The complete ERA Review is available in pdf form to members. Book reviews included in the ERA Review can be found on the Book Reviews page.
We welcome your comments in the comments section.
Volume 17 No.6 November – December 2025
Contents
Getting rid of fossil fuels is really hard – and we’re not making much progress
Our economic thinking must change to a restorative approach.
Martin Brueckner, Charles Roche, Tauel Harper
Failures in privatised care starkly illustrate the inevitable failure of neoliberalism
The failures of privatised human services starkly illustrate the inability of markets to deliver quality service.
Geoff Davies
The heart of mainstream economics
At the heart of mainstream economics is the fictitious lone individual.
Jim Byrne
Key policies for the energy transition
The favourable economics of renewable electricity are already encouraging the phase-out of fossil fuels, but much too slowly.
Mark Diesendorf
From public good to corporate enterprise: The financialisation of universities (Part I)
The implementation of corporate-style financial management has reshaped the priorities of universities.
John H Howard
When ‘sustainable’ fashion backfires on the environment
The fashion industry needs to back its sustainability promises with evidence, not just good intentions.
Erez Yerushalmi, Krishnendu Saha
The Road Not Taken
Mainstream economics is deeply flawed.
Lars Syll
Business schools prime students for a world that no longer exists
Endless economic expansion is unsustainable.
Carla Liuzzo, Mimi Tsai
Financial markets cannot punish a sovereign government
Here’s why
Steven Hail, Stephanie Kelton, Darren Quinn
Fifty years of political economics at Sydney University – what has it meant for us?
Fifty years later, and we’re still here.
Evan Jones
The hidden cost of rate hikes
Are they fit for purpose?
Darren Quinn
Volume 17 No.5 September – October 2025
Contents
Slashing support: How the NDIS is leaving the most vulnerable behind
Those with the greatest needs are at greatest risk
James Rosier
Why it’s important that young unemployed Australians get a good job instead of just ‘any’ job
More attention should be paid to underemployment and job quality
Brendan Churchill
DeLong steps in it
The efficient market hypothesis
Peter Radford
Ultra-fast fashion could be taxed to oblivion in France; could Australia follow suit?
High-volume, low-cost clothing production should be reduced
Rowena Maguire
China’s greening steel industry signals an economic reality check for Australia
Australia can no longer count on sustained demand for its coal and iron ore exports
Christoph Nedopil
Letters: Dr Ted Trainer — on money and banking
Editor
Things we should own together – AI
It’s unworkable for AI technology to be privately owned by a few high-tech corporations and driven solely by the desire for financial profit
John Alt
Modern Monetary Theory and taxation
An MMT framed federal budget helps keep the focus on real constraints and distribution, not on a false household-budget analogy
Gregory John Olsen
What makes Modern Monetary Theory different?
MMT analysis borrows ideas from other economists and schools of thought
Jim Byrne
The physical hazards of nuclear energy
Nuclear energy is a very dangerous, unforgiving technology, as well as being very expensive, and susceptible to many myths and misinformation
Mark Diesendorf
The Economist’s latest piece on tipping points is a wake-up call for policymakers and CFOs
Uncertainty around tipping is a reason to put in better processes to govern tail-risks
Scott Kelly
An economist who confused climate with weather
Failure of climate models by neoliberal economists
Kasper Benjamin, Reimer Bjørksko
Volume 17 No.4 July – August 2025
Contents
The return of full employment – part 2
How the unemployed became a tool to discipline workers and keep wages down, and why it doesn’t have to be this way.
Steven Hail
Milei’s “Radical Plan”, revisited – part 2
In 2023, Javier Milei pitched
dollarization as the path toward prosperity for Argentina. Two years on, and it’s the peso and the past that remain.
Peter Rock-Lacroix
Understatement of unemployment
The official unemployment measure is entirely arbitrary and constrained by an institutional structure.
John Haly
What Quantitative Easing is and the “purpose” behind it
Quantitative Easing (QE) is essentially an asset swap for reserve liquidity.
Ellis Winningham
Rethinking public debt
The age-old belief that central banks control the money supply has more and more come to be questioned and replaced by an ‘endogenous’ money view.
Lars Syll
Howl of frustration
Discussion of the “broken circuit” and “restored circuit” models of government financing.
John Alt
Further thoughts on John Alt’s article
Entries of the federal
government’s tax receipts in its central bank account are not money
according to any meaningful or legal definition.
