University of Tasmania

Mortgage and inflation pain to ease, but only slowly: how 31 top economists see 2024

Retrieved on: 
Lunedì, Febbraio 5, 2024
Reserve Bank, Growth, Population growth, ANZ, The Conversation, Diving, Housing, University, Reserve, COVID, Workforce, ASX, University of Tasmania, Employment, Mining, Treasury, Economic development, XLS, Conversation, Committee, Probability, Insurance, Unemployment, International Monetary Fund, Cryptocurrency

The panel draws on the expertise of leading forecasters at 28 Australian universities, think tanks and financial institutions – among them economic modellers, former Treasury, International Monetary Fund and Reserve Bank officials, and a former member of the Reserve Bank board.

Key Points: 
  • The panel draws on the expertise of leading forecasters at 28 Australian universities, think tanks and financial institutions – among them economic modellers, former Treasury, International Monetary Fund and Reserve Bank officials, and a former member of the Reserve Bank board.
  • Its forecasts paint a picture of weak economic growth, stagnant consumer spending, and a continuing per-capita recession.
  • Six of the experts surveyed expect the Reserve Bank to increase rates further in the first half of the year, while 20 expect no change and three expect a cut.
  • Read more:
    The 7 new graphs that show inflation falling back to earth

    Warwick McKibbin, a former member of the Reserve Bank board, said the board would push up rates twice more in the first half of the year as insurance against inflation before leaving them on hold.

Inflation to keep falling, but more gradually

  • Today’s Reserve Bank board meeting will consider an inflation rate that has come down faster than it expected, diving from 7.8% to 4.1% in the space of a year.
  • The newer more experimental monthly measure of inflation was just 3.4% in the year to December, only points away from the Reserve Bank’s target of 2–3%.
  • Economists Chris Richardson and Saul Eslake say while inflation will keep heading down, the decline might be slowed by supply chain pressures from the conflict in the Middle East and the boost to incomes from the tax cuts due in July.

Slower wage growth, higher unemployment

  • While the panel expects wages to grow faster than the consumer price index, it expects wages growth to slip from around 4% in 2023 to 3.8% in 2004 and 3.4% in 2025 as higher unemployment blunts workers’ bargaining power.
  • But the panel doesn’t expect much of an increase in unemployment.
  • All but two of the panel expect the unemployment rate to remain below the range of 5–6% that was typical in the decade before COVID.

Slower economic growth, per-capita recession

  • The panel expects very low economic growth of just 1.7% in 2024, climbing to 2.3% in 2025.
  • All but one of the forecasts are for economic growth below the present population growth rate of 2.4%, suggesting that the panel expects population growth to exceed economic growth for the second year running, extending Australia’s so-called per capita recession.
  • Percy Allen and Stephen Anthony assign a 75% and 70% chance to such a recession, and Warren Hogan a 50% chance.
  • Hogan said when the economic growth figures for the present quarter get released, they are likely to show Australia is in such a recession at the moment.

Weaker spending, weak investment

  • Mala Raghavan of The University of Tasmania said previous gains in income, rising asset prices and accumulated savings were being overwhelmed by high inflation and rising interest rates.
  • The panel expects non-mining investment to grow by only 5.1% in the year ahead, down from 15%, and mining investment to grow by 10.2%, down from 22%.
  • Johnathan McMenamin from Barrenjoey said private and public investment had been responsible for the lion’s share of economic growth over the past year and was set to plateau and fade as a driver of growth.

Home prices to climb, but more slowly

  • The panel expects home price growth of 4.6% in Sydney during 2024 (down from 11.4% in 2024) and 3.1% in Melbourne, down from 3.9% in 2024.
  • ANZ economist Adam Boyton said decade-low building approvals and very strong population growth should keep demand for housing high, outweighing a drag on prices from high interest rates.
  • While high interest rates have been restraining demand, they are likely to ease later in the year.

The Conversation’s Economic Panel


Click on economist to see full profile. Download the answers as XLS PDF
Peter Martin is economics editor of The Conversation AU.

What will you read on the beach this summer? We asked 6 avid readers

Retrieved on: 
Sabato, Dicembre 30, 2023
Napoleon, Associate, Senior lecturer, University of Tasmania, War, Man, Pan Books, Heart, Violence, Tennis, Season, Babel, Death, Closet, Between You and Me, Swinburne University of Technology, Culture, Samuel R. Delany, Communication, Breakfast, Female, Deakin University, A Wild Sheep Chase, Simon & Schuster, DIY, Demon Copperhead, Literature, University, New Wave, History, Travel, Middlemarch, Dashiell, New Yorker, Bachelor, Creative writing, Dhalgren, University of Melbourne, Book, Anglo-French Wars, Department, Ovis, Love contract, Emeritus, Water, Monash University, The Love Contract

That might be a traditional beach read – typically a genre paperback with a propulsive plot – or an opportunity to catch up on the classics you never got around to during the year.

