The Economy: Business confidence up

Wall Street recovered overnight, following the Australian market's relatively strong performance yesterday. Perhaps this will come to be seen as a small correction, with no need for the shoal of local economists to switch directions on interest rates (again) like a shoal of sardines sensing a predator.

Wall Street recovered overnight following the Australian market’s relatively strong performance yesterday. Perhaps this will come to be seen as a small correction, with no need for local economists to switch directions on interest rates (again) like a shoal of sardines sensing a predator.

The nice people at the National Bank say business confidence is high, especially amongst smaller SMEs.

“Overall business confidence for the September quarter has increased slightly to reach strong levels, after falling during the second half of 2006”, according to the latest quarterly surveys by National Australia Bank.

“NAB’s Business Confidence Index is up 2 points to 12 points for the September quarter. This is its highest level since December 2003 and is significantly above average historical levels,” Jeff Oughton said, NAB’s Head of Australian Economics.

The 2007 Stan Kelly Lecture

Professor Bruno S Frey, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, on the evening of 9 August will present a free lecture on the subject Dealing With Terrorism: An Alternative Approach.

The organisers are the Economic Society of Australia, Victorian branch. This is the profession, some of whose members believe drugs should be legalised so that the normal processes of supply and demand operate to maximise welfare, so the discussion is sure to be interesting.

The blurb says:

In his recent book Dealing with Terrorism: Stick or Carrot? Professor Frey used the logic of economics to critique the commonsense policy of deterrence and to argue that positive incentives are available to encourage terrorists not to engage in violent acts.

An internationally renowned welfare economist, Bruno Frey co-founded and is research director of the Centre for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA) in Switzerland, and is Chair of Economic Policy and Non-Market Economics at the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich. He has written, co-written or edited more than a dozen books as well as numerous articles, published not only in economics journals, but also in political science, sociology and psychology publications.