• Print
  • Email

Government Spending

economic-policy-govt

Governments spend taxpayers’ money on a wide range of programmes from education to defence and from welfare to infrastructure. Yet there can be too much of a good thing, and some government spending is just wasteful. How can we ensure that taxpayers are getting value for money?

Publications

  1. Defeating Dependency: Moving Disability Support Pensioners Into Jobs

    Jessica Brown | 28 Apr 2010 | Issue Analysis

    Jessica Brown, policy analyst with the CIS argues that the focus of reform efforts should be on encouraging some of the 750,000... Read More...

  2. Like the Curate’s Egg: A Market-based Response and Alternative to the Bennett Report

    Jeremy Sammut | 02 Dec 2009 | Policy Monographs

    The National Health and Hospital Reform Commission (NHHRC) has acknowledged the need to ensure health services are responsive... Read More...

  3. On the Right Track: Why NSW Needs Business Class Rail

    Oliver Marc Hartwich & Jennifer Buckingham | 29 Oct 2009 | Issue Analysis

    Rail connections between Sydney and neighbouring cities need to improve substantially and business class carriages would... Read More...

  4. Fiscal Shock and Awe in the United States

    Robert Carling | 21 Oct 2009 | Issue Analysis

    It may well be inevitable that the relative economic standing of the United States, and therefore its place in the world,... Read More...

  5. Fiscal Fallacies : The Failure of Activist Fiscal Policy

    Stephen Kirchner | 14 Oct 2009 | Policy Forum

    Editor, Stephen Kirchner ; Contributors, John B Taylor ; Tony Makin ; Robert Carling The global financial crisis that emerged... Read More...

View All

Opinion & Commentary

  1. 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

  2. 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.... Read More

  3. The seasonal satisfaction index

    Stephen Kirchner | 26 Dec 2009 | The Age

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

  4. Big government spending leads to poor results

    Stephen Kirchner | 16 Dec 2009 | The Australian

    Big government spending leads to poor results.... Read More

  5. 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

View All

Ideas@TheCentre

  1. The hard part: an alternative plan for hospitals

    Jeremy Sammut | 12 Mar 2010

    The dust has settled from the release of the federal government’s public hospital plan, and most commentators agree that ...

  2. The pretence of knowledge

    Greg Lindsay | 26 Feb 2010

    The ill-conceived and rushed Commonwealth insulation program adds to a very long list of recent government policy failures, ...

  3. Stimulus begets stimulus

    Luke Malpass | 26 Feb 2010

    Suspending the insulation program has landed the Rudd government with an unpleasant political problem: business closures ...

  4. What if you got pink bats and a school hall for Christmas?

    Stephen Kirchner | 18 Dec 2009

    The rush to push stimulus dollars out the door is similar to the mad rush to buy presents before Christmas, resulting in ...

  5. First steps towards 21st century rail

    Oliver Marc Hartwich | 30 Oct 2009

    According to a Chinese proverb, every long journey begins with a first step. This holds true even for a train journey....

View All