Opinion & Commentary by Author

1. Seizing a Sino free trade moment

   Stephen Kirchner | 16 Jul 2013 | Business Spectator

   Australia’s regulation of foreign direct investment is a critical stumbling block in a free trade agreement with China.

2. Why tax-free imports are a retail red herring

   Stephen Kirchner | 24 Jun 2013 | Business Spectator

   Retailers would be better served lobbying government for policies other than raising inefficient taxes on low value imports.

3. Dumping on free trade

   Stephen Kirchner | 13 Jun 2013 | ON LINE Opinion

   Australia’s anti-dumping system will continue to serve the interests of a small number of Australian producers at the expense... Read More

4. Stamp out the anti-dumping dinosaur laws

   Stephen Kirchner | 05 Jun 2013 | Business Spectator

   Australia’s economic welfare is enhanced as a result of ‘dumping’ by foreign producers.

5. Why a forex foray could burn the Reserve

   Stephen Kirchner | 18 Apr 2013 | The Business Spectator

   With the Australian dollar trade-weighted index recently around 28-year highs, there have been calls for official intervention... Read More

6. Increasing the super contribution rate is a second-rate solution

   Stephen Kirchner | 08 Jan 2013 | The Conversation

   It is timely to re-examine the economic case for compulsory superannuation.

7. Better ideas than raising super guarantee

   Stephen Kirchner | 28 Nov 2012 | Australian Financial Review

   Is compulsory super improving retirement incomes and reducing future demands on the budget from an ageing population?

8. The interest rate cut that wasn't

   Stephen Kirchner | 05 Nov 2012 | Business Spectator

   A central bank that fails to at least accommodate increased demand for money will find itself presiding over deflation.

9. Prime Minister, this Asian Century is so last century

   Stephen Kirchner | 30 Oct 2012 | The Australian

   We should revisit the unfinished economic reform agenda of the previous century before we consider the Asian Century white... Read More

10. The buck must not stop with the RBA

    Stephen Kirchner | 13 Aug 2012 | Business Spectator

    Intervention in the foreign exchange market to counter an appreciation in the Australian dollar is unlikely to be effective... Read More

11. Coalition tightening of foreign investment policy a step backwards

    Stephen Kirchner | 06 Aug 2012 | The Australian

    The Coalition had the right policy 24 years ago. It should commit to the repeal of the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers... Read More

12. Why the euro project must end

    Stephen Kirchner | 22 May 2012 | Business Spectator

    The most important lesson to emerge from the crisis in the eurozone has very little to do with fiscal policy.

13. Independent body needed to preserve integrity of fiscal forecasts

    Stephen Kirchner | 21 May 2012 | The Conversation

    Treasury has not gone wrong in its forecast for recovery, but in its expectations for the preceding downturn.

14. There are better ways to ensure State's future

    Stephen Kirchner | 21 May 2012 | The West Australian

    The WA Future Fund announced in the State Budget last week is based on two related but fundamentally flawed ideas.

15. How taxing housing diminishes affordability

    Stephen Kirchner | 18 Apr 2012 | The Conversation

    Australia’s under-supplied housing market and housing affordability problem is largely due to the tax burden on housing.

16. Murray's Future Fund brace is broken

    Stephen Kirchner | 23 Mar 2012 | Business Spectator

    David Murray's defence of the Future Fund can only inspire doubt about the ability of sovereign wealth funds to enhance Australia's... Read More

17. Why a sovereign wealth fund won't work

    Stephen Kirchner | 21 Feb 2012 | Business Spectator

    Many of the desirable objectives of a sovereign wealth fund could be achieved through greater use of enforceable fiscal policy... Read More

18. Future Funds or Future Eaters? The case against a Sovereign Wealth Fund for Australia

    Robert Carling, Stephen Kirchner | 20 Feb 2012 | The Conversation

    It has also been argued that Australia needs a SWF to better manage the macroeconomic consequences of the “terms of trade”... Read More

19. Give austerity a chance

    Robert Carling, Stephen Kirchner | 08 Feb 2012 | Australian Financial Review

    Fiscal policy should focus on micro-economic issues such as promoting incentives to save, work and invest, as well as ensuring... Read More

20. The Fightback! lesson: how politics can stymie good public policy

    Stephen Kirchner | 26 Dec 2011 | The Sydney Morning Herald

    Twenty years ago, the Liberal-National Party coalition released Fightback!, the most comprehensive and market-oriented policy... Read More

21. Time to revisit RBA board

    Stephen Kirchner | 07 Sep 2011 | The Australian Financial Review

    Union leaders would have you believe that the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia is beholden to the big end of town,... Read More

22. What our economists really think about politics

    Stephen Kirchner | 26 Jul 2011 | The Conversation

    You might have expected that most economists, following Milton Friedman, view inflation as “always and everywhere a monetary... Read More

23. Foreign investment will boost food security

    Stephen Kirchner | 02 Jul 2011 | The Australian Financial Review

    Foreigners acquiring Australian farm land appears to unite all political parties, we shouldn’t allow commercial decisions... Read More

24. Budget office helps pollies, not punters

    Stephen Kirchner | 20 May 2011 | ABC News

    The Parliamentary Budget Office should focus analysing overall fiscal strategy and long-term fiscal sustainability rather... Read More

25. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae: Guaranteed to fail?

