The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Australia's perturbing productivity puzzle

RBS's Kieran Davies and Felicity Emmett have produced some great analysis of Australia's recently dismal productivity performance. They comment:

"Australia’s strong productivity performance has evaporated over recent years. Average productivity growth over the past decade is the lowest in the post-WW2 period and Australia has slipped down the global productivity rankings. Labour productivity has actually stalled over the past six years of the resources boom, while multifactor productivity, which is a broader, more comprehensive measure of productivity, has declined."



at 9:32 PM