abundant cheap renewables, while poorly endowed countries will be importers. Like the fossil fuel trade, this trade will moderate cross-country differences in energy prices.

This analysis explores the implications for Australia through five prospective partners in the green trade: China, India, Japan, Korea, and Germany. It addresses the following questions:
1. How large will electricity demand be in these countries by mid-century?
2. Can these countries meet demand with cheap domestic clean energy, or will there be shortfalls?
3. How much can importing embedded energy from Australia alleviate these countries’ shortfalls?
4. What are the economic and decarbonisation impacts of the trade for Australia and the world?

Demand is assessed with detailed models of country electrification. Potential supply is assessed via detailed analysis of competing technologies and countries’ renewable resource quality.

The analysis finds that existing research underestimates Australia’s comparative advantage in clean energy, supporting Prof. Ross Garnaut’s view that Australia can play an outsized role in global decarbonisation and development.

Speaker: Dr Reuben Finighan
Reuben holds a PhD in Political Economy from the London School of Economics and a Masters of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, as a Fulbright, Frank Knox, John Monash, and Leverhulme scholar. He has co-authored papers with Harvard Professor Robert Putnam, Ross Garnaut AC, and Lord Nicholas Stern, and previously worked at the University of Melbourne in applied economics and as Chief Economist for the Universal Commons.

Policies to correct market failures and to harness Australia’s comparative advantage in green iron exports
This research addresses the question, ‘what investments and policies does Australia need to export green iron?’

It is motivated by the work of Dr. Finighan, which makes a compelling case for Australia’s long-term comparative advantage as a supplier of zero-carbon energy-intensive exports. This research elaborates by demonstrating how Australia can produce green iron at an industrial scale.

Ingrid will present the findings of a sophisticated dynamic optimisation model, with hourly data on variable renewable energy in five locations, and demonstrate how an ‘inflexible’ and ‘flexible’ green iron-making technology can produce green iron. The dynamic model shows how emerging, flexible green iron technologies are likely to deliver lower-cost green iron: they can capitalise on variation on electricity prices in the market by reducing production and selling electricity at high prices, and make the most of low prices to produce and store green hydrogen.

Ingrid will share a number of analytical insights from the model, including the way that market failures push up the cost of green iron.
● There is no system of international carbon prices, which contributes to the significant cost gap between green iron and carbon-intensive iron. In the absence of an international carbon price, there is a role for second-best hydrogen and green energy subsidies.
● Early producers of green iron incur higher costs, but create valuable knowledge that benefits later producers. Because private producers cannot capture these benefits, there is a role for government innovation support in sectors where Australia has a comparative advantage.
● Common-user infrastructure with monopoly characteristics will not be provided at an efficient scale by private investors. There is a case for government investment in energy transmission, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen transport.

The model demonstrates how policies can help address these market failures, and Ingrid will discuss the importance of shared economic research with trading partners as a basis for creating international demand for Australian green iron.

This research fills a gap in other research into green iron production, which has not modelled flexible iron-making technology and its advantages, and our policy recommendations are firmly grounded in the economics of market failure.

Speaker: Dr Ingrid Burfurd
Ingrid has a PhD in Economics from the University of Melbourne, and has worked in the public service, academia, and the not-for-profit sector. She was a Senior Associate at the Grattan Institute, a Lecturer at RMIT University, and a Senior Economist in the Victorian Public Service. She served as a Senior Expert Advisor on the UNFCCC’s review of the Clean Development Mechanism. Ingrid’s research has been published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the Journal of the Economic Science Association, Experimental Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Environmental Research Letters, and the Australian Economic Review.

Carbon pricing when an emissions trading scheme is off the table
Australia has a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but current policies will not get us there. A tax on carbon, or an equivalent price based on an emissions trading scheme, is the most efficient way to achieve net zero. But these policies are off the table.

This research addresses the question, ‘what policies raise revenue and reduce emissions when an efficient carbon carbon tax is not an option?’ and it is motivated by the twin goals of reducing emissions and macroeconomic stability.

Philip will present the results of three policy proposals, derived from CoPS’ CGE model of the Australian economy: a domestic tax on fossil fuels at the source, a regional tax on fossil fuels, and a cash-flow tax applied to fossil fuel producers.
Results include the effect on government revenues, consumption, investment, exports, and GDP. This research is the first comprehensive effort to model the effect of these tax proposals, which can smooth the path to the broad-based emissions trading scheme Australia needs.

Speaker: Professor Philip Adams
Philip is Professor and past-Director at the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS), now at Victoria University and previously Monash University (2004-2013). Philip was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2016 and was awarded the GTAP Research Fellow distinction for the term of 2016 to 2019. He holds a Masters Degree and a Ph.D., both in economics, from the University of Melbourne.

History and Role of Economic Society of Australia

Chair: Prof Hugh Harley, University of Sydney

This special session explores the two centeneries which ACE 2025 marks: the Economic Society of Australia and the Economic Record were both established in 1925.

Dr. Alex Millmow will explore the trials and tribulations of the Economic Society of Australia. The Society’s original aims of promoting economic education remains the same, so too does its loose, federated structure and non-exclusivity. The Society’s greatest years in terms of influence were the 1970s and 1980s with membership approaching 3000. The 1990s posed an existential challenge with the rise of business education and the creation of competitive think-tanks. However, the Society responded to the decline in membership by launching initiatives to bring young professionals and women into the fold.

Professor Jose Merigo will apply bibiometric analysis and tools to provide retrospective insight into the content and impact of the Economic Record, exploring questions such as:

• What is the current standing of the Economic Record?
• What has been most cited? How are those citations connected?
• Who (author, institution, country) has been most impactful? How do those leading contributors connect?
• What do key words and topics tell us about the Record?

