School of Economics and Finance Public Lecture: Trade, Trade Policy and Tradeoffs

2025 has been a year of increasing uncertainty and volatility for the world economy.

Tariffs have re-emerged as a form of industry assistance in major economies, following actions by the United States. The US’ announcement of wide-ranging tariffs has led to retaliatory measures from their targets and policy responses from affected countries including Australia.

This lecture will draw upon the Productivity Commission’s (PC’s) Trade and Assistance Review (TAR) and examine in detail at the effects of the introduction of tariffs and the associated global economic uncertainty for Australia, including modelling the likely magnitude and direction of the impacts.

One clear finding emerges: Australia should not retaliate to tariffs imposed on Australian goods and services. Instead, tariff reform in Australia should focus on further reduction and removal of tariffs on imports, building on the Government’s previous action to remove around 500 ‘nuisance tariffs’ – those which impose a high indicative compliance burden and generate little policy or revenue benefit.

The lecture duration is 45 minutes followed by a Q&A session.

Speaker: Professor Alex Robson, Deputy Chair of the Productivity Commission, commenced his five-year term as a full-time Commissioner and Deputy Chair of the Productivity Commission in March 2022. He has previously served as Australia’s Ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and as Senior Economic Adviser and Chief Economist to the former Australian Prime Minister, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull. Professor Robson has a broad range of experience in academia and the public and private sectors, most recently as Associate Partner at EY (Ernst and Young). His teaching and research have been in the fields of advanced microeconomics, game theory, public economics and public choice, law and economics, and macroeconomics.