    Stephen Kirchner | 17 May 2011 | The Conversation

    The failure of Lehman Brothers was a trivial event compared to the much bigger but largely ignored failure a week before,... Read More

26. Population growth makes us smarter, richer

    Stephen Kirchner | 04 May 2011 | The Newcastle Herald

    The economic significance of more people is not in the contribution made by their hands or their mouths but their minds.

27. Trimming to fit budget's reduced revenue

    Stephen Kirchner | 13 Apr 2011 | The Australian

    The expenditure review process leading up to the annual budget is rarely about making cuts to existing spending programs.... Read More

28. A failure of political leadership

    Stephen Kirchner | 11 Apr 2011 | The Straits Times

    Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan's rejection of Singapore Exchange's (SGX) bid for the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)... Read More

29. A forgotten financial failure

    Stephen Kirchner | 16 Mar 2011 | Online Opinion

    The regulatory responses to the global financial crisis have for the most part been conditioned on a false narrative about... Read More

30. Dump anti-dumping rules to protect consumers

    Stephen Kirchner | 02 Mar 2011 | The Australian

    Anti-dumping laws produce the outcome they are meant to prevent.

31. Borrowers lose as mortgage industry takes its $4bn win

    Stephen Kirchner | 14 Dec 2010 | The Age (Business)

    Rather than taking a hard line, the government is a soft touch.

32. Attacks on banks are misdirected

    Stephen Kirchner | 18 Nov 2010 | The Australian

    Australia's interest rates are high because the nation has strong growth prospects.

33. Aussie banker bashing

    Stephen Kirchner | 17 Nov 2010 | The Wall Street Journal

    This time Australian bankers are being bashed for taking responsibly to manage their excess demand.

34. G20 should tend to their own backyards

    Stephen Kirchner | 16 Nov 2010 | ABC News

    The principal flaw of the G20 is the assumption that the group as a whole can somehow be more than the sum of its parts.

35. A small Australia limits our creativity

    Stephen Kirchner | 07 Sep 2010 | The Sydney Morning Herald

    To advocate a small Australia is to deny the opportunities for economic, scientific and cultural advance that can flow from... Read More

36. City got big but never grew up

    Stephen Kirchner | 19 Aug 2010 | The Australian

    A little bit of Sydney history illustrates the point that transport, infrastructure and other problems have nothing to do... Read More

37. The mining tax debate highlights the terms of trade boom

    Stephen Kirchner | 15 Jul 2010 | The Australian (Business)

    Is the Future Fund the best option to manage the fiscal consequences of the trade boom? Perhaps the revenue would be better... Read More

38. Migrants add to growth hopes

    Stephen Kirchner | 26 Apr 2010 | The Canberra Times

    There is a mistaken view that population growth and immigration policy should be conditioned on existing capacity constraints,... Read More

39. The ANZAC story

    Stephen Kirchner | 23 Apr 2010

    I knew little of my grandfather’s service in World War I until an amateur historian drew my attention to several references... Read More

40. Bond market vigilantes should also weigh the risks of continued inactivity

    Stephen Kirchner | 13 Apr 2010 | Sydney Morning Herald

    Stagnation could be worse than a fiscal crisis.

41. Misguided government gets poor return for largesse

    Stephen Kirchner | 17 Mar 2010 | The Age

    The Rudd government’s home insulation program demonstrates the dangers of activist fiscal policy.

42. Benefits grow in monthly CPI data

    Stephen Kirchner | 01 Mar 2010 | Canberra Times

    Australia should adopt a monthly consumer price index.

43. More inscrutable than the Chinese

    Stephen Kirchner | 19 Feb 2010 | The Australian

    Why are foreign investment criteria a secret?

