Oz

There has not been as much blogging as usual as I was in Oz (i.e. Australia) for a conference on evidence-based policy sponsored by Australia's Productivity Commission. Information about the conference, including the agenda and my slides, is here.

The other outside speaker was Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, who I have been wanting to meet since graduate school. You can find the short paper underlying his talk on the web page as well.

The meeting included a lot of higher-ups in the Australian federal and state governments and as a result was conducted under "Chatham House rules", which means that I cannot tell you which speakers I thought were really cool and which a waste of time, though there were some of both. It was interesting to interact with so many people with power - this was a much higher level enterprise than I have ever been involved with in either Canada or (even more so) in the US.

I also got a chance to see old friends and make new ones via seminar visits to both the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University in Canberra.

All in all a most excellent journey.