Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Peter Martin is Business and Economy Editor of The Conversation and a visiting fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the ANU.
A former Treasury official with an honours degree in economics, he has worked as the economics correspondent for ABC radio, as the ABC's Tokyo correspondent and as economics editor of The Age.
With Dr Gigi Foster of UNSW he created The Economists podcast on ABC Radio National. In 2016 he was made a Distinguished Alumni of Flinders University in recognition of his contribution to the community's understanding of economics.
GDP update: spending dips and saving soars as we stash rather than spend our tax cuts
Dec 09, 2019 05:27 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy
Australians saved rather than spent most of the budget tax cuts, almost doubling the proportion of household income saved, leaving spending languishing. The September quarter national accounts show that in the first...
We asked 13 economists how to fix things. All back the RBA governor over the treasurer
Nov 04, 2019 11:26 am UTC| Insights & Views Central Banks Economy
Thirteen leading economists have declared their hands in the stand off between the government and the Governor of the Reserve Bank over the best way to boost the economy. All 13 back Reserve Bank Governor Philip...
Oct 02, 2019 03:13 am UTC| Insights & Views Central Banks Economy
Anyone who thought that with the Reserve Banks cash rate now close to zero, its run of interest rate cuts was over, needs only to read the last sentence of Governor Philip Lowes announcement after Tuesdays cut: The...
Deeming rates explained. What is deeming, how does it cut pensions, and why do we have it?
Jul 14, 2019 13:14 pm UTC| Insights & Views Central Banks
Now its the Coalition thats being accused of a retiree tax. As interest rates have come down over the past four years, the rate that retirees are deemed to have earned for the purpose of the pension income test hasnt...
Back-to-back Reserve Bank cuts take interest rates to new low of 1%
Jul 03, 2019 20:57 pm UTC| Insights & Views Central Banks
The Reserve Bank has cut the official interest rate by another 0.25 percentage points to a new low of 1%, reflecting continuing concern over the slow economy. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe said the latest cut, which...
Ultra-low unemployment is in our grasp. How Philip Lowe became the governor who lifted our ambition
Jul 03, 2019 07:45 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy
Rarely does a Reserve Bank governor get to remake Australia. HC Nugget Coombs, the first Reserve Bank governor, did. As director general of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction from 1943, he was instrumental in...
The Reserve Bank will cut rates again and again, until we lift spending and push up prices
Jun 07, 2019 16:11 pm UTC| Insights & Views Central Banks
The Reserve Bank cut interest rates on Tuesday because we arent spending or pushing up prices at anything like the rate it would like. And things are even worse than it might have realised. As the board met in Martin...