Vital Signs: a bounce-back in investment holds open the possibility of very good news

By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

Private business investment is one of the key drivers of economic growth.

Business investment in equipment (and even in buildings) drives productivity, which the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman famously observed

isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything

As he put it, a country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time “depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker”.

Which is why one of the forecasts in this month’s budget stood out.

The budget…

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