Committee for Economic Development of Australia

This article is about the Australian economic think tank. For other uses, see CEDA (disambiguation).

CEDA (the Committee for Economic Development of Australia) is an independent, bipartisan, non-profit forum and think tank. Its expressed aim is to "promote national economic development in a sustainable and socially balanced way." Sydney Morning Herald economics editor Ross Gittins has described CEDA as seeking to "inform the public debate without lobbying". It is financed by around 900 members drawn from business, universities, governments and community groups, and by a program of conferences and other events.

Foundation

CEDA was formed in 1960 by Sir Douglas Copland, one of the most influential figures in Australian economics. It was modelled on the US CED (Committee for Economic Development), but is now organised along lines more similar to the US Conference Board and the Conference Board of Canada. It is Australia's third-oldest think-tank, after the Institute of Public Affairs and the Australian Institute of International Affairs^[1].

In 1979, after a debate on CEDA's involvement in lobbying, it established a 'Business Roundtable' as an independent entity which in 1983 was merged into the Business Council of Australia.

Research approach

CEDA's research program today concentrates on long-term issues, including education, economic infrastructure (roads, ports, electricity systems et al.), population ageing, management of water, and business innovation. Rather than identifying strongly with a particular ideological viewpoint in the style of the Centre for Independent Studies, the Institute of Public Affairs or the Australia Institute, it mostly offers conclusions that are near the centre of the policy spectrum. It tends to favour market-oriented or at least price-oriented solutions to issues such as water supply and infrastructure. However, a substantial amount of its social policy work - for instance, on transitional labour markets - is sympathetic to government intervention in appropriate circumstances. It is respected for the quality of its research and its commitment to open debate as a means of identifying good policy outcomes.

Recent research

A Taxing Debate: Climate policy beyond Copenhagen (2009) is an 11-chapter volume on the practicalities of a consumption-based carbon tax and its potential to deliver economic and international certainty. It includes papers by Yale University's William D Nordhaus and leading Australian economist Professor Warwick McKibbin.

Australia's Broadband Future - Four doors to greater competition (2009) offers a competition-based approach to delivering broadband services to customers in different situations across the country.

Competing From Australia, an eight-paper volume examining Australia's engagement with the world economy. Two papers in Competing From Australia, by Professor Geoffrey Blainey and Professor Glenn Withers, examine the continuing effects of distance on the Australian economy. These papers develop an investigation of the so-called "New Economic Geography" begun in Australia by researchers from the Federal Treasury in the early 2000s. They also revive in a new context the "tyranny of distance" concept made famous by BlaineyBold text in the 1960s. Other papers in Competing From Australia examine industrial innovation and the rise of global supply chains.

A controversial CEDA paper published in December 2006 argued that Australia does not need a single national high-speed broadband network. The paper, authored by the University of Melbourne's Professor Joshua Gans, claimed that Australia would do better to create a regulatory system that enabled appropriate local-scale solutions. This argument has been rejected by Telstra, Australia's largest broadband provider.

See also

• Economy of Australia

External links

• CEDA
• CEDA's Competing From Australia project

References

• 50 Years of CEDA (2010), published by CEDA - the most recent history.
• A Taxing Debate: Climate policy beyond Copenhagen (2009).
• The Bridge by CEDA Staff (1990), published by CEDA.
• Problems & Progress, edited by Harvey Mitchell (1985), published by CEDA - with contributions by Neville Norman, Phil Ruthven, Dame Leonie Kramer and others.
• Competing From Australia, published by CEDA (2007)
• The Local Broadband Imperative", by Joshua Gans, published by CEDA (2006)

1. ^ James G. McGann and R. Kent Weaver (ed), Think Tanks and Civil Societies, Transaction Publishers, 2002, at p395