Few within government would deny that evidence-based policy-making is important to achieving good outcomes. Australia’s history provides ample support for that. But it is also apparent that practice over the past decade has fallen short of the ideals espoused.

Professor Banks’ lecture discusses a wide range of productivity challenges in Australia, as well as the potential role of productivity commissions in helping to address them.

Based on theory and evidence, including insights gained at first hand, Professor Gary Banks addresses two key questions: Why might public inquiries contribute to better policy outcomes? And what determines their ‘success’?

In the decade and a half since the Productivity Commission was formally established, it has completed 110 inquiries and other commissioned studies and made some 1500 policy recommendations to governments. All of these recommendations were made because the Commission judged that their implementation would enhance...

In this address to the session 'Managing the Growth Shock' at the Economic and Social Outlook Conference in Melbourne on 30 June 2011, Gary Banks discusses the role for policy in the current mining boom. "Australia’s past reform successes have generally been founded on a...