Australian trade, investment & economy

Chinese bank an asset on balance
Commentary
Chinese bank an asset on balance
Chinese bank an asset on balanceLinda JakobsonThe Australian17 March 2015 Linda Jakobson
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the rise of regionalism
Should Australia join the Chinese-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)? As often happens in international affairs, the answer is not found in the technical pros…
Negative interest rates: We are flying blind
We live in strange economic times. Depositors in Denmark are paying interest to their banks and borrowers are being paid when they take out a loan. The basic principles of finance…
Julie Bishop goes to Tehran
To everyone's surprise, it was announced on Monday that Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop intends to travel to Tehran in April 2015. The visit isn't about the nuclear…
Does it matter if Australia is no longer among the top 20 largest economies?
A recent report by PwC, The World in 2050, suggests that Australia could slip from 19th largest economy in the world in 2014 to 28th in 2050. The report comes from the UK and…
A currency war would be no bad thing
The European Central Bank has finally begun to engage in quantitative easing. The euro depreciated on the news, which is good for the Europeans but bad for the rest of the world,…
Do multinational corporations pay all the tax they should?
Is this a silly question to ask, given the reported low taxes paid by Google, Apple, Yahoo, Starbucks and others? The G20 and OECD think there is a major problem and have launched…
Australia is not meeting its IEA oil reserve targets
The plunge in the global oil price is a hot topic. Between June 2014 and January 2015, the price of crude has dropped by 57%. Most of the attention has been on the boon for…
Murray Report: Capital levels a domestic concern, not international
One of the most striking aspects of the final report from the Australian Financial System Inquiry (AFSI), chaired by David Murray, is the proposal that the future capital…
Why Peter Thiel is wrong about monopolies
A few weeks ago Sam Roggeveen quoted PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who argued that competition is over-rated and monopoly would enhance innovation. We shouldn't be surprised that…