Asked to grade this year’s budget on a scale of A to F given its objective of “securing Australia’s economic recovery and building for the future”, only three of the top economists surveyed by the Economic Society of Australia and The Conversation give it an A.

But overall 41% award it either an A or a B, higher than the 37% who gave last year’s budget an A or a B.

The gradings of 56 leading economists are a strong endorsement of the budget strategy of borrowing and spending big in order to drive down unemployment, alongside concern about the nature of that spending.

In a piece published Friday, former finance department deputy secretary Stephen Bartos asks whether the budget would have been better had Australia’s treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, been required to justify his decisions in terms of their effects on the nation’s wellbeing, as New Zealand treasurer Grant Robertson did in his budget last week. As Bartos says, you can tell a lot about a country by the way it budgets.

This morning’s report of the economists’ survey includes each assessment printed in full in tabs at the bottom of the page, along with a great Wes Mountain cartoon.

Peter Martin

Visiting Fellow

Wes Mountain/The Conversation

Great approach, weak execution. Economists decline to give budget top marks

Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Only three of the 56 economists surveyed gave the budget an 'A', but 41% gave it either an A or a B.

Adel Hana/AP

Israel and the Palestinians celebrate a ceasefire — but will anything change?

Anthony Billingsley, UNSW

There seems to be no interest in reviving a peace process that has been effectively moribund since the Clinton administration in the late 1990s.

Richard Wainwright/AAP

I’m over 50 and hesitant about the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine. Should I wait for Pfizer?

Hassan Vally, La Trobe University

Many over 50s seem to be asking this question. But there are a number of reasons it's important to go ahead and get the AstraZeneca vaccine now.

Shutterstock

Stop removing your solar panels early, please. It’s creating a huge waste problem for Australia

Deepika Mathur, Charles Darwin University; Imran Muhammad, Massey University

New research found lots of incentives to chuck out working solar panels and replace them with new ones. This may be creating huge amounts of unnecessary waste.

A food bank in Alameda, California during the pandemic. Why are so many Americans struggling to get the food they need? John G. Mabanglo/EPA

The racial hunger gap in American cities and what to do about it – podcast

Gemma Ware, The Conversation; Daniel Merino, The Conversation

Plus, the discovery of the first known burial in Africa. Listen to episode 16 of The Conversation Weekly.

Ritchie B. Tongo/EPA/AAP

COVID is surging in unvaccinated Taiwan. Australia should take heed

Maximilian de Courten, Victoria University

Only about 1% of the population was vaccinated against COVID when this outbreak started.

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