Harry Clarke

I am taking a break as I assume a position as Visiting Professor of Economics at Peking University, Beijing, China. I am teaching a course there on ‘Environmental and Natural Resource Economics’.

This is almost certainly among the best of the universities in China. The students there are selected as the best in China and they [...]

A guest post by DavidP

Julia Gillard probably knows Shakespeare’s story of Macbeth. It was a standard high school text in English during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Noble lord, ambition stoked by witches’ prophesies, murders his king, turns into a bloody tyrant, and then himself is killed on the battlefield by his successors. And, if [...]

Draft of a paper in preparation for presentation in China later this year. Comments welcome. The gist is that efficient global climate agreements won’t plausibly be implemented because of current global imbalances.   This means cooperative responses are more difficult and hinge on unilateral penalty devices such as border tax impositions.  Of course developed countries should take steps to reduce their indebtedness so that they can perform a more responsible role in managing the global commons.

The possibility that the developing regions of the world would achieve the economic living standards of developed countries was once disputed on the grounds that many of them were trapped in a ‘vicious cycle of poverty’.  The switch of most developing economies to market-based systems and their consequent strong economic success has shown that this earlier assessment is overly pessimistic.  For example the success of China in taking hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty in about forty years, using market reforms, is a momentous event in world history.  At the same time unbridled reliance on markets has damaged the economic prospects of countries that developed strongly in earlier years.  The case for limiting the extent of market liberalization – particularly in the financial sectors – in these economies is an urgent concern. Continue reading Rising & falling stars: Economic imbalances & global environmental problems

The recent deaths of two Australian soldiers in Afghanistan is a tragedy for their families and loved ones and, most of all for the two young men who lost their lives.   The irresponsible and insensitively-timed subsequent call by Bob Brown for Australian troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan is, however, an insult to the memories of these [...]

I have been reading through sections of the weighty (in thought and mass) Henry Tax Review: See here.  This tome has had only a few immediate political impacts but it will help drive debate on tax reform for decades.  My interest is the transport sector for which I co-wrote a consultancy for the review with David Prentice.  The natural focus for a consultant here is the extent to which the final report of the review (hereafter, the Review) is consistent with the ideas in our contribution and, ultimately, the extent to which government policy might change policy in a way that is consistent with our arguments.  It is too much to hope for clear evidence of a direct influence here since many of the arguments we put forward would be accepted by almost all economists.  There are a few areas where the Review did not endorse our arguments and many where the Review improved quite a bit on the style and clarity of argument.  The Review is a clear, well-written report that deserves to be discussed, argued about and taken seriously. Continue reading Henry Review on reform of transport taxes & charges – rough notes

Read about this here.

Earlier I endorsed a NPHS proposal for a 17.5 cent per stick increase in tobacco taxes.  The earlier report by the National Preventative Health Strategy is here.   My computation was that between 122,000-245,000 of Australia’s 2.8 million smokers would quit on account of that proposal – this involved a 72% increase in tax from 24.3 cents to 41.8 cents. .

The current Rudd Government proposal is for a 25% increase in the tax which about one-third of the NHS proposal.  My educated guess is that the number of quits on the basis of this proposal would be from 40,000-80,000 which is somewhat less than the Cancer Council’s estate of 100,000.  Of course the change is very welcome and the 100,000 figure might be more reasonable when the ‘plain packaging’ rule and extra funding for quit campaigns comes into being. Continue reading Elasticity & merchant-of-death ‘scream tests’ for assessing the new anti-smoking measures

  “Transparency in China: Implications for the Environment and Climate Change” by Barbara Finamore of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) China Program outlines the use of transparency as an environmental policy in China.   I assume the U.S. has particular interest in these issues given the stumbling block of verifiability at Copenhagen. The following summarizes Finamore’s  discussion. Continue reading An instrument for improving the Chinese environment: transparency

I am interested in local indigenous foods.

Recently I bought the A.B and J.W. Cribb book Wild Food in Australia (1975) at a second-hand market for $7.  This is mainly concerned with edible indigenous (and a few introduced) plants and it deals briefly with some local produce for carnivores.  It’s a joy to read.  While living off the land is a romantic dream the possibility of eating our flora and fauna provides one additional basis for conserving and appreciating them.  The use of traditional foods is also a fascinating part of sustainable aboriginal communities in Australia and also an important part of the survival skills of the early explorers.  King survived by eating the Nardoo, on the basis of sound aboriginal instructions, while Burke and Wills perished because they ignored these instructions. But Australian natural foods have not been refined into the selective introduced cultivars that we mainly consume.  Moreover, they have probably missed this particular boat.

There are quite a few native fruits that are good eating and a much larger range that can be turned into jams and jellies. The Midjin is a delectable small fruit growing in Queensland and NSW that was once a major source of food for aborigines.  The Ooray (Davidson’s Plum) and the Native Tamarinds have acid fruit – I like these flavors – but if you find such flavors unattractive they make excellent jams and jellies. Both are also attractive garden trees although the Tamarinds can become very large. The giant stinging trees of northern Australia can produce serious wounds if your skin contacts them but produce highly edible fruit.  The Eugenia’s (Lillypillys) are present in many suburban gardens and, yes, you can eat or jam those vividly purple fruits.  Some of the native figs are not bad though they might give you a dose of the trots. I didn’t know that there is a banana native to Australia or a native raspberry – apparently they are not much competition for commercial products.  On the other hand sometimes you see Quandong in your local greengrocer. And of course the macadamia – an Australian native – is one of the tastiest of the world’s nuts. Continue reading Bush tucker books