Structural reform in Australia past and present: why the PC matters
Richard Snape lecture
23 March 2026
This year’s lecture will be delivered by Professor David Vines, Emeritus Professor of Economics, and Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, at Oxford University. He is also the Director of the Ethics and Economics Programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in the Oxford Martin School and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
David’s research is on macroeconomics, finance, and global economic governance. His initial work was with the Nobel-Prize winner James Meade in Cambridge; together they published some of the earliest research on inflation-targeting regimes.
David’s recent publications include The Leaderless Economy (Princeton University Press, 2013) and Keynes: Useful Economics for the World Economy (MIT Press, 2014), both written jointly with Peter Temin of MIT, and Capital Failure: Restoring Trust in Financial Services (OUP, 2014), which he edited with Nicholas Morris.
Currently he is writing about international economic cooperation, the reconstruction of macroeconomic theory in the wake of the covid pandemic, and macroeconomic policymaking in Australia.
The topic of David’s lecture is Structural reform in Australia past and present: why the Productivity Commission matters.
Trade liberalisation required massive structural change in the Hawke-Keating era. Opportunities emerged in many new sectors, and adjustment assistance was required for those in sectors that were left behind. The same is true once again, in dealing with AI, in responding to climate change, and in coping with the world-wide collapse of the rules-based global trading system.
In this lecture, David will remind us of how and why the PC came to play such an important part in managing structural reform during the Hawke-Keating era. He will argue that it should be equally important now.
Event details
Join the livestream to watch Professor David Vines deliver the 2026 Richard Snape lecture.
Date: Monday 23 March 2026
Time: 5 pm to 6 pm AEDT
