If you want to commit suicide, but not yet, you could do a lot worse than begin smoking. With a few special exceptions, smoking is the worst thing you can do to yourself. Indeed, it's often been said, cigarettes are the only legally available product that when used as directed will kill the user and injure others.
Unsurprisingly, the economic costs of smoking are vast. The premature deaths, ill health and lost productivity that cigarettes cause quickly becomes a very large number in dollar terms. In 2005, the last year that figures are available, smoking cost Australia $31.5 billion. That's about $1500 for every single person in the country, or about 2/3 of the federal government's total health budget of $45 billion.
So, anything that reduces the number of cigarettes people smoke has to be good for the country. Governments invest in helping people quit through information campaigns and telephone helplines, they raise taxes on tobacco (providing a win-win as far as Treasury's concerned) and they have progressively introduced bans on where people can smoke. Let's take them one at a time.
There's evidence that telephone helplines, especially when advertised in mass media, do have an impact. Counselling seems to be better than no counselling. But the small-government, low taxation, libertarian think-tank, the Centre for Independent Studies says it's a myth that higher spending on preventive medicine will reduce health costs in the future.
Actually, the researcher who argued this, Jeremy Sammut came into the studio and when I put the example of smoking to him, he qualified. Essentially he believes that public information campaigns don't work by themselves, but that smoking has been reduced with a multi-pronged approach of increased taxes (and thus increased prices) and bans.
But it turns out to be more interesting than that, because smokers, like all addicts, are making rational choices. This idea, of a rational addict, seems bleeding obvious but it was a revolutionary insight 20 years ago when first put forward by two Chicago economists, Gary Becker & Kevin Murphy.
If you're addicted to cigarettes and you know the tax on tobacco is about to increase, you have a powerful incentive to quit. In fact, you really have an incentive to quit now, before the tax increases. Building on their initial research, this is exactly what Becker and Murphy found - more smokers began trying to quit after tax increases were announced but before they came in.
But what if you can't quit, or you didn't realise the price was going up? Then you have to pay more for each cigarette. As a rational smoker, not able to quit, you have a choice - you can wear the price rise and pay more, or you can smoke fewer cigarettes. Which do you choose?
It turns out that you smoke fewer but smoke harder. You suck it down to your toes. Not only that, you don't leave the ciggy lying around in the ashtray, you get it into you - after all, it's costing you a fortune. Francesca Cornaglia, who's at Queen Mary College and LSE, (and a colleague, Jérôme Adda) worked this out in a rather elegant way. They measured the levels of cotinine (a by-product of the body breaking down nicotine) in smokers who reported buying fewer cigarettes. Essentially it stayed constant.
The only way to pull that off is take more and deeper drags of each cigarette. Unfortunately the filters in cigarettes become less efficient as they're used - they're clogging up with gunk. So in the second half of a cigarette, more of that gunk is getting into the smoker's lungs. The gunk is not made of antioxidants and omega III, it's a cocktail of enormously toxic chemicals. You really don't want more of this stuff going into your body. All of which means that increasing taxes will result in some smokers using cigarettes in a more unhealthy way!
That's one unintended consequence of well-meaning public policy. Now Cornaglia and Adda have found another - this time it's connected to smoking bans. You can't smoke on public transport, in schools or shopping malls, or inside workplaces. You can't smoke at the cinema or restaurants either, or - increasingly - in pubs and clubs. So what's a rational smoker to do?
The answer depends on how easy it is to substitute the public space for a private one. Schools and shopping malls don't have a private equivalent. Neither do most workplaces. But the cinema does, so do restaurants and pubs. They're all to be found under one roof - the home.
The two London-based economists found that a ban on smoking where there's a private alternative (the home) drives up smoking in that place. So if you stop people smoking in pubs or cinemas, they simply drink at home and watch DVDs. The effect of this is to create two classes of people, neither of whom smoke: winners and losers.
The winners are everyone who can now go to restaurants and pubs without breathing other people's smoke. This is really important for the health of the people who work in these places - they become big winners. The losers are literally close to home - they're inside with the smokers - the smokers' children and other relatives.