Key Points: 
  • That might be a traditional beach read – typically a genre paperback with a propulsive plot – or an opportunity to catch up on the classics you never got around to during the year.
  • We asked six experts in reading and writing to share what they plan to read on the beach.

Love and Other Scores by Abra Pressler (and other Australian romantic comedies)

  • The book I’ll be taking to the beach this summer, just in time for the tennis, is one of Pan Macmillan’s latest offerings: Love and Other Scores by Abra Pressler.
  • • Harper Collins published Steph Vizard’s The Love Contract (what if pretending to date your neighbour was the solution to your childcare problems?).
  • • Simon & Schuster published Amy Hutton’s Sit, Stay, Love (the ultimate rom-com for dog people), my own Can I Steal You For A Second?

Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka

  • With winter receding (David Copperfield, followed by Demon Copperhead), I am looking to what kinds of books might fill my summer, so I’m reading a new-to-me crime/thriller writer, Kotaro Isaka.
  • The novel follows three men who’ve made careers out of hiring themselves as assassins.
  • And best of all, there is a new Kotaro Isaka novel, Mantis, published this month – just in time for the height of summer, under a shady tree by the sea.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and The Flying Doctor’s Christmas Wish by Kathleen Ryder

  • Middlemarch and Moby Dick, and this year will be War and Peace.
  • On a recent trip to central Australia, I met romance fiction author Kathleen Ryder.
  • Her books include Christmas-themed novellas set in Alice Springs, and my pick for this summer is The Flying Doctor’s Christmas Wish.

Skeletons in the Closet by Jean-Patrick Manchette

  • The much-anticipated English translation of the only untranslated novel by the reinventor of dark and darkly witty crime novels, Jean-Patrick Manchette, is the book I most hope to read this summer.
  • Skeletons in the Closet features the hermetic, alcoholic Parisian private eye Eugène Trapon, the only fictional creation of Manchette’s to appear in more than one novel.
  • Trapon is obviously an heir to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, but Manchette’s novels are only superficially hard-boiled.

Daisy and Woolf by Michelle Cahill and Between You and Me by Joanna Horton

  • Some books can’t be digested at once, so this summer I will be returning to Daisy and Woolf by Goan-Anglo-Indian poet and author, Michelle Cahill.
  • Also on my list is Between You and Me by Brisbane author, Joanna Horton.

The science fiction of Samuel R. Delany and Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang

  • This summer, I’m aiming to dive deeper into the works of Samuel R. Delany, who was memorably profiled in the New Yorker earlier this year.
  • Delany is most commonly associated with the New Wave science fiction movement of the 60s and 70s, but his writing spans a fascinating range of genres and subjects.
  • I’ve also wanted to read Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F.
  • Beth Driscoll receives funding from ARC Linkage Project grant LP210300666 Community Publishing in Regional Australia Liz Evans' debut novel will be published by Ultimo Press in 2024.
  • Michelle Cahill is the current Hedberg Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tasmania.

Colossal Announces the Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee

Retrieved on: 
Mercoledì, Dicembre 20, 2023
Technology, Biotechnology, Health, Environmental Issues, Environmental Health, Other Science, Other Natural Resources, Environment, Research, Software, Genetics, Health Technology, Natural Resources, Science, Aborigine, Imagination, Biodiversity, Life, Multimedia, University of Tasmania, CRISPR, Dean (education), Colossal Biosciences, University, TTA, Folklore, Local government, Genetic engineering, Comment, Thylacine, Hunting

Colossal Biosciences, the breakthrough genetic engineering and de-extinction company, is pleased to announce the formation of the Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee.

Key Points: 
  • Colossal Biosciences, the breakthrough genetic engineering and de-extinction company, is pleased to announce the formation of the Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee.
  • View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231220481609/en/
    “We are excited to work with this incredible local committee on the next steps of the Thylacine project,” shared Colossal CEO Ben Lamm.
  • From biodiversity improvements to economic opportunities, we want this to help invigorate a community I’ve come to know and love.”
    Select Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee members include:
    Mia Lindgrin, Associate Dean of Research Performance for Community Consultation and Impact, University of Tasmania
    “I’m invested in ensuring the best future for Tasmania, which is why I wanted to helm the Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee,” said Mayor Michelle Dracoulis, chairwoman of the Colossal Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee.
  • Joining the Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee is an opportunity for me to continue to support our home state and help shape this globally significant and vitally important work,” said James Groom, Senior Tasmanian lawyer and Director.

