Greening cities makes for safer neighbourhoods

J. Morgan Grove and Michelle Kondo (United States Forest Service) explain that when under-served neighbourhoods are made more pleasant, it can result in a healthier sense of community. In turn, it makes those neighbourhoods less hospitable to criminal activity.

States will ultimately pay for unsustainable federal fiscal promises

Richard Eccleston (University of Tasmania) and Neil Warren (University of NSW) explain that a large part of the federal budget repair will fall on the states, regardless of which party wins on July 2.

For the English, Brexit will mean economic and political pain

Stephen King (Monash University) explains that the EU leaders have a strong incentive to make the UK's ‘exit conditions’ as onerous and costly as possible – so as to deter other nations from also exiting the EU. Incentives for Scotland and Northern Ireland to stay with the EU will figure prominently and the remaining England and Wales are likely to face the highest level of default restrictions on trade with the EU (including with Scotland and Northern Ireland). Great Britain is likely to disintegrate rapidly over the next two years and the standard of living will decline, particularly in the midlands and northern parts of England.

Brexit: act in haste…

Mark Beeson (University of Western Australia) reflects on Brexit and argues that none of the defining problems of the 20th century can be tackled without more co-operation rather than less. The problems are difficult – some possibly irresolvable – but without mechanisms with which to tackle them, solutions are not even theoretically viable. A retreat into insularity, parochialism and nostalgia for the 19th century are plainly not the answers.

Childcare policies compared

Ben Phillips (Australian National University), writing in The Conversation, compares Labor's childcare policy with that of the Coalition. Each party seems locked into a vicious cycle of increasing subsidies only to see prices increase more and parents worse off except in the short term.

Company tax cuts are not a knight in shining armour to save the Australian economy

John Daley and Brendan Coates of the Grattan Institute (writing in The Conversation) demonstrate that the Government's signature company tax reduction policy reduces Australia's income over the short term, has a very small (almost negligible) positive impact over 25 years, and that foreigners are the overwhelming beneficiaries of the policy at the expense of Australians. None of this should be a surprise to anyone who understands how Australia's company tax system works—clearly the Government doesn't, otherwise it would have realised there are much more important reforms to focus on.

Good reform of housing taxation should encapsulate the full spectrum of housing market distortions

Danika Wright (University of Sydney) provides an excellent overview of negative gearing in The Conversation and argues that it should not be analysed in isolation from capital gains and other special treatments of housing, such as stamp duty, land taxes and first-home-buyer exemptions.