Australian cities have traditionally relied for their water on a ‘predict-and-provide’ philosophy that gives primacy to big engineering solutions. In more recent years privatised water authorities, seeking to maximise consumption and profits, have reinforced the emphasis on increasing supply. Now the cities must cope with the stresses these policies have imposed on the eco-systems from...

The relationship between income inequality and national savings is theoretically ambiguous, and past empirical studies have delivered mixed results. The authors of this paper revisit the question using a newly available source of data on inequality: the income share of the richest 10 percent and the richest 1 percent. Combining this with historical data on...

The authors of this paper model the determinants of who makes decisions, the principal or an agent, when there are multiple decisions. Decision making takes effort and time; and, once implemented, the expected loss from a particular decision (or project) increases with the length of time since the last decision was made. The model shows...

Of the many challenges in public sector management, few are as complex as the management of whistleblowing. This book is the product of one of the world’s most comprehensive research projects on the phenomenon.Of the many challenges in public sector management, few are as complex as the management of whistleblowing. Because it can lead to...

In this evidence-based and closely argued work, Kathy MacDermott plots the changes in the culture of the Australian Public Service that have led many contemporary commentators to lament the purported loss of traditional public service values of impartiality, intellectual rigour and — most importantly — the willingness of public servants at all levels to offer...