competitiveness

21 December 2017

“Australia must cut its high business tax rate so that Australian workers, consumers, and shareholders can keep more of their earned income,” said Daniel Wild, research fellow with the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. President Trump is expected today to sign into law a reduction in the United States’ corporate tax rate from 35 per cent

30 November 2017

A new report from the Department of Industry has found that the Australian entrepreneurship downturn is worse than previously thought. Earlier this month the IPA’s new report on entrepreneurship, Reigniting Australia’s Entrepreneurial Flame, found that there were 15,000 fewer new businesses created in 2016 than in 2003 and a fall in business entry rate of 16 per cent. This finding, which was based on analysis of the ABS business counts data, is despite working age population growing by

7 November 2017

Australia has experienced 26 years of unbroken economic growth. However, this aggregate figure masks stagnant wages growth and a deterioration in the living standards of many in the Australian middle class. The central cause of this deterioration is low and declining levels of business investment, which is approaching historic lows. Overregulation and red tape are two key causes of weak

7 November 2017

Free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs has today released a new landmark report, Barriers to Prosperity: Red Tape and the Regulatory State in Australia, authored by IPA research fellow Daniel Wild, which highlights the extent of the red tape crisis in Australia “Red tape in Australia has reached a crisis point. Urgent action is needed from policy

6 November 2017

Last Friday night, IPA Director of Policy, Simon Breheny, appeared on Sky TV to discuss the upcoming Queensland election and some of the election commitments that had been put forward. When Simon expressed his enthusiasm and support for the State Opposition’s pledge to cut red tape by twenty percent, he was met with a range of comments by his fellow

5 November 2017

The Institute of Public Affairs has tracked the state of entrepreneurship in Australia since 2014. This research was developed by Dom Talimanidis, the IPA’s former Ian Mence Fellow for Entrepreneurship, and is now part of the IPA’s Cut Red Tape to Unleash Prosperity project. Talimanidis found that the rate of firm creation, a key measure of entrepreneurship, has decreased. This

5 November 2017

Australian entrepreneurship is in a state of stagnation, largely due to red tape, which is threatening our prosperity, according to a new Institute of Public Affairs report Reigniting Australia’s entrepreneurial flame: Finding the missing 275,000 businesses authored by IPA research fellow Matthew Lesh. The report finds business entry and exit rates remain below 2003-04 levels, across all states and territories

30 October 2017

The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report ranks the competitiveness of 134 countries. Competitiveness is measured using 114 indicators such as macroeconomic health, the quality of infrastructure, and labour market efficiency, which are derived from statistical analysis and survey data. Economies with a better competitiveness ranking typically have a greater productive capacity, higher business investment, and higher economic growth

12 October 2017

Countries become mediocre the same way Mike, a character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises went broke. “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” The descent of the Australian economy into mediocrity is a topic of discussion becoming hard to avoid. The release a fortnight ago of The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report

23 November 2016

“Australia must follow President-Elect Donald Trump’s plan to cut red tape otherwise we will be rendered uncompetitive and unable to attract global investment,” said Daniel Wild, Research Fellow with the free-market think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs. The President-Elect has put forward a number of proposals to cut red tape, including: abolishing two regulations for each new regulation introduced;