university

A collection of 42 posts

australia

Black Wednesday: How one man broke the Bank of England

When I talk about foreign exchange (FX) markets, what do you think of? I’m sure you have some memory of being at the airport in a foreign country, standing at a little stall as screens flash a constant stream of numbers telling you how much your AUD is worth

australia

Building the blocks of blockchain: Part 1

‘Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions…While the system works…it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model’. The year was 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin announced to the world that they have solved this weakness in

Matching economics

How does matching theory apply to university admissions?

Contrary to the beliefs of many politicians around the world, not all free markets can be reduced to demand and supply.  For example, the markets for university acceptance are unique in that participants must choose and be chosen; the price isn’t the key allocating mechanism. In this two-sided market,

free

Why free uni is the wrong thing to wish for

The image accompanying this article was taken by yours truly, on my first day of class this year, in a brand new toilet cubicle of Monash University’s brand new Learning and Teaching building. While I’m tempted to deal with the content of the bottom poster in a future

clubs

The Club Conundrum

Clubs and societies form a major part of any Australian university. Orientation weeks (O-weeks) are inundated with food, music, games and freebies thanks to student clubs, which exist to meet students’ extra-curricular demands. The plethora of professional, cultural and special interest groups serve as a platform to enrich students’ university

degree

What’s in a Degree?

What is the value added provided by your university degree? The common assumption is that the education you receive provides you with the skills that enable you to better perform in a workplace and increase your productivity. Higher productivity increases earnings in the labour market, and so the cost of

advice

Unsolicited advice from an Honours student

I don’t remember the first time I walked on campus. I can’t really remember what I saw, what I said or what I did. But I will never forget that feeling. The feeling of promise; a new start with freedom attached. With each breath I exhaled anticipation, with

australia

Economics: an intro

One of the authors of a secondary school textbook that I swotted over doing economics at secondary school died recently. His name was Neville Drohan. He was a highly regarded teacher and Principal at Melbourne High School and a graduate of the University of Melbourne. He also trained economics teachers

climate change

The race to two degrees: COP21 primer

In just a few days, Paris will be hosting more than 80 world leaders for the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference, better known as COP21. Back in Australia, you may have heard a news story every now and then about our emissions targets and about “the lead up to Paris”

australia

The disconnect between economic policy and thought

One of my old economics lecturers used to advise the government on economic policy. He once told me that presenting economic policy to the government can be very unrewarding. He said that what the government considers to be sound policy is often rejected under the guise of being bad politics.

black death

A slow crawl up from death

The year 1300. The agrarian society of the High Middle Ages was in full swing; the peasant population worked tirelessly, toiling and sweating away on the farms owned by their lords. Merchants, the pioneers of international trade, were becoming more and more commonplace too. They brought the commodities made by

alice

Ficciones

At the end of this semester, I finish with economics forever. I feel that near the end of three and a half years of an undergraduate economics education, I have not found what I was looking for. And I struggle with this realization, as I doubt whether I was capable

aborigines

Why the gap hasn't been closed

Last year, the Federal Government withdrew funding for essential services of remote communities in Western Australia. Following this the West Australian Premier Colin Barnett announced in November 2014 a plan to cease supporting and force the closure of 150 remote indigenous communities. The situation seems quite ambiguous: the exact reasoning

economics

To pay or not to pay?

Thom Yorke was frustrated: Radiohead’s albums kept getting leaked. So, when In Rainbows was released, they let their fans name any price they wanted. Yorke himself said, “Every record for the last four has been leaked. So the idea was like, we’ll leak it, then.” As generous as

economics

Editors' Picks — 19th April 2015

This week in Editors’ Picks we take a look at why a land tax might be the solution to the tax reform,  the reasons for the plummeting price of iron, why it is a societal problem when the brightest students pursue jobs in finance, how the ATO is reaching out

australia

To greener pastures?

Silhouetted against the backdrop of Australia’s recent free trade agreements (FTAs) with Asia is the ailing – yet equally important – concerns of the manufacturing industry. The bright future of our agricultural industries is juxtaposed with the demise of the car industry, a sector that requires urgent attention. What does this

australia

Unemployment v Fiscal Instability: Which is the greater threat?

In the immediate aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008-09, the main concern for most policy makers was ensuring people were employed. The unemployment rate rose from as low as 4% to almost 6% quite rapidly. After both the government and the RBA took various stimulus measures, this panic

economics

The economic rationale of friendships

University—a fresh start, and a new beginning. For many of us, especially first year students, it represents the next chapter in our lives. University gives us all the opportunity to experience new things, such as independence from our parents. Along this journey to adulthood, we will inevitably make new

benefit of education

Your economics education: how to travel the path to enlightenment, rather than the road to hell

Economics students around the globe have clamoured in recent years that Something Be Done about the way economics is taught (see, for example, http://www.rethinkeconomics.org/).  The basic message is that economics, as usually taught to undergraduates, does not accurately depict the real world – an assertion that is self-evidently

1970s

Rock and roll, I gave you the best years of my life

There is a classic Australian hit song from 1973 called ‘Rock & Roll, I gave you the best years of my life’. Kevin Johnson was the artist. You can see it on Youtube. I some times like to invert it and call it ‘Economics, I gave you the best years of

2015

The value of tertiary education

The recent Australian budget proposal to deregulate university fees, and possibly raise them, has ignited debate about whether tertiary education is still valuable. With unemployment increasing, is it still feasible to incur large debts just to get a university education? This article will argue that there is still great value

australia

Principles of higher education funding

The Government’s proposed Higher Education reforms are intended to expand opportunities for more students to complete higher education, increase contestability and choice in the system and ultimately to drive greater allocative efficiency to increase the sustainability of the overall system (The Commonwealth of Australia, 2014). As professional economists, part

administration

Can consultants save universities?

The question at hand has been floating around since the Global Financial Crisis of 2009, when universities in the United States began hiring management consultants to review their operations and help them cut spending amidst the economic downturn. Bain & Company scored a $3 million contract with the University of North

auspol

Gaming the system: predicting university fee decisions

As any good shaman could probably tell you, predicting the future is never easy. There is always a range of factors at play and a vast array of possibilities to sort through, and often forecasts have to be made in the absence of much information. With Australia’s tertiary education

2014

The myths of university deregulation

I don’t usually watch Q&A, but when I do it’s when Christopher Pyne gets such a grilling that happy Twitter users suspect the cleaners will have a long night removing the sweat stains off his seat. He was given some respite, however, when university students in the