Spend much time with economists around this time of year, and you will hear about the dreadful inefficiency of exchanging gifts. But there's a higher logic to the gift economy.

• COMMENT

There will be no relaxed Christmas break for Kerry Stokes and the directors of his Seven West Media.

• COMMENT

In this uncertain world, there are still a few unalterable facts of political life. For example, Republicans always do what Charles and David Koch, the billionaire bankrollers of right-wing politics nationwide, tell them.

• COMMENT

Corporate Australia has wound down for the silly season, but the scandals haven’t abated.

• COMMENT

Some economists worry the world economy isn't growing fast enough. It's slowing down and reaching the point of "secular stagnation".

• COMMENT

The fixation with the budget deficit being a few billion one way or the other is arguing about the fleas on the dog – it's economic growth that decides whether the dog is fed or not.

• COMMENT

Despite the occasional talk, politicians aren't prepared to do what's necessary to fix the problem of employers not paying superannuation.

• ANALYSIS

The saga of Bellamy's demonstrates just how rapidly a company can move from being a sharemarket darling with seemingly limitless growth prospects to a sharemarket pariah with a questionable business model.

• COMMENT

Since going public in June 2013, Commonwealth Bank whistleblower Jeff Morris is contacted at least once a month by company insiders.

• COMMENT

One managing-director embroiled in scandal is perhaps unlucky: to suffer three in a row starts to look serious.

• COMMENT

A new OECD paper has looked at how tax systems, including Australia's, effectively discriminate against married women.

• COMMENT

Billionaire media mogul Kerry Stokes has a very important decision to make.

• COMMENT

What an amazing difference 19 months can make for parliamentary inquiries into housing affordability and ownership.

Our politicians on both sides have terrible trouble working out how supply works.

• COMMENT

When Col Fullagar isn’t jumping out of helicopters volunteering as a firefighter in remote areas of NSW he works in the cutthroat world of life insurance.

• COMMENT

You can read James Packer's sell down and impending exit out of the Macau market many ways.

• COMMENT

When a guy with an assault rifle walks into a pizza joint to "self-investigate" the made-up conspiracy theory he found on the internet about a non-existent child-prostitution ring, there's no doubt we've got a problem.

• COMMENT

It is possible to make sense of what's happening in the labour market, but only if you follow a few rules.

• COMMENT

Congratulations are in order as ScoMo's epiphany represents a major break with the Abbott/Hockey dogma of all government debt being evil.

• COMMENT

More people are going to have to take risks, because jobs can't be guaranteed, even with a degree.

• COMMENT

The Fed's well-telegraphed move early this morning is a key part of why our central bank has not cut its cash rate again.

• COMMENT

The move take a position and get a slice of the spoils in the carve-up of the Tatts Group is vintage Macquarie Group.

• ANALYSIS

A new bid from financial players including Macquarie and US-based private equiteers KKR for lotteries and gaming group Tatts could scupper Tabcorp's takeover ambitions.

• COMMENT

The Australian public is the sole investor in Adani's coal export plans. We need to understand the true numbers.

• COMMENT

Fairfax is calling it dirty. At the very least it's intriguing.

• COMMENT

Imagine the task of building a city the size of Canberra every year, for the rest of this century. Or, how about creating a new city the population of Melbourne every decade?

• COMMENT

Donald Trump hung his winning presidential campaign on the idea that he alone could bring back American jobs.

• COMMENT

It was supposed to be the Coalition government’s panacea for the crisis in confidence plaguing the financial planning industry, but almost two years after it was launched, it’s a dud.

• COMMENT

What would economic race-calling be without its little excitements? As you may possibly have heard, this week's news is that the economy has contracted - shrunk, gone backwards - by 0.5 per cent.

• COMMENT

Treasurer Morrison labelled this week's surprisingly low September quarter GDP number as a "wake-up call". What he didn't say is that it's a call that's been ringing for three years.