An important economic paradox that frequently arises in the economic literature is that countries with abundant natural resources are poor in terms of real gross domestic product per capita. This paradox, known as the ‘resource curse’, is contrary to the conventional intuition that natural resources help to improve economic growth and prosperity.

The emissions produced from the fossil fuels extracted by Australia’s major gas, coal and oil producing companies, or ‘carbon majors’, are now larger than all of Australia’s domestic emissions. The discussion presented in this report outlines a way of thinking about the moral responsibility of carbon majors and what they ought to do.

Rare earths — a set of 17 metal elements — have a wide range of high technology applications. This report argues that any attempt by China to impose an export embargo on rare earths or downstream products would be the catalyst for the development of non-Chinese production and substitution that would ultimately weaken China’s strong...

This report explores how oil and gas companies are taking action to address climate change, how these actions fit with the overall needs of the energy transition, and whether there is more companies can do to contribute to the solution set of this problem.

This research argues that opening up the Great Australian Bight to exploratory drilling for oil and gas is unlikely to have much of an effect on jobs, and could even threaten employment in other industries.