Two more RBA rate hikes, tumbling inflation, and a high chance of recession: how our forecasting panel sees 2023-24

Retrieved on: 
Domenica, Luglio 2, 2023
Unemployment, Mineral, Employment, Housing, Probability, Conversation, Stamen, University, AMP, The Conversation, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Reserve, COVID, Forecasting, Federation University Australia, Wind, Treasury, GDP, Iron, Risk, Reserve Bank, Productivity Commission, Mining, International Monetary Fund, University of Tasmania, United Kingdom, Growth, KPMG, Population growth, RBA, Cryptocurrency, Commercial property, Life insurance, Real estate, Consultant, Management, Beauty salon, Video game

The official quarterly measure of inflation peaked at 7.8% in the year to December and is now 7%, and the newer monthly measure peaked at 8.4% and is now 5.6%.

Key Points: 
  • The official quarterly measure of inflation peaked at 7.8% in the year to December and is now 7%, and the newer monthly measure peaked at 8.4% and is now 5.6%.
  • Twelve of the 27 think a recession is either more likely than not, or an even chance.
  • And almost all expect a “per-capita recession”, in which economic growth fails to keep pace with population growth, sending living standards backwards.

Two more interest rate hikes this year

    • After 12 interest rate hikes that lifted the Reserve Bank’s cash rate from 0.1% to 4.1% in a little over a year, the panel expects two more.
    • The panel predicts a cash rate of 4.5% by the end of this year, followed by a decline to 4.3% by the middle of next year, and to 3.9% by the end of 2024.
    • Asked to specify the month in which the cash rate will peak, and how high it will go, the panel settled on a peak of 4.7% in November.
    • A cash rate of 4.7% would lift the typical rate on a new mortgage from 5.4% to 6%, adding a further $200 per month to the cost of servicing a $600,000 loan.

Plummeting inflation, an uptick in real wages

    • Although steep, the fall in inflation isn’t as fast as predicted by the bank itself (3.6% by mid-2024) or the Treasury (3.25% by mid-2024).
    • Read more:
      Going down: the 6 graphs that show economic growth shrinking

      A welcome upside of much lower inflation forecasts is a forecast of the first increase in real wages in three years, albeit a small one.

    • The panel expects wages growth of 4% in the financial year ahead, just beating price growth of 3.9%.
    • The resulting 0.1% increase in the so-called real wage would be followed by a more substantial increase of 0.7% in 2024-25 as wages growth of 3.6% topped price growth of 2.9%.

A per-capita (if not an actual) recession

    • Throughout 2023, the panel expects economic growth of just 1.2% in the US and historically weak growth of 4.9% in China, suggesting Australia’s biggest customer for minerals will be unable to provide much help as Australia’s own economic growth dwindles.
    • The panel is forecasting Australian economic growth of just 1.2% in 2023 – the lowest rate outside a recession in more than 30 years, climbing to just 1.5% in the year to June 2024 and 2.3% in the year to June 2025.
    • The average forecast start date of a recession, should there be one, is the final three months of this year.
    • The panel’s economic growth forecast of 1.5% for 2023-24 is well below the Treasury’s forecast of population growth of 2%, suggesting output per person will shrink in what is called a per-capita recession.

Unemployment climbing, albeit slowly

    • The panel expects a gradual increase in the unemployment rate from its present near-50-year low of 3.6% to 4.3% by mid-next year, followed by an increase to 4.6% by mid-2025.
    • The forecasts are in line with those of the Treasury and Reserve Bank, and suggest Australia is unlikely to surrender the big gains in employment made in the aftermath of the COVID lockdowns and return to the pre-COVID unemployment rate of 5%.

Less household buying, higher house prices

    • The panel expects growth in real household spending of just 1.5% in 2023-24, meaning the amount bought per household is likely to shrink.
    • Yet at the same time, it is forecasting continued modest growth in home prices, which climbed for the third month in a row in May after falling since mid-2022.
    • Most of the panel expects some growth in Sydney and Melbourne home prices in the year to June, with only four panel members predicting declines.

Tiny share market growth, tiny budget deficit

    • The panel expects the budget surplus for the financial year just ended to be followed by only a tiny budget deficit of A$9.4 billion in 2023-24, which would be less than 0.4% of GDP.
    • Two panellists, Mariano Kulish and Stephen Anthony, expect this year’s surplus to be followed by another one of $18 billion to 20 billion.
    • Anther, Jenny Gordon, expects this year’s surplus to be followed by a budget in balance.

The Conversation’s Economic Panel


    Click on economist to see full profile. Download the results on one page