Economics

By James Laurenceson

Note: This article appeared in East Asia Forum on October 11 2017.

1. Total foreign ownership of Australian agricultural land in terms of area (hectares) fell from 14.1 percent at 30 June 2016 to 13.6 percent at 30 June 2017.[1]

2. More than 99 percent of agricultural businesses nationwide are wholly Australian-owned. Wholly Australian-owned businesses also control 87 percent of agricultural water entitlements.[2]

The Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) welcomed John Mathews, a leading scholar on the greening of capitalism and the role that China and East Asian countries are playing in this process. Professor Mathews was joined by Professor Bruce McKern to discuss renewables, the transition to renewable energies in China and the institutional changes needed to provide industrial capitalism with long-term sustainability. Professor Mathews currently holds a Chair in Strategic Management at Macquarie Graduate School of Management.

By James Laurenceson

Note: This article was originally published in the United States Studies Centre's Debate Papers series, which includes 'The case for the US' by Jared Mondschein.

Ask the average Australian whether China or the US is Australia’s most important economic partner and you’ll likely get a bewildered look – it’s China, of course.

The cause of a Chinese hard landing could be external, such as a trade war launched by the Trump Administration. Alternatively it could be internal, such as a debt meltdown in the shadow banking system. In April a Deloitte report provided detailed insights around a scenario in which China’s GDP growth slowed from a targeted 6.5 percent this year to less than three percent.[1]  Even with the Australian dollar depreciating and the Reserve Bank of Australia cutting interest rates, the forecasts remain sobering. 

Making efforts to establish Chinese natural gas prices, China has built up two gas exchanges while opening its gas markets step by step. In view of this, this paper first studies and summarises the successful experiences of developing European gas trading hubs in the following aspects: 1. necessary conditions like market liberalization, competitive market, non-discriminatory third-party access to pipeline, regulations and reforms on the dominant market players, etc.; 2. natural conditions like domestic production, trade traditions, diversified supply, market surplus, etc.; and 3.

On August 18 2017, the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) hosted a roundtable on recent developments in China's economy.

By James Laurenceson

Note: This article appeared in The Australian Financial Review on August 17 2017.

The Australian public is lukewarm in its overall support of foreign investment. However, its contribution to local employment is widely regarded positively. This is particularly important at a time when Australia’s labour market is softening and wages are growing at their slowest pace on record. This paper conservatively puts Australian employment currently supported by foreign investment at around 1.9 million, or one in six of all jobs.

Subsidising energy has been widely used but is economically unfavourable. The Malaysian government has shown strong intention to reduce energy subsidies recently, but faces challenges to prepare policy instruments to manage the impact. This study develops a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model with breakdown of households by income level to evaluate the potential impacts of removing energy subsidies on the Malaysian economy. It is shown that removing petroleum and gas subsidy would improve economic efficiency and increase GDP up to 0.65%.