George A. Tanewski and Andrew Conway and James Kavourakis July 19, 2021 Australia’s long run of economic growth from the early 1990s to early 2020 inspired much boasting by incumbent politicians. But behind the hubris and headlines lies a less flattering story — about Australia riding a wave of dumb luck, with exports to China and relatively high levels of immigration masking mundane economic performance. The most obvious expression of this is investment by Australia’s private sector — overwhelmingly made up of small-to-medium size enterprises — in innovation. The sector’s expenditure on research & development — measured as a percentage of GDP — is middling at best. After increasing to match the OECD average of about 2.2% in 2008, it slipped to less than 1.8% in 2017. This compares with more than 4% for the two top-ranking nations, Israel and South Korea, and more than 3% for Taiwan, Sweden, Japan and Germany.