Editor
How monetary myths conceal power
Once we recognize the deep
entanglement between money and power, another puzzle becomes clearer:
how did economics lose its moral compass?
Asad Zaman
Mainstream economics – kick it over! Extract from an article by David Wilson
Mainstream economics will never move if we try to change it incrementally. It must be replaced wholesale with a more realistic conception of human nature.
Editor
Volume 17 No.3 May – June 2025
Contents
The return of full employment – part 1
How the unemployed became a tool to discipline workers and keep wages down, and why it doesn’t have to be this way
Steven Hail
The popular misunderstanding of money
Our habitual misunderstanding of Modern Fiat Money divides us against each other.
John Alt
Casino Capitalism
In a speculative economy, prosperity depends on the political and social climate, and crises and depressions can become severe.
Lars Syll
Recommended paper: Funding of the energy transition by monetary sovereign countries: Energies
M Diesendorf, S Hail
Wealth inequality – housing cost is hollowing out middle Australia
The squeezing of middle Australia coincides with, and has exacerbated, the cost-of-living crisis of the past few years.
Harry Chemay
Comments on the previous Harry Chemay article
Wayne McMillan
Can Citizen Assemblies save democracy?
The existence of a socially progressive opposition might require citizen assemblies.
Peter G. Martin
Milei’s “radical plan”, revisited – part 1
Milei’s government appears set to continue its dependence on IMF support while cutting government spending.
Peter Rock-Lacroix
Patents and the Abundance
Agenda Patent and copyright monopolies currently redistribute an enormous amount of income upward.
Dean Baker
Toward sustainable economies
A new book by Theodore Lianos explores different models of economies that do not devastate the natural world on which they depend.
Anastasia Pseiridis
NAIRU — a harmful fairy tale
Many mainstream economists have faith in the NAIRU fairy tale, but it doesn’t hold water when scrutinized.
Lars Syll
Volume 17 No.2 March – April 2025
Contents
It’s the End of the World and I Don’t Feel Fine
Reflections on an economic system geared to human need instead of profit
Pete Dolack
Superannuation is complicated
A guaranteed government income in retirement would be simpler
Brendan Coates and Joey Moloney
Busting the ‘natural rate of unemployment’ myth
The natural rate hypothesis has done great damage to global economies
Lars Syll
Building humane alternatives to homo economicus
A vision for economics rooted in compassion, cooperation and moral values
Asad Zaman
Global EV Sales Have Soared, but Buckle Up for a ‘Weird Moment’ in the U.S.
Market
The technology is moving in such a direction that there’s almost nothing that can be done to stop more affordable EVs from appearing on the market
Dan Gearino
Universities: dead, buried and cremated?
Australian universities have been gutted and corporatised
Geoff Davies
Trade isn’t money for nothing
Trump’s complaint about the U.S. losing money to Canada and Mexico is misguided
Stephanie Kelton
In praise of government consumption
Government production has a major role in the allocation of social goods
Merijn Knibbe
Badly confused trade policy: the story of supply and demand
U.S. society will pay a big price for Trump’s confusion
Dean Baker
Deliberative Democracy
Citizen assemblies are a new approach to rebuilding public faith in government
Peter Martin
Volume 17 No.1 January – February 2025
Contents
To save the planet, disable the global consumer-corporate machine
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions we must get inside the machine and turn it off, or transform it
Geoff Davies
The 2024 Nobel Prize for economics
Revealing the bankruptcy of conventional economics
Ted Trainer
Can anyone concisely propose a theory of systems change?
We face a complex, multi-dimensional polycrisis straddling many disciplines
Wayne McMillan
Consumption is driving global greenhouse gas emissions
Exposing the impediments to planned degrowth will benefit environmental protection, social justice, human rights and peace
Mark Diesendorf
More coal and gas, less renewables – what a nuclear power plan for Australia would really mean
John Quiggin
Mainstream distribution myths
How globalization and the rules of the modern economy are structured to make the wealthy wealthier
Lars Syll
I have learned a few Things
In particular, that a life dedicated to learning what’s true and to expressing truth is the only kind of life that can ever satisfy
Caitlin Johnstone
What is Modern Monetary Theory?
Governments that issue their own currency are not fiscally constrained in the way that is represented by most politicians, economists and commentators
William Thomson
Australia needs better ways of storing renewable electricity for later
That’s where ‘flow batteries’ can help
Maria Skyllas-Kazacos
Understanding society via self-discovery
By understanding and changing how we think and act, we unlock the potential to transform not only ourselves but the societies around us
Asad Zaman