Which means that some smoking bans will mean more secondary smoke for children of smokers. Once again, not something the policy framers will have been trying to achieve.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Neighbourhood Watch
It was Neighbour Day the other day. A bit over a week ago, Sunday 30th March. It's a brilliant idea - get to know your neighbours, talk to them, foster a greater sense of community caring. It can begin modestly - introduce yourself and give them your phone number. Make sure they know they can ring you if they need to.
Most of us have had neighbours whom we would rather didn't ring. Let's face it, we would rather they weren't our neighbours. But for every one of them, there are people like John and Margaret, who live across the road from me. They've been there for nearly 30 years, raised two kids and aren't going anywhere. They are kind, friendly and enormously tolerant of our curious and talkative children. They know everyone and the entire history of the street, which is handy when you first move in. John has a lot of tools, all of which he seems happy to lend, even to a rank amateur like me. In my first conversation with him, he told they'd thought about moving a few times but couldn't find anywhere as nice as this. I know what he means.
I live in a very leafy part of Sydney. Not wealthy-leafy, but comfortable-leafy. It's a quiet suburb isolated by geography, which means there's no through-traffic. It has a thriving local shops, a school and a lot of green space. The street we're on is short and quickly peters out into bush, there is one street off it that leads to a park with oval, playground and tennis courts. Kids around here really do play in the street - they ride their bikes and skateboards; sometimes they play cricket or kick a football. It's very much about children, this area, and it feels like a bit like the Sydney I grew up in, 30 years ago.
It's not perfect - far from it. You couldn't live here without a car and lots of families have two. There are only a couple of buses an hour through the day and the nearest railway station is a brisk 30 minute walk. If you're really into street life that isn't kids playing, or people walking their dogs, you'd quickly become very bored indeed. Leichhardt, (which I love) it ain't.
It isn't a good place for arachnophobes either, especially at this time of year when there are, I don't know, about a million spiders living in my garden. Most of them are beautiful and useful, some of them are not very nice.
But it does have a feeling of neighbourhood - a sense of community. Last Friday on the show, we did a talkback on this. Not my neighbourhood but the idea of it - how neighbourhoods have changed and are changing. What we've lost and what we've gained.
My guests, Hugh Mackay and Karen Malone, are both smart people who've thought a lot about this issue. And we took calls from listeners too. I thought we'd hear from people with complaints, or at least trenchant observations, about what's going wrong in our neighbourhoods. But what we (mostly) got were optimists and doers - people working to build community, active in their neighbourhoods and getting involved. Many were clear-eyed about the challenges but keen to be part of something.
As a journalist I was hoping for a bit more niggle and grit. As a person I was rather heartened. You can listen if you like.
Most of us have had neighbours whom we would rather didn't ring. Let's face it, we would rather they weren't our neighbours. But for every one of them, there are people like John and Margaret, who live across the road from me. They've been there for nearly 30 years, raised two kids and aren't going anywhere. They are kind, friendly and enormously tolerant of our curious and talkative children. They know everyone and the entire history of the street, which is handy when you first move in. John has a lot of tools, all of which he seems happy to lend, even to a rank amateur like me. In my first conversation with him, he told they'd thought about moving a few times but couldn't find anywhere as nice as this. I know what he means.
I live in a very leafy part of Sydney. Not wealthy-leafy, but comfortable-leafy. It's a quiet suburb isolated by geography, which means there's no through-traffic. It has a thriving local shops, a school and a lot of green space. The street we're on is short and quickly peters out into bush, there is one street off it that leads to a park with oval, playground and tennis courts. Kids around here really do play in the street - they ride their bikes and skateboards; sometimes they play cricket or kick a football. It's very much about children, this area, and it feels like a bit like the Sydney I grew up in, 30 years ago.
It's not perfect - far from it. You couldn't live here without a car and lots of families have two. There are only a couple of buses an hour through the day and the nearest railway station is a brisk 30 minute walk. If you're really into street life that isn't kids playing, or people walking their dogs, you'd quickly become very bored indeed. Leichhardt, (which I love) it ain't.
It isn't a good place for arachnophobes either, especially at this time of year when there are, I don't know, about a million spiders living in my garden. Most of them are beautiful and useful, some of them are not very nice.
