The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the deep links and fragility of economic, health and social systems. Discussions of reconstruction include renewed interest in moving beyond GDP and recognizing “human capital”, “brain capital”, “mental capital”, and “wellbeing” as assets fundamental to economic reimagining, productivity, and prosperity. This paper describes how the conceptualization of Mental Wealth provides an important framing for measuring and shaping social and economic renewal to underpin healthy, productive, resilient, and thriving communities. We propose a transdisciplinary application of systems modeling to forecast a nation's Mental Wealth and understand the extent to which policy-mediated changes in economic, social, and health sectors could enhance collective mental health and wellbeing, social cohesion, and national prosperity. Specifically, simulation will allow comparison of the projected impacts of a range of cross-sector strategies (education sector, mental health system, labor market, and macroeconomic reforms) on GDP and national Mental Wealth, and provide decision support capability for future investments and actions to foster Mental Wealth. Finally, this paper introduces the Mental Wealth Initiative that is harnessing complex systems science to examine the interrelationships between social, commercial, and structural determinants of mental health and wellbeing, and working to empirically challenge the notion that fostering universal social prosperity is at odds with economic and commercial interests.
Foreign investment has played an important role in the Australian economy since the country's foundation. Part of the latest wave of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Australia has been by Chinese firms, and largely by state-owned enterprises with connections to the Chinese state. Despite the value it has generated for the Australian economy, Chinese FDI has been controversial and has exposed some of the shortcomings in Australia's foreign investment review process. This article evaluates Australia's foreign investment regime, and pays particular attention to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). Questions are asked about how closely the FIRB's role and processes resemble regulatory best practice. The article also considers whether greater fidelity by the FIRB to principles of good governance could better serve Australia's broad policy interests and reduce Chinese perceptions of an opaque and discriminatory foreign investment regime.
A fierce debate is raging about the legitimacy of executive pay rises. Australia's chief executive salaries are not as high as in the United States and the big European economies, but between 1993 and 2007 there was a sharp rise in remuneration. Most of the rise came in the form of incentive payments. In the Australian context, the size of the executive salary is closely linked with the size of the company. The evidence is mixed about how efficient executive remuneration has been, but what is clear is that the responsibility to ensure it is appropriate resides with boards, and that there is a need for greater shareholder participation. Accordingly, it is recommended that shareholders have a greater ‘say on pay’, and that two successive ‘no’ votes on remuneration by shareholders will have formal consequences for boards. The challenge is to improve agency between shareholders and management, and between shareholders and boards. An evolutionary approach is proposed.
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