The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused significant global economic and social disruption. In the Crawford School of Public Policy Working Paper, McKibbin and Fernando (2020) used recent epidemiological and economic data on the COVID-19 pandemic to explore six plausible scenarios of the future economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Join us to hear one of Australia's foremost economists, ANU Professor Warwick J. McKibbin AO, discuss his current world leading research of global macroeconomic scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following the success of the National Young Economists' first event of 2020, 'An Introduction to the MMT Debate', there has been considerable interest in the approach to inflation management under modern monetary theory (MMT) frameworks, as well as fiscal policy and labour markets in the pandemic and post-pandemic eras.

Join University of Newcastle Professor Emeritus of Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity Bill Mitchell to discuss "flattening the Phillips Curve", full employment, the role of price anchors and automatic stabilisers versus discretionary fiscal policy, how the 'price rule' of stimulus contrasts with the 'quantity rule' of conventional Keynesian pump-priming, and the choice between unemployed buffer stocks (the NAIRU) and employed buffer stocks (the NAIBER) in inflation management policy.

Continuing our successful webinar series ‘What Every Young Economist Should Know About...’, the ACT Young Economists Network presents ‘An Introduction to Austrian School Economics’. Join the Mises Institute’s Dr. Lucas Engelhardt for a seminar on the ideas of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Murray Rothbard and the economists who shaped this fascinating heterodox school of thought. Topics covered include the contrasts between Austrian and orthodox schools of thought, and the enduring relevance of Austrian School ideas to modern dilemmas.

After years of Australian monetary policy struggling to achieve the central bank's inflation target, Government responses to the current global economic crisis have brought debates over fiscal policy to a head. Yet some economists have cautioned against the apparent trend towards greater reliance on fiscal activism.

Join Griffith University author and Professor of Economics Tony Makin for a discussion on his prescient 2018 publication The Limits of Fiscal Policy, and why it matters in the COVID and post-COVID era.

Growing debates* surrounding modern monetary theory (MMT) before the outbreak of COVID-19 have exploded with the onset of the pandemic, as governments unleash fiscal and monetary stimulus on an unprecedented scale to contain the economic fallout.

As conflict rages over how governments should pay for it, MMT economists have offered the most unconventional argument of all: the stimulus has already been paid for in the same way, they argue, every federal budget is always paid for: by keystrokes at the central bank.

Join the University of Adelaide’s Dr. Steven Hail to discuss why deficits still matter, why federal debt possibly doesn’t, why government deficits equal non-government surpluses, and the theoretical underpinnings of endogenous money, reserve accounting and heterodox macroeconomics.