44. Imbalances essential to global economic system

    Stephen Kirchner | 22 Jan 2010 | The Australian

    The federal Treasury’s David Gruen recently told a conference at the University of Western Australia that global imbalances... Read More

45. Economic policy must re-earn our respect

    Stephen Kirchner | 20 Jan 2010 | Business Spectator

    Policymakers sacrificed a lot of their credibility due to their responses to the global financial crisis and this can be... Read More

46. The seasonal satisfaction index

    Stephen Kirchner | 26 Dec 2009 | Sydney Morning Herald

    According to Joel Waldfogel’s book Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays, you shouldn’t have... Read More

47. Labour should not take its eyes off the target

    Stephen Kirchner | 21 Dec 2009 | The Dominion Post

    Twenty years after introducing inflation targeting in 1989 and revolutionising central bank governance that was to sweep... Read More

48. Big spending, poor results

    Stephen Kirchner | 16 Dec 2009 | The Australian

    Big government spending leads to poor results.

49. Capital gains tax won’t make housing more affordable

    Stephen Kirchner | 23 Nov 2009 | Online Opinion

    Many commentators think a CGT on owner-occupied housing is good economics, but bad politics. In reality, it is bad economics... Read More

50. Kiwi monetary muddle

    Stephen Kirchner | 23 Nov 2009 | The Wall Street Journal

    The falling U.S. dollar is sparking a dangerous debate about the New Zealand central bank's role.

51. Doomsayer does his dough

    Stephen Kirchner | 18 Nov 2009 | The Australian

    Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows capital city house prices up 6.2% for the year ended in September, University... Read More

52. End of trend is nigh for central bank sales of gold

    Stephen Kirchner | 17 Nov 2009 | The Age

    It may seem odd that simply transferring ownership of existing above-ground stocks should make a difference to the gold price.... Read More

53. More houses, not taxes

    Stephen Kirchner | 12 Nov 2009 | The Australian

    Many commentators think a CGT on owner-occupied housing is good economics but bad politics. In reality, it is bad economics... Read More

54. US dollar down but not out as kingpin of global finance

    Stephen Kirchner | 05 Nov 2009 | The Australian

    The broad US dollar index has been trending lower since its last major cyclical peak in 2001. This has led many observers... Read More

55. Policymakers Sold Australia Short

    Stephen Kirchner | 14 Oct 2009 | The Australian Financial Review

    The government has argued that GDP growth and the unemployment rate numbers demonstrate the effectiveness of its fiscal stimulus... Read More

56. The many crises of Nouriel Roubini

    Stephen Kirchner | 10 Oct 2009

    It is not only banks’ balance sheets that have suffered in the global financial crisis. Many professional reputations have... Read More

57. Canberra's Investment Confusion

    Stephen Kirchner | 30 Sep 2009 | The Wall Street Journal

    Chinese companies are increasingly looking to invest overseas, and foreign capitals are calibrating their policy responses.... Read More

58. Hewson manifesto was ahead of its time

    Stephen Kirchner | 15 Sep 2009 | The Australian

    Revelations in Paul Kelly’s The March of the Patriots that then Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser planned to invoke provisions... Read More

59. FDI Liberalisation Falls Short

    Stephen Kirchner | 05 Aug 2009 | Institutional economics

    The federal Treasurer has announced measures to liberalise Australia’s regulatory regime for foreign direct investment... Read More

60. NZ tries harder for foreign cash

    Stephen Kirchner | 31 Jul 2009 | The Age

    Rugby is not the only arena in which Australia is losing out to New Zealand. Australia also faces increased competition from... Read More

61. No time for a media-shy central banker

    Stephen Kirchner | 24 Jul 2009 | Australian Financial Review

    By all accounts, Ben Bernanke is a shy and unassuming man. Yet this Sunday, the US Federal Reserve Chairman will submit to... Read More

62. End the budget sideshow

    Stephen Kirchner | 14 Jul 2009 | The Australian

    The federal government’s taxing and spending powers have far-reaching consequences for our economic prosperity.

63. Don’t vilify the banks

    Stephen Kirchner | 20 Jun 2009

    The public vilification of banks by politicians and others for raising mortgage interest rates ignores a fundamental fact.... Read More

64. Short-term fixes are a fiscal fallacy

    Stephen Kirchner | 20 Jun 2009

    Policymakers in Australia have instinctively reached for the Keynesian playbook in the context of the current global economic... Read More

65. Can't stop the music

    Stephen Kirchner | 10 Jun 2009 | Business spectator

    The March quarter national accounts show that Australia has skirted the conventional and necessarily arbitrary definition... Read More

66. The madding crowding out

    Stephen Kirchner | 22 May 2009 | The Age

    Treasurer Wayne Swan didn’t feel the need to mention the size of the deficit on budget night. The number had already been... Read More

67. Hey, big spender, stop simulating

    Stephen Kirchner | 14 May 2009 | The Australian

    The 2009 budget forecasts the biggest expansion in federal government spending since Gough Whitlam. While the budget deficit... Read More

