Neo-Robinsonian economist. Castlemaine Institute & @UniMelb SSPS. #WellbeingEconomy, climate, social justice, environment, employment. @warwicksmith.bsky.social
Djaara country
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The @RBAInfo deliberately creates #unemployment to control inflation. Then our employment services system treats the jobless as if they caused their own predicament and don't want to work.
Unfair and unnecessarily cruel. My latest in @ConversationEDU:
theconversation.com/the-rbas…
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So is there some correlation between renewable energy and fertility? The population is still growing strong, despite the demographic transition (when we get rich we have less children). If you really wanted population control you'd educate and empower women.
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The privatised "employment services" system has always been about surveillance and punishment in order to discipline wage claims. The shift from full employment policy in the 70s to using unemployed people to control inflation was all about shifting power away from labour.
Do tougher job-search requirements help people find work?
We randomised almost 40,000 jobseekers to different requirements. Six months later, employment outcomes were virtually identical.
More in my Shann Lecture on building a learning state. ministers.treasury.gov.au/mi… #randomistas #auspol
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Warwick Smith retweeted
Today, we launched the Planetary Health Check 2026. Seven of nine Planetary Boundaries are transgressed, and pressure on all seven is at its highest recorded level.
Yet, we still have a window to change course. But we need to move fast.
pik-potsdam.de/en/news/lates…
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Warwick Smith retweeted
AI is finally taking over economist's job. It's all over.
AI chatbots give wrong answers to financial queries ‘most of the time’ ft.trib.al/KxRXFO6
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Warwick Smith retweeted
Turns out 2026 officially was the hottest summer ever recorded in Western Europe. We’ve seen droughts, heat deaths, dry rivers. This will become more common. Cities and farmers must adapt to an uncomfortable new normal. Source: eu1.hubs.ly/H0y9-bG0
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Wow, the replies to this are really wild. People absolutely committed to the view that the Albanese government is communist or socialist who clearly have no idea what the words communism or socialism actually mean. It needs a descriptive term. Cold war zombies?
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Warwick Smith retweeted
Private actors are increasing their control over energy, fuel, housing, food, healthcare & education. They drive inflation & drag down living standards. We need price controls & more public delivery to protect Australia from inflation & profiteering. My op-ed w @smh #auspol
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The typical Australian worker's pay hasn't kept pace with productivity growth for 30 years.
New research Adelajda Soltysik and I presented at ACE this week for the Centre for Policy Development, covered by Gareth Hutchens at the ABC. 🧵
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Falling average hours aren't a "leisure dividend" either. The biggest declines in work hours are among the lowest-paid workers. That's a story about part-time work, gig work and casualisation — not people choosing more free time.
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Governments are pushing hard to lift productivity, including via AI. But nothing automatic ensures the gains are shared — that's a policy choice. If the last 30 years didn't deliver for typical workers, we should ask where the next 30 will flow.
abc.net.au/news/2026-07-10/w…
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Warwick Smith retweeted
A visual representation of New Keynesian economists trying to make DSGE models fit reality: add a friction, add another friction, add another friction... then take their ball home and quit.
DSGE models begin with highly simplified assumptions about rational individuals, markets, and expectations. When their predictions fail to match reality, economists often introduce new frictions such as sticky prices, sticky wages, adjustment costs, imperfect information, and financial constraints. My critique is that these additions increasingly serve to protect the underlying theory rather than challenge it. After enough modifications, the model risks becoming a collection of patches designed to fit the data while preserving assumptions that may have been flawed from the start.
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Warwick Smith retweeted
The government is tying itself in knots trying to explain the CGT changes.
But @spenderallegra did it for them *months* ago.
This is the line they should be using:
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Warwick Smith retweeted
The barefoot investor thinks that the budget changes don’t impact the VAST majority of people’s current savings & investment plans
As for those it does? They’ll be fine
“The wealthiest people in the country. Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world…life is good.”
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Warwick Smith retweeted
Just some info on how much tax we pay in Aus. We sit 5% below OECD average on tax to GDP. We also have lower overall income tax oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en…
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I'm here holding up a torch for an arrow that continues from Joan Robinson.
Short post on the two traditions in the history of economic ideas. The central divide is between classical political economy, reproduction, surplus, accumulation, and the Benthamite/marginalist tradition of utility, exchange, scarcity, and individual choice /1
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Curious if anyone on here knows of any good evidence linking inflation expectations causally with actual inflation. I reckon it’s mostly not a real thing under normal inflation (I.e. less than hyperinflation). abc.net.au/news/2026-05-19/r…
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