Correction to “Hiding the elephant: The tragedy of COVID policy and its economist apologists”

Abstract

Foster, G., & Frijters, P. (2024). Hiding the elephant: The tragedy of COVID policy and its economist apologists. Australian Economic Papers, 63(1), 106–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8454.12293.

In tab. A2 of the appendix, the line identifying economist Ben Phillips of the ANU as an ‘extremist’ was incorrect. The Ben Phillips being quoted in the AFR article that led to the creation of this entry in the table is, in fact, a biologist at the University of Melbourne. The amended versions of tab. A2 and tab. A3 should exclude the rows (one row in each table) containing Ben Phillips' name.

This correction also changes the counts of ‘extremist’