Dr Ben Spies-Butcher
CEO, Centre for Future Work / Honorary Associate Professor (Macquarie University)
Dr Ben Spies-Butcher is Honorary Associate Professor at Macquarie University and CEO of the Centre for Future Work. Ben completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Sydney while working in the non-government sector on issues of human rights. His research focuses on the political economy of social policy and the welfare state, particularly how economic and political change shape social policy financing. His current research explores how financial logics common in the private sector are reshaping social policy through changes in public sector budgeting, and the potential for these changes to open new opportunities for egalitarian social provision. He was the 2017 Glenda Powell Travelling Fellow for the Australian Association of Gerontologists and he is an editor of The Economic and Labour Relations Review and Journal of Australian Political Economy.
Ben is former Co-Director of the Australian Basic Income Lab.
Relevant recent publications:
Henderson, Troy, Spies-Butcher, Ben, and Klein, Elise. 2024. Flash in the pan or eureka moment? What can be learned from Australia's natural experiment with basic income during COVID-19. International Social Security Review, 77(1-2): 103-120.
Spies-Butcher, Ben, and Bryant, Gareth. 2024. The history and future of the tax state: Possibilities for a new fiscal politics beyond neoliberalism. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 98.
Spies-Butcher, Ben, Phillips, Ben, and Henderson, Troy. 2023. Between universalism and targeting: Exploring policy pathways for an Australian Basic Income. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 31(4): 502-523.
Websites