Latest Posts
Voting for children
Michael Duffy, in the SMH last week (although it seems to have disappeared from their website), mentioned in passing how many issues seemed to be setting the older generation against the younger – global warming, the aged pension, housing policy, even economic policy – the interests of the older generationContinue Reading
Productivity gains from niceness
I’ve long had a theory that psychological bullies in the workplace have a real productivity cost. And wandering the McKinsey site looking for something else, I found an article that suggests they do. The article seriously suggests that you calculate the “total cost of jerks” in your workplace – ifContinue Reading
Senate voting
I’ve always been one of the 4% of voters (Antony Green) who voted “below the line” in the Senate*. Every person who admits to sharing this obscure habit always comes back to one reason, “I wanted to vote [XXX] last”. So this year, with the release of the Senate ballotContinue Reading
Maternity Leave – the economics
Paul Frijters at Club Troppo has a post up about maternity leave – a disucssion of the recent policy announcement from the Greens and the Democrats to guarantee 14 weeks of maternity leave (at minimum wage) and the pros and cons from an economic perspective. I commented there that IContinue Reading
Effects of Diversity on performance
I recently read two, at least superficially contradictory, pieces of research on whether gender diversity improves performance. The first (abstract here), reported in the International Herald Tribune, studied performances of mutual funds managed by different combinations of men and women. The all male and all female teams did about theContinue Reading
Improving education
There’s an interesting article in a recent Economist about some McKinsey research on improving school performance. I couldn’t find the original McKinsey research (presumably they charge governments a lot of money for it), but even the bits summarised in the Economist are different from most of what you will read aboutContinue Reading
Pork barrelling
I live in the electorate of North Sydney, a very safe Liberal seat on Sydney’s North Shore (10% swing required for Labor to win). It has been held by Independents in the past (the legendary Ted Mack), but there isn’t one around at the moment with the right level ofContinue Reading
Book Review: John Curtin, A great leader
An alcoholic, manic-depressive, plagued with self doubt, he spent all but three years of his working life working for the unions before being elected to parliament. Alternatively, the man regarded by many as Australia’s greatest leader – wartime Prime Minister John Curtin. After watching the miniseries Curtin six months ago,Continue Reading
Celebrity
Tonight, I got the chance to see Al Gore speak live. He was spruiking his investment company, Generation _, which is being launched (via a platform) to retail investors in Australia. I’m not usually seduced by celebrity, but this felt like an opportunity you don’t get every day. I readContinue Reading
Books I’m reading
I’ve put up a new page on the books I’ve read this year – since I seemed to have lost the ability to actually do a proper review of them. I’ll add to it from time to time.Continue Reading