Australia’s market-sector labour productivity has steadily fallen behind the United States (US) over the past decade. This research note explores the productivity gap and finds that in addition to lower rates of IP investment in Australia, there is also limited diffusion of US knowledge capital to Australian firms and industries.

The scorecard assesses and ranks the performance of each Australian state across ten economic indicators: annual growth in per capita gross state product, annual wage growth, jobs growth, retail turnover, tax burden, debt burden, productivity growth, business investment, rental affordability and energy affordability. Western Australia is the best performing state and New South Wales the...

The return mandates for Australia’s specialist investment vehicles currently push them towards safe bets and guaranteed commercial returns. A key barrier to reform has been a concern that lowering the return mandate and raising the risk appetite could leave the government fiscally worse off. This report demonstrates that reform could improve measures of Australia’s fiscal...

A strategic examination of Australia’s research, development and innovation (RD&I) system, identifying its challenges and opportunities. The report includes 20 recommendations focused on six elements. These intend to improve the capacity of Australia’s RD&I system to support the economy and create a more prosperous, healthier, safer and equitable Australia.

This paper argues Australia needs to update our regulatory approach and change our inefficient company tax system, to a system that better encourages investment and productivity growth. This final inquiry report presents recommendations focused on two key policy reform areas: corporate tax reform to spur business investment and regulating to promote business dynamism.