The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently issued a new working paper called “The Future of Oil: Geology versus Technology” (free PDF), which should be of interest to people who are following “peak oil” issues. This is a research paper that is being published to elicit comments and debate; it does not necessarily represent IMF views or policy.The paper considers two different approaches for modelling future oil supply:1.    The economic/technological approach, used by the US Energy Information Administration…

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labour Party (ALP)-dominated coalition Government of Australia has clung to power without an express public mandate since the August 21, 2010, House of Representatives elections. This has been largely because its parliamentary majority has been guaranteed by four independent parliamentarians and one member of the Greens party, all of whom recognize that they would be unlikely ever again to gain a position of power and vote with the ALP to preserve their privilege for as long as possible. Thus, Ms Gillard has…

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Let’s say that private gdp is 100 and government spending is 100.  Gdp then suddenly goes up to 200, so government spending as a percentage of gdp falls from 50% to 33.3%.  This is not a contractionary event.  It is fully possible to argue “government spending should go up too, to slot more public goods into the larger output,” but the initial change is expansionary, even though government spending as a percentage of gdp took a steep dive. Let’s say that private gdp is 100 and government spending is 100. …

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