But it does have a feeling of neighbourhood - a sense of community. Last Friday on the show, we did a talkback on this. Not my neighbourhood but the idea of it - how neighbourhoods have changed and are changing. What we've lost and what we've gained.
My guests, Hugh Mackay and Karen Malone, are both smart people who've thought a lot about this issue. And we took calls from listeners too. I thought we'd hear from people with complaints, or at least trenchant observations, about what's going wrong in our neighbourhoods. But what we (mostly) got were optimists and doers - people working to build community, active in their neighbourhoods and getting involved. Many were clear-eyed about the challenges but keen to be part of something.
As a journalist I was hoping for a bit more niggle and grit. As a person I was rather heartened. You can listen if you like.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ethics for Profit
Last night's Four Corners on ABC TV showed how unsavoury lending practices have put some unfortunate borrowers into hot water. Some of it, what happened to these people, was heart-rending. Some of it, the cynical behaviour of the lenders, was sick-making. It showed how far good business practice, or at least, highly profitable business practice, has moved from ethical behaviour.
But my guest on the show today, Jeff Malpas, says this circle can be squared. Malpas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania - and he's been looking at this very area.
Essentially, he says, ethical behaviour requires some very potent skills. Things like attentiveness to the interpersonal context in which one works; decision making & problem solving; empathetic understanding; and emotional maturity. All of these relate to leadership.
Workplaces are mostly short of good leaders and enterprises do better when they can devolve decision-making down to the people in the best position to make them. The more leaders at the appropriate levels, instead of all being at the very top, the better.
For this to work of course there has to be trust. Trust within the organisation that the devolved leadership is up to the task, and trust in the organisation from all its stakeholders. But ethical behaviour, or more accurately an ethical culture, reinforces trust. And trust reinforces ethical culture. It's a virtuous circle.
Jeff Malpas believes that ethical behaviour, and the skills to pull it off, will become increasingly highly valued in the corporate world. (You can find out more here)
I have to say, I hope he's right.
But my guest on the show today, Jeff Malpas, says this circle can be squared. Malpas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania - and he's been looking at this very area.
Essentially, he says, ethical behaviour requires some very potent skills. Things like attentiveness to the interpersonal context in which one works; decision making & problem solving; empathetic understanding; and emotional maturity. All of these relate to leadership.
Workplaces are mostly short of good leaders and enterprises do better when they can devolve decision-making down to the people in the best position to make them. The more leaders at the appropriate levels, instead of all being at the very top, the better.
For this to work of course there has to be trust. Trust within the organisation that the devolved leadership is up to the task, and trust in the organisation from all its stakeholders. But ethical behaviour, or more accurately an ethical culture, reinforces trust. And trust reinforces ethical culture. It's a virtuous circle.
Jeff Malpas believes that ethical behaviour, and the skills to pull it off, will become increasingly highly valued in the corporate world. (You can find out more here)
I have to say, I hope he's right.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Location, location II
Where do artists congregate? The clichéd answer is cafés and bars - and doubtless they do go for coffee and drinks. But it turns out that visual artists at least spend a notable amount of time in big hardware stores and the Post Office. Or at least they do in Darwin.
The Creative Tropical City project there has been trying to determine the impact of cultural life in the Northern Territory capital. Chris Gibson, who's actually at the University of Wollongong, used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to map the city's creative life. He got the artists to draw their movements on maps and asked them questions about where they live, socialise and work.
What he found surprised him. Artists do use places like bars, galleries and museums (exactly the facilities found in 'creative precincts') but most of their creative epicentres weren't to be found there. Instead, they tended to go to secluded beautiful spots for inspiration, and to Bunnings warehouse and the Post Office for socialisation.
But why? The reasons turn out to be very rational indeed. Bunnings is cheap when it comes to art supplies. The Post Office is where they dispatch their art into competitions. Chris Gibson put it beautifully, "artists spend a lot of their time dealing with bubble wrap."
So artists buying supplies, or sending off their finished works, bump into one another at these locations. They get to have a chat and catch up on the gossip.
It makes perfect sense, but it isn't something I would ever have thought of. To the artists who heard the interview, however, it was no surprise at all. One of them has already said as much on the Life Matters guestbook.
