Professor of Economics and PLuS Alliance Fellow, UNSW
Richard Holden is Professor of Economics at the UNSW Australia Business School and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow from 2013-2017.
Prior to that he was on the faculty at the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a PhD from Harvard University in 2006, where he was a Frank Knox Scholar.
His research focuses on contract theory, law and economics, and political economy. He has written on topics including: political districting, the boundary of the firm, incentives in organizations, mechanism design, and voting rules.
Professor Holden has published in top general interest journals such as the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
He is currently editor of the Journal of Law and Economics, and is the founding director of the Herbert Smith Freehills Inititative on Law & Economics at UNSW.
He has been a Visiting Professor of Economics at the MIT Department of Economics and Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School.
His research has been featured in press articles in such outlets as: The New York Times, The Financial Times, the New Republic, and the Daily Kos.
Vital Signs: policies come and policies go, but surely we shouldn't be subsidising inheritances
May 03, 2019 17:11 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics
Theres an election on. Half a million of us have already voted. Theres just two weeks to go. With that comes more intense scrutiny of different policies (which is good) and disingenuous claims by those with vested...
Zero inflation means the Reserve Bank should cut rates as soon as it can, on Tuesday week
Apr 27, 2019 06:03 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy
What do US pizza executive Herman Cain, US conservative commentator Stephen Moore, US Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Australias Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe have in common? More than you might think. The...
Australia's sudden ultra-low economic growth ought not to have come as surprise
Mar 09, 2019 06:09 am UTC| Insights & Views
Australias big little economic lie was laid bare on Wednesday. National accounts figures show that the Australian economy grew by just 0.2% in the last quarter of 2018. This disappointing result was below market...
Vital Signs. Do deficits matter any more?
Mar 01, 2019 13:46 pm UTC| Insights & Views Economy
It seems that whoever wins the White House in 2020, the US federal deficit will blow up. President Donald Trump has already signed into law massive tax cuts that are estimated to expand the deficit by at least US$1.5...
Now is the time to plan how to fight the next recession
Feb 26, 2019 14:43 pm UTC| Insights & Views Economy
This is part of a major series called Advancing Australia, in which leading academics examine the key issues facing Australia in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election and beyond. Read the other pieces in the series...
If needed, this man can and will cut rates during the election campaign
Feb 08, 2019 11:52 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics
It was a great story. Philip Lowe had taken over as Reserve Bank governor after 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth. The Australian economy was transitioning nicely away from the countrys biggest-ever mining boom....
Vital Signs: the power of not being too clear
Jan 19, 2019 09:03 am UTC| Insights & Views Business
Incentives, in one form or other, are central to our lives. The Soviet experiment ended in December 1991 because it turned out that when people got paid the same whether they worked hard or slacked off, most people...
South Africa is missing out on fresh fruit export growth. What it needs to do
Currency manipulation and why Trump is picking on Brazil and Argentina
How to protect the NHS in a post-Brexit trade deal with the US
Market-led infrastructure may sound good but not if it short-changes the public
The government is hyping digitalised services, but not addressing a history of e-government fails