Joshua Gans, Richard Holden and Judith Sloan: Bringing back the economy
For Australians, the end of the Covid-19 lockdown is in sight, and a return to some semblance of normalcy is on the horizon. As our focus shifts from the virus and its immediate impact to social recovery, the economy will take centre stage. The government has a once in a lifetime opportunity to rebuild our economy, and they are not short of advice.
Which direction will they choose? Is it time for ambitious market reforms, or to maintain the social safety net that has won them so many new fans? Is there a chance of a fairer nation, or are we looking down the barrel of post-pandemic austerity?
Join a panel of our most interesting economists and commentators, Joshua Gans, Richard Holden, Judith Sloan and Jennifer Hewett (chair) to tackle the big questions we need to answer if we are to make the best economic recovery that we can.
Our successful management of the pandemic gives us a reason to look at some of the barriers to reform and productivity growth that were almost too hard to look at before
Noone’s going to be jumping up and down to do something about climate change when we have a global depression, so we have that challenge ahead.
The advantages afforded to Australia by our good public health response is that we can pick up on international movement of people, while other countries are going to struggle to do that.
Jennifer Hewett
Jennifer Hewett is the National Affairs Columnist for The Australian Financial Review,
Joshua Gans
Joshua Gans is a Professor of Strategic Management and holder of the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto (with a cross appointment in the Department of Economics). Joshua is also Chief Economist of the University of Toronto's Creative Destruction Lab. He is the author of the recently published book from MIT Press, Economics in the Age of COVID-19.
Richard Holden
Richard Holden is a Professor of Economics at UNSW Sydney and President of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He was formerly on the faculty at MIT and the University of Chicago, and earned a PhD from Harvard University. He has published numerous papers in top economics journals and is a regular columnist at The Australian Financial Review.
Judith Sloan
Judith Sloan is the Contributing Economics Editor of The Australian newspaper. She has been an academic, public servant and company director. She was a Commissioner of the Productivity Commission and the Australian Fair Pay Commission. She served on the boards of Santos, Mayne Nickless, SGIO Insurance and Westfield Group.