The Creative Tropical City project there has been trying to determine the impact of cultural life in the Northern Territory capital. Chris Gibson, who's actually at the University of Wollongong, used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to map the city's creative life. He got the artists to draw their movements on maps and asked them questions about where they live, socialise and work.
What he found surprised him. Artists do use places like bars, galleries and museums (exactly the facilities found in 'creative precincts') but most of their creative epicentres weren't to be found there. Instead, they tended to go to secluded beautiful spots for inspiration, and to Bunnings warehouse and the Post Office for socialisation.
But why? The reasons turn out to be very rational indeed. Bunnings is cheap when it comes to art supplies. The Post Office is where they dispatch their art into competitions. Chris Gibson put it beautifully, "artists spend a lot of their time dealing with bubble wrap."
So artists buying supplies, or sending off their finished works, bump into one another at these locations. They get to have a chat and catch up on the gossip.
It makes perfect sense, but it isn't something I would ever have thought of. To the artists who heard the interview, however, it was no surprise at all. One of them has already said as much on the Life Matters guestbook.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Location, location
I spent a part of my Easter break finishing Richard Florida's Who's Your City. It was very impressive, though this (first) edition is very much aimed at the US market. Put it this way, Sydney gets two mentions while Madison, Wisconsin, (a much smaller place that's home to an excellent university but not a lot else) gets 11.
Essentially, Florida's thesis is that where you live matters a great deal. So much so that it's one of the three most important decisions you'll ever make: up there with who you choose to spend your life with, and what you do. Actually, Florida argues that it's the key decision - because it affects the other two.
He's got a point. Holiday romances aside, you tend to meet the person you fall for in the place that you live. Actually you tend to meet them through the places where you socialise, and - overwhelmingly - where you work. You tend to find a job in the place where you live too, although many of us know people who moved for love or their career, or both.
So place matters to you and me. But it also matters to economists and politicians and planners because cities are the great engine rooms of the world economy. Indeed, Florida has identified 40 mega-regions in the world that are home to 1.5 billion people. That's a lot of people - 18% of the world's population - but they're responsible for 66% of economic activity and a staggering 86% of patented innovations.
Mega-regions are very important and very big. Bigger than cities, most of the time anyway. Tokyo and London each get one to themselves, as does Mexico City. But most have cities as mere components. Bos-Wash - the almost completely built-up connurbation that stretches down the US eastern seaboard from Boston to Washington, DC, gives you the flavour of the thing. Australia does not get a single guernsey here - not Sydney, not Melbourne, not Syd-Melb, not anything. We're not big enough.
There's a lot in the book about this kind of thing - cities and regions as cradles for innovation and economic drivers which are becoming increasingly specialised. Cities as winners (LA, San Francisco, Nashville) and cities as losers (St Louis, Pittsburgh). Cities on the up (Shanghei) and on the down (Detroit). I find it fascinating.
But all this is just building up Richard Florida's bona fides. His real message is that different places have different strengths, weaknesses and personalities. (New York is the most neurotic part of America - I love that). Furthermore, people want different things from where they live in different stages of their life. Bars and music venues are much more important to young, single people just out of uni than they are to young families. At each stage, there's a place that's good for you.
Actually, Florida goes a bit further than that. Really, he believes, we should be mobile and move to the place that suits us best. He doesn't pretend there aren't costs involved with doing that - not least the separation from friends and family. Florida also makes clear that no place is perfect and individuals always need to make trade-offs. However, America is not just a land of optimists, it's the land of starting over. Bet it sells like hot cakes.
Certainly I found it an interesting and provocative set of ideas. Hopefully it was a good interview too.
Essentially, Florida's thesis is that where you live matters a great deal. So much so that it's one of the three most important decisions you'll ever make: up there with who you choose to spend your life with, and what you do. Actually, Florida argues that it's the key decision - because it affects the other two.
He's got a point. Holiday romances aside, you tend to meet the person you fall for in the place that you live. Actually you tend to meet them through the places where you socialise, and - overwhelmingly - where you work. You tend to find a job in the place where you live too, although many of us know people who moved for love or their career, or both.
So place matters to you and me. But it also matters to economists and politicians and planners because cities are the great engine rooms of the world economy. Indeed, Florida has identified 40 mega-regions in the world that are home to 1.5 billion people. That's a lot of people - 18% of the world's population - but they're responsible for 66% of economic activity and a staggering 86% of patented innovations.
