Welcome to Freedom to Choose 2021

Tuesday 28 September 2021

'Old' Fremantle Hotel (ND42), Cnr Cliff and High Streets, Fremantle
Speakers will present remotely via Zoom

Welcome to Freedom to Choose 2021

Triumphant or Misplaced Keynesianism: Australia’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9 and the lessons for life after Covid

The 2021 Freedom to Choose (FTC) conference is the eleventh in a sequence of annual conferences devoted to exploring the effectiveness of free-market policies. There is a focus on placing free-market ideas in their historical context and the role economists should play in policy formation. The invited conference speakers are encouraged to adopt a critical, scholarly, and non-ideological stance when considering these issues. Dissent is encouraged both from the floor and the podium.

This year’s FTC, Triumphant or Misplaced Keynesianism, is devoted to an appraisal of the Rudd-Swan fiscal stimulus that was implemented in the wake of the North Atlantic Financial Crisis of 2008-9. The recently elected Labor government under Kevin Rudd feared that this crisis would induce an economic downturn equal to that experienced during Australia’s second Great Depression in the 1930s. Rudd and his colleagues further feared that they could be dismissed from office for indecision in the same way that the young Labor government under James Scullin was dismissed for its vacillation in the face of the 1930s episode. There was also a sense that this was a ‘great man’ (or woman!) moment, for which many elected and non-elected officials strangely hope will come to pass, in which they could act not merely as saviours of the nation but also as its transformers. Thus, with able assistance from Ken Henry and other Treasury officials, Rudd and his Treasurer, Wayne Swan, went “hard and early” with a series of fiscal stimulus packages. Their time had come!

Some have heralded Rudd-Swan policy response a great success, while others have declared it to be a shambles. Sufficient time has passed to analyse it dispassionately as an episode of recent economic history. To this end, the goal is not to undertake yet another tired review of Keynes’s concept of effective demand, but to consider the wisdom of deploying Keynesian-style policies at a specific time, in a singular place, and in a certain way. It is time: to judge the Rudd-Swan stimulus as both a sequence of packages and a single policy; to explore the way Australian political and bureaucratic institutions invariably complicate (and sometimes derail) the execution of such packages; to determine the extent Australia’s singular features, such as its small-open economy with a flexible exchange rate, makes it a fit domain for the sum of these packages; and to evaluate the extent the success of these packages is dependent upon RBA accommodation and other factors external to a (partly neutered?) Treasury.

A consideration of these questions is all the more timely as we emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown, which was accompanied by an enormous expansion in public spending, deficits, and debt. This expansion, moreover, was accompanied by an increase in the role of the RBA and a further blurring of the dividing line between monetary and fiscal policy. While the GFC and the Covid-19 crisis differ in kind, both plunged the country into a state of emergency and highlighted discretionary powers which governments could use with seemingly little accountability. As such, they raise issues not only of economic management narrowly defined, but also about the broader operation of Australian democracy.

The conference is specifically designed for undergraduate, honours, and postgraduate students, but all interested parties are welcome. Forums will also be provided at the conference in which students can interact with established economists to discuss the wisdom of pursuing honours and postgraduate qualifications in the discipline of economics, as well as careers in economics generally.

It is to be held on the afternoon of Tuesday 28 September 2021 on the Fremantle Campus of The University of Notre Dame Australia. The invited speakers include William Coleman (ANU), Henry Ergas (AO, The Australian), Tony Makin (Griffith), and David Uren (Sydney).

REGISTRATION

The conference is kindly sponsored by the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation and The University of Notre Dame, Australia.

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