68. Fear Canberra, not Beijing

    Stephen Kirchner | 01 Apr 2009 | Business Spectator

    Concerns about Chinese influence over the Australian government have become a political issue in recent weeks. But it is... Read More

69. Should Keynes have a seat at the G20 table

    Stephen Kirchner | 28 Mar 2009 | NZ Business Roundtable

    If the leaders of the G20 nations and the International Monetary Fund are to be believed, activist fiscal policy is essential... Read More

70. Don’t blame Greenspan’s monetary policy

    Stephen Kirchner | 18 Mar 2009 | The Age

    The recent boom and bust in United States housing and subsequent global financial crisis has been widely blamed on US monetary... Read More

71. Foreign interest is all win for Australia

    Stephen Kirchner | 04 Mar 2009 | The Australian

    The debate over the proposed increase in Chinalco’s stake in Rio Tinto has once again highlighted concerns about... Read More

72. Plan delivers little bang for very big bucks

    Stephen Kirchner | 04 Feb 2009 | The Australian

    The government’s fiscal stimulus packages represent discretionary policy actions that add to cyclical deterioration in... Read More

73. 'Rudd Bank' puts taxpayers last

    Stephen Kirchner | 28 Jan 2009 | The Australian Financial Review

    In propping up politically-favoured firms and industries deemed most in need, the government will only prolong the necessary... Read More

74. Keynes was wrong about the evils of thrift

    Stephen Kirchner | 13 Jan 2009 | The Australian Financial Review

    Consumers and businesses should moderate their spending in the context of an economic downturn.

75. Flinging wads of dosh about won't work

    Stephen Kirchner | 10 Dec 2008 | The Age

    As $8.7 billion in federal government payments land in the bank accounts of families and pensioners, the government has been... Read More

76. Foreign investment flows are damned by political bias

    Stephen Kirchner | 27 Nov 2008

    The latest World Investment Report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development confirms a disturbing trend.  Australia... Read More

77. Bubble, toil and trouble

    Stephen Kirchner | 12 Nov 2008 | The Australian

    In December 1996, then US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan famously mused 'how do we know when irrational exuberance... Read More

78. Car subsidies blow good money out the exhaust

    Stephen Kirchner | 11 Nov 2008 | Sydney Morning Herald

    The only good thing to come out of the government’s New Car Plan is the commitment to maintaining the current schedule... Read More

79. Beware political saviours

    Stephen Kirchner | 29 Oct 2008 | The Australian

    According to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the global financial crisis is the outcome of ‘a culture of greed.' In the world... Read More

80. Bailing-Out or Crowding-Out?

    Stephen Kirchner | 22 Oct 2008

    Losses on subprime-related debt instruments have resulted in a liquidity crisis becoming a solvency crisis for many financial... Read More

81. Fiscal stimulus plan has missed opportunities for long term reform

    Stephen Kirchner | 15 Oct 2008 | The Wall Street Journal

    Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has just unveiled a fiscal stimulus plan worth 10.4 billion Australian dollars ($7.4... Read More

82. Don’t Shoot the Messenger

    Stephen Kirchner | 23 Sep 2008 | The Australian Financial Review

    Authorities in the US and the UK have placed temporary restrictions on short selling financial stocks in response to recent... Read More

83. AussieMac Won’t Work

    Stephen Kirchner | 08 Sep 2008 | The Australian Financial Review

    The commencement of a new easing cycle by the Reserve Bank of Australia has put the spotlight on mortgage interest rates... Read More

84. $4billion government subsidy will not promote competition

    Stephen Kirchner | 30 Aug 2008 | The Age

    The federal government’s decision to purchase $4 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) has been justified... Read More

85. Protectionism’s ‘Barren Truth’

    Stephen Kirchner | 16 Aug 2008 | The Business Spectator

    The Bracks review of the automotive industry supported the current timetable for reductions in car tariffs to five per cent... Read More

86. Reserve Did Not Go Far or Fast Enough

    Stephen Kirchner | 12 Aug 2008 | The Age

    Turning points in the official interest rate cycle are usually accompanied by claims that monetary policy has gone too far. ... Read More

87. The RBA is at another arm's length, but what about transparency.

    Stephen Kirchner | 27 Mar 2008 | The Age

    One of the Rudd Government's first acts in office was to announce a "new era of independence" for the Reserve Bank, with... Read More

88. Tax cuts can help fight inflation

    Stephen Kirchner | 10 Oct 2007 | The Australian Financial Review

    Unlike previous elections, this year’s federal campaign is likely to see only cautious spending and tax cut promises from... Read More