Cutting working conditions won’t get us out of the current malaise, writes Andrew Leigh.

When America sneezes, Australian state governments catch a cold. And when the weather turns bad, guess who’s held responsible?

It’s the love child of economics and psychology – behavioural economics. It tries to explain people’s rational, or better irrational, behaviour when it comes to financial decision-making and consumption patterns. On Big Ideas, two experts outline the main lessons of behavioural economics and discuss the ways that it has affected policymaking in Australia. Could it...

John Howard’s gun buyback scheme had more than one benefit Did the buyback save lives? As someone with a connection to two of Australia’s worst gun massacres, I’ve always been interested in finding out. But the public debate seemed frustratingly simplistic. Some anti-gun campaigners described firearms owners as “gun nuts,” and seemed to have difficulty...

A new study finds social status rippling across the centuries IF YOU WANT to know who made up Australia’s elite in the nineteenth century, a useful place to look is the Australian Dictionary of Biography. In its many volumes, you’ll find business leaders, scientists, media barons and politicians who have featured among the upper echelons...