Negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement have run aground on Washington’s attempt to restrict rather than free up medicines.

The prospects for action to stabilise the global climate have never been better, writes John Quiggin.

No arguments seem to sway right-wing politicians and commentators in the United States and Australia. Will we have to wait for demography to do its work? The abolition of the carbon tax has raised, yet again, the question of how to convince those on the political right to accept mainstream climate science and the need...

Thomas Piketty’s phenomenally successful Capital confirms that Western countries are becoming less equal. He fits into a long-running debate about inequality, and there are some encouraging signs Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been easily the top-selling new economics book in years, rocketing to the top of the New York Times bestseller list...

This is the first essay in a series called 'Perspectives' which have been commissioned by the Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney. Author, John Quiggin, proposes a long term response to the global financial crisis which shifts the risks from individuals and families and places the hand of government firmly on the economic...