Mega-regions are very important and very big. Bigger than cities, most of the time anyway. Tokyo and London each get one to themselves, as does Mexico City. But most have cities as mere components. Bos-Wash - the almost completely built-up connurbation that stretches down the US eastern seaboard from Boston to Washington, DC, gives you the flavour of the thing. Australia does not get a single guernsey here - not Sydney, not Melbourne, not Syd-Melb, not anything. We're not big enough.
There's a lot in the book about this kind of thing - cities and regions as cradles for innovation and economic drivers which are becoming increasingly specialised. Cities as winners (LA, San Francisco, Nashville) and cities as losers (St Louis, Pittsburgh). Cities on the up (Shanghei) and on the down (Detroit). I find it fascinating.
But all this is just building up Richard Florida's bona fides. His real message is that different places have different strengths, weaknesses and personalities. (New York is the most neurotic part of America - I love that). Furthermore, people want different things from where they live in different stages of their life. Bars and music venues are much more important to young, single people just out of uni than they are to young families. At each stage, there's a place that's good for you.
Actually, Florida goes a bit further than that. Really, he believes, we should be mobile and move to the place that suits us best. He doesn't pretend there aren't costs involved with doing that - not least the separation from friends and family. Florida also makes clear that no place is perfect and individuals always need to make trade-offs. However, America is not just a land of optimists, it's the land of starting over. Bet it sells like hot cakes.
Certainly I found it an interesting and provocative set of ideas. Hopefully it was a good interview too.
Easter regs
Easter is about family, food and church. Or it should be. This year, we didn't go away, which meant less stress, less driving and less expense. Interestingly, the ACCC says that petrol prices over Easter weren't a rip-off. It just felt like they were.
With only normal amounts of weekend driving, it didn't matter anyway. And of course there was too much food, too much wine, too much chocolate and just the right amounts of friends and church. I could get used to these four day weekends.
All of which leaves me in agreement with the perceptive Peter Martin when he writes about how important these little breaks are. If only he wouldn't ruin it by firstly blogging over the weekend, and then going on Meet the Press!
With only normal amounts of weekend driving, it didn't matter anyway. And of course there was too much food, too much wine, too much chocolate and just the right amounts of friends and church. I could get used to these four day weekends.
All of which leaves me in agreement with the perceptive Peter Martin when he writes about how important these little breaks are. If only he wouldn't ruin it by firstly blogging over the weekend, and then going on Meet the Press!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Liar, Liar II
A week or so ago I wrote about the work of Victoria Talwar at McGill University - who's been looking at lying in young children. The other day I got to follow up my conversation with her by talking to another expert on lying - Nancy Darling.
Nancy is at Oberlin College in Ohio and her work is all about the psychology of adolescence - it's fascinating. Teenagers lie for exactly the same reasons as the rest of us, to gain some advantage for themselves or others, or to mitigate a disadvantage. So far, so predictable.
But adolescents are trying to carve out their own identities, so they're looking for autonomy and chafing against parental authority. That drive peaks at 14-15, but it's stronger at 11 than it is 18. That's the first thing.
The second thing is how bad parents are at detecting lies. They only get it right 60% of the time. So four lies in 10 won't be spotted. But it works the other way too. The mothers (and it's overwhelmingly mothers) will only believe the kids are telling the truth six times out of 10. That's six times out of 10 truths. All of which means that parents clearly expect their adolescent children to lie but they're not very good at detecting the porkies when they do.
This very much informs the decisions the teenagers have to make when it comes to managing their parents. If they want to do things their parents would rather they didn't do, (all the good stuff, from the teen's perspective), they have two options. Lie about what they're up to, who they're with, where they're going and what they're wearing. Or, tell their parents, fight with them and (most of the time) lose. Understandably, it's not a difficult decision.
The key is how parents choose to deal with their adolescents. Nancy Darling has found that many parents are permissive and that their rationale is that the kids will be less likely to rebel in a spectacular fashion, and more likely to tell them the truth.
The only trouble is, this doesn't work. These parents don't know any more about the lives of their teenagers than other, stricter, mums and dads. They get told just as many lies.