The session will conclude with a substantial Q+A period.

An Evolving Record: A Centennial History of the Economic Society of Australia

Speaker: Dr Alex Millmow, Federation University
Dr. Alex Millmow was an associate professor in economics at the School of Business at Federation University Australia over the period 2010 until 2019. He is now an honorary research adjunct fellow at Federation University, Australia. Alex’s research interests include the making of the Australian economic profession and the role of economic ideas in steering public policy. In 2004 he completed his doctorate at the Australian National University on ‘The Power of Economic Ideas: The Rise of Macroeconomic Management in Australia’ which was subsequently published. Alex has also published over 50 journal articles Including the Economic Record, Economic Papers, Economic Analysis and Policy and the History of Economics Review. He is the current President of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia (HETSA) and the President of the Victorian branch of the Economic Society of Australia. In 2017 he published A History of Australasian Economic Thought (Routledge: London) and in 2020 an intellectual biography of the Anglo Australian economist Colin Clark entitled The Gypsy Economist.

Centennial anniversary of the Economic Record: A bibliometric retrospective

Speaker: Professor Jose Merigo, University of Technology Sydney
José M. Merigó is a Professor at the School of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Before joining UTS, he was a Full Professor at the Department of Management Control and Information Systems at the University of Chile. Previously, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester (UK) and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Administration at the University of Barcelona (Spain). He has published more than 500 articles on journals, books and conference proceedings. Since 2015 he is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics (Thomson & Reuters) in Computer Science (2015-2020) and Cross-Field (2021-present). He has also appeared in many other international rankings including the Standford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List, Research.com, ScholarGPS, and AD Scientific Index.

Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform

A better tax and transfer system for Australia

Speaker: Prof Ben Philips, ANU

Does independent scrutiny of government spending proposals improve fiscal outcomes?
Does independent scrutiny and verification make a difference to fiscal outcomes? The last NSW election, when the independent Parliamentary Budget Office costed more than 900 policy proposals for the government and opposition, suggests it does. The correlation appears weaker in the Commonwealth and especially in the state of Victoria, both of which have a PBO. Institutional design differs between these jurisdiction, and may account for the different outcomes. A compounding factor however is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which changed the attitudes of governments to fiscal sustainability and lessened their preparedness to consider intergenerational implications of public sector debt. An institutional economics perspective considers how changes to the “rules of the game” affect fiscal policy in Australia, with a particular focus on jurisdictions with an independent fiscal institution.

Speaker: Stephen Bartos, University of Canberra
Stephen is a Professor at the University of Canberra, specialising in economics, public finance and public administration. He was previously Parliamentary Budget Officer for NSW, and earlier was the Deputy Secretary and head of Budget group in the Commonwealth Department of Finance. He also has experience in consulting and as a senior adviser to the Royal Commission on Aged Care. Stephen is widely published in news media and both academic and popular journals. He is author of two books – Against the Grain: the AWB Scandal and why it Happened (UNSW Press) and Public Sector Governance – Australia (CCH).

“Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform: Where are we headed?”
In this presentation, Breunig will explore the current state and future direction of tax reform in Australia. He begins by emphasizing why tax reform matters—highlighting national challenges such as climate change, declining productivity, fiscal sustainability concerns, rising inequality (particularly intergenerational), and the complications of Australia’s federal system. Breunig advocates for a comprehensive tax system overhaul, ideally led by a bipartisan coalition and an international expert. He will also discuss practical, doable reforms that government might consider and pitfalls that government should definitely avoid.

Speaker: Robert Breunig, ANU
Robert Breunig is the director of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Crawford School of Public Policy. From 2015 to 2016 he was the Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy.

Professor Breunig is one of Australia’s leading Public Policy Economists. He has published in over 75 international academic journals in economics and public policy. Professor Breunig has made significant policy impact through a number of his research projects: the relationship between child care and women’s labour supply; the effect of immigration to Australia on the labour market prospects of Australians; the effect of switching to cash from food stamps in the U.S. food stamp program and the inter-generational transmission of disadvantage.

Professor Breunig’s research is motivated by important social policy issues and debates. His work is characterized by careful empirical study and appropriate use of statistical technique.

Professor Breunig’s research agenda has led to many partnerships with government organizations in Australia and overseas. He works regularly with the Australian Treasury, the Department of Employment, the Department of Education, the Department of Industry, the Department of Communication and the Arts, the Productivity Commission, the Australian Bureau of Statistics as well as many other agencies. He has been a consultant to the private sector on marketing, mergers, bank competition and customer loyalty programs.

Robert Breunig particularly enjoys interaction outside of typical academic circles and takes pleasure in helping those who don’t usually use economics or statistical analysis to better understand and make use of these tools in their work. He has an extensive track record of helping the Australian public service to build research capacity which he views as a particularly important activity.

Inequality

Facilitator: Prof Alison Preston, The University of Western Australia

Income and wealth inequality
Income inequality and wealth inequality have been rising slightly over time, from levels that are fairly average among OECD countries. However, these outcomes in inequality need to be viewed in light of Australia’s social mobility, which is one of the highest in the world.

Speaker: Catherine De Fontenay, Productivity Commission
Catherine de Fontenay is a Commissioner at the Productivity Commission. At the Commission she has led work on inequality and mobility, youth job prospects and youth incomes, and a number of research projects into the care economy, among others. Previously she was an Associate Professor of Economics at the Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne. Her research has been published in a number of international journals, including the American Economic Review, the RAND Journal of Economics, and the Journal of Industrial Economics.

Roger Wilkins, University of Melbourne
Victoria Baranov, University of Melbourne