Engaging the New World: Responses to the Knowledge Economy is published as a tribute to the life and work of Peter Sheehan. It reflects his outstanding contribution to public discourse in Australia as researcher, writer, leader, consultant and adviser to governments. The book is divided into four sections: the global knowledge economy; health care and pharmaceuticals; employment, retirement and welfare; and public finance and regional economies. Each of the twenty-three essays make a valuable contribution to debates over the development of economic policy in each of these fields. They articulate the challenges and explore the opportunities present in the construction of national and global economic policies. The global knowledge economy section explores topics as diverse as the governance of the knowledge economy, the public/private divide in higher education, the role of the knowledge economy in Australian agriculture, and research practices and scholarly communication in the digital environment. The section on health care and pharmaceuticals discusses the benefits to society of new drugs, the financing of health care, Australian pharmaceutical pricing in a global context, and innovation and industry structure in the biomedical industry. The retirement and welfare section looks at the relationships between employment, joblessness and poverty, male full-time job loss and the Australian welfare system, retirement incomes and Australia's ageing population, and the welfare of women in Northern Ireland. The essays covering fiscal governance look at budget management reform in China, government business reform and government accounting methods in Australia, the relationship between productivity and population in the Australian states, and the microfinance movement in China.