But being obsessively strict doesn't work either. Firstly it's very difficult to pull off - it takes ridiculous amounts of energy and determination to enforce a lot of rules and subject the kids to the third degree. Secondly, the effect it has is to make the children depressed. They are obedient (which is probably what the parents were going for) but they're really depressed. Not so good.
There is, however, a happy medium - a kind of 'Goldilocks' approach. The parents who set a few rules about what they considered really important, made it clear they expect those rules to be adhered to, but also allowed their kids autonomy on other issues, did much better. They certainly knew more about their children's lives and the kids didn't tell them as many lies.
It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But there's a cost and it goes back to the choice I mentioned earlier - the decision teens have to make when it comes to doing what they want and managing their parents. There are more fights and those fights are more demanding.
Tabitha Holmes of SUNY has looked at how both parents (mothers) and their kids feel about these fights. The mothers find them chaotic, exhausting and difficult. As Nancy Darling, herself a mother of teenagers told me, 'adolescents are really good at arguing'. So that's the parents. The teens thought the clashes made their relationships stronger. There's more fighting, less lying and a stronger relationship.
So what's the take home message? Set some reasonable rules and fight the good fight.
Nancy is at Oberlin College in Ohio and her work is all about the psychology of adolescence - it's fascinating. Teenagers lie for exactly the same reasons as the rest of us, to gain some advantage for themselves or others, or to mitigate a disadvantage. So far, so predictable.
But adolescents are trying to carve out their own identities, so they're looking for autonomy and chafing against parental authority. That drive peaks at 14-15, but it's stronger at 11 than it is 18. That's the first thing.
The second thing is how bad parents are at detecting lies. They only get it right 60% of the time. So four lies in 10 won't be spotted. But it works the other way too. The mothers (and it's overwhelmingly mothers) will only believe the kids are telling the truth six times out of 10. That's six times out of 10 truths. All of which means that parents clearly expect their adolescent children to lie but they're not very good at detecting the porkies when they do.
This very much informs the decisions the teenagers have to make when it comes to managing their parents. If they want to do things their parents would rather they didn't do, (all the good stuff, from the teen's perspective), they have two options. Lie about what they're up to, who they're with, where they're going and what they're wearing. Or, tell their parents, fight with them and (most of the time) lose. Understandably, it's not a difficult decision.
The key is how parents choose to deal with their adolescents. Nancy Darling has found that many parents are permissive and that their rationale is that the kids will be less likely to rebel in a spectacular fashion, and more likely to tell them the truth.
The only trouble is, this doesn't work. These parents don't know any more about the lives of their teenagers than other, stricter, mums and dads. They get told just as many lies.
But being obsessively strict doesn't work either. Firstly it's very difficult to pull off - it takes ridiculous amounts of energy and determination to enforce a lot of rules and subject the kids to the third degree. Secondly, the effect it has is to make the children depressed. They are obedient (which is probably what the parents were going for) but they're really depressed. Not so good.
There is, however, a happy medium - a kind of 'Goldilocks' approach. The parents who set a few rules about what they considered really important, made it clear they expect those rules to be adhered to, but also allowed their kids autonomy on other issues, did much better. They certainly knew more about their children's lives and the kids didn't tell them as many lies.
It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But there's a cost and it goes back to the choice I mentioned earlier - the decision teens have to make when it comes to doing what they want and managing their parents. There are more fights and those fights are more demanding.
Tabitha Holmes of SUNY has looked at how both parents (mothers) and their kids feel about these fights. The mothers find them chaotic, exhausting and difficult. As Nancy Darling, herself a mother of teenagers told me, 'adolescents are really good at arguing'. So that's the parents. The teens thought the clashes made their relationships stronger. There's more fighting, less lying and a stronger relationship.
So what's the take home message? Set some reasonable rules and fight the good fight.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Elites vs Excellence
Part of me wonders if this isn't a debate over semantics, but the ideas canvassed are well worth thinking about. It's from Tuesday's Guardian and it goes to culture, as much as education. It's also an argument that we'll hear more of here - the land of cutting down Tall Poppies.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Why Great Unis Matter
It occurs to me I haven't explained why it's important to have more very good universities. The answer lies in one of the consequences of very large numbers. Michael Kremer of Harvard University has shown that the rate of technological progress is proportional to population. Essentially, the more people you have, the more brilliant ideas they come up with. Not only that, but those brilliant ideas move through those populations remarkably quickly.
Australia has a small population. Fundamentally, and even in the most extreme scenarios, that is not going to change in the next 40 years or so. UN population projections show that even if we had, say 36 million people, by 2050 we will still be dwarfed - and not only by India (1.458 billion) and China (1.181 billion). The US will have 437 million, Nigeria: 302 million, Uganda: 167 million and Yemen: 144 million.
In our region, in addition to the megagiants, we'll be dealing with Pakistan (409 million), Indonesia (273 million), Bangladesh (260 million), the Philippines (129 million), Vietnam (110 million) and Thailand (70 million). Earlier I said, even if we had 36 million we'd be dwarfed. But the overwhelming likelihood is that we'll have 10 million fewer - 26 million people. Population-wise, we're heading for the same level of relevance as New Zealand (4 million), and as Coral Bell has pointed out, this is going to present a rather testing set of challenges for us.
It would help our rather small country if it is also an extremely clever one. We can't rely on sheer brute numbers to generate brilliant ideas, so we need to have more brilliant people - more proportionally than all the others I've mentioned (except New Zealand) - if we are to compete and prosper.
Extremely good universities are key to getting them. They attract very bright people from overseas to study and work here. They train the very bright people we've grown ourselves. The best universities also generate valuable intellectual property, which can be commercialised by entrepreneurs, as well as 'pure' knowledge that tells us more about our world and ourselves. This generates a virtuous circle - the innovation and the ideas attract the people, and the people contribute more innovation and ideas.
But I think, in a way, the IP is the less important, it's the people that really matter. McKinseys was right - there really is a War for Talent. But it's not just happening at the level of the corporation, countries are in it too. As a small country, we need to be a winner and our universities will be vital in making us one.
Australia has a small population. Fundamentally, and even in the most extreme scenarios, that is not going to change in the next 40 years or so. UN population projections show that even if we had, say 36 million people, by 2050 we will still be dwarfed - and not only by India (1.458 billion) and China (1.181 billion). The US will have 437 million, Nigeria: 302 million, Uganda: 167 million and Yemen: 144 million.
In our region, in addition to the megagiants, we'll be dealing with Pakistan (409 million), Indonesia (273 million), Bangladesh (260 million), the Philippines (129 million), Vietnam (110 million) and Thailand (70 million). Earlier I said, even if we had 36 million we'd be dwarfed. But the overwhelming likelihood is that we'll have 10 million fewer - 26 million people. Population-wise, we're heading for the same level of relevance as New Zealand (4 million), and as Coral Bell has pointed out, this is going to present a rather testing set of challenges for us.
It would help our rather small country if it is also an extremely clever one. We can't rely on sheer brute numbers to generate brilliant ideas, so we need to have more brilliant people - more proportionally than all the others I've mentioned (except New Zealand) - if we are to compete and prosper.
Extremely good universities are key to getting them. They attract very bright people from overseas to study and work here. They train the very bright people we've grown ourselves. The best universities also generate valuable intellectual property, which can be commercialised by entrepreneurs, as well as 'pure' knowledge that tells us more about our world and ourselves. This generates a virtuous circle - the innovation and the ideas attract the people, and the people contribute more innovation and ideas.
But I think, in a way, the IP is the less important, it's the people that really matter. McKinseys was right - there really is a War for Talent. But it's not just happening at the level of the corporation, countries are in it too. As a small country, we need to be a winner and our universities will be vital in making us one.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Uni study
At the end of last week, Julia Gillard, the Education Minister announced a review of the higher education sector. It will be chaired by Denise Bradley, the former vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia, and report by the end of the year. She is going to need to get cracking.
Australian universities are still good. One or two are very good - they make the top 100 in the world according to the best regarded of the ranking systems. But they're not great - they aren't of the calibre of Harvard, UC Berkeley, MIT, Chicago or Oxford. Realistically they're not in the next tier down either, with the likes of Wisconsin, Johns Hopkins, Tokyo, or Imperial College in London.
They are not in the tier below that either. The ANU is ranked 57 (its highest rank was 49), Melbourne is at 79 - which puts it below Sheffield, Arizona and Case Western Reserve. That's the context, or part of it.
The scarier* part is that all the OECD countries, well nearly all, have been shovelling money into universities while the previous Coalition government did not. Mostly, they were neglected, sometimes they were thrown a bone or two. The OECD figures on this are unequivocal and I say that as someone who's had to sit through discussions between the then Education Minister Julie Bishop and her then shadow, Stephen Smith. Oh. My. God.
The thing is, the last government didn't really like the universities. It thought they were full of 'elites'. It suspected the uni folk were a bunch of lefties who liked Paul Keating. John Howard defined himself as the common man (the fact that he was completely uncommon in his ambition, work ethic, intelligence and political nous is beside the point). His government correctly calculated that most people thought the unis were full of smart-arses and that not shovelling large quantities of money into them wouldn't lose any votes.
But this new government has as Prime Minister a policy wonk. We know that he's very clever indeed and it's part of his appeal. We like thinking that this clever man is looking after the country. You would think he might have a bit more sympatico when it comes to the universities, even if there aren't many votes in it.
I think you'd be right. Here's a prediction: the review will report that the unis need a lot more money if Australia's going to compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy. Here's another prediction: the universities, for their part, will accept that they can't be all things to all students and specialise. A big chunk of the 38 of them will agree to concentrate on teaching. A smaller chunk will trundle on doing a bit of teaching and a bit of research - but will concentrate their efforts on their strengths. The Group of Eight will agree to specialise a bit more too and in return receive even more of the research funding.
And then, barring complete global financial disaster (not assured), in next year's budget the government will allocate some meaningful money. The vast majority of which will be delivered in its second and third terms.
The universities, which would rather have jam now, will accept that more jam tomorrow is better than no jam at all.
(*The really scary part is how much money China is investing in its universities and research infrastructure. Of which, more another time)
Australian universities are still good. One or two are very good - they make the top 100 in the world according to the best regarded of the ranking systems. But they're not great - they aren't of the calibre of Harvard, UC Berkeley, MIT, Chicago or Oxford. Realistically they're not in the next tier down either, with the likes of Wisconsin, Johns Hopkins, Tokyo, or Imperial College in London.
They are not in the tier below that either. The ANU is ranked 57 (its highest rank was 49), Melbourne is at 79 - which puts it below Sheffield, Arizona and Case Western Reserve. That's the context, or part of it.
The scarier* part is that all the OECD countries, well nearly all, have been shovelling money into universities while the previous Coalition government did not. Mostly, they were neglected, sometimes they were thrown a bone or two. The OECD figures on this are unequivocal and I say that as someone who's had to sit through discussions between the then Education Minister Julie Bishop and her then shadow, Stephen Smith. Oh. My. God.
The thing is, the last government didn't really like the universities. It thought they were full of 'elites'. It suspected the uni folk were a bunch of lefties who liked Paul Keating. John Howard defined himself as the common man (the fact that he was completely uncommon in his ambition, work ethic, intelligence and political nous is beside the point). His government correctly calculated that most people thought the unis were full of smart-arses and that not shovelling large quantities of money into them wouldn't lose any votes.
But this new government has as Prime Minister a policy wonk. We know that he's very clever indeed and it's part of his appeal. We like thinking that this clever man is looking after the country. You would think he might have a bit more sympatico when it comes to the universities, even if there aren't many votes in it.
I think you'd be right. Here's a prediction: the review will report that the unis need a lot more money if Australia's going to compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy. Here's another prediction: the universities, for their part, will accept that they can't be all things to all students and specialise. A big chunk of the 38 of them will agree to concentrate on teaching. A smaller chunk will trundle on doing a bit of teaching and a bit of research - but will concentrate their efforts on their strengths. The Group of Eight will agree to specialise a bit more too and in return receive even more of the research funding.
And then, barring complete global financial disaster (not assured), in next year's budget the government will allocate some meaningful money. The vast majority of which will be delivered in its second and third terms.
The universities, which would rather have jam now, will accept that more jam tomorrow is better than no jam at all.
(*The really scary part is how much money China is investing in its universities and research infrastructure. Of which, more another time)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)