Geography isn’t economic destiny

Sam noted in a recent post that the physical distance of countries like Australia and New Zealand from world economic activity can have economic costs, and that one current trend – rising energy prices – looks set to increase the importance of distance in an adverse way by boosting transportation costs. On the other hand, the sustained shift in the geographical distribution of global economic weight towards Asia in recent years has had the effect of reducing Australia’s economic remoteness, even though it still leaves Australia as one of the world’s most remote developed economies, along with New Zealand. For anyone interested in these issues, some of the challenges posed by geography for Australia and New Zealand are discussed in this paper, which I co-wrote for last year’s Australia-New Zealand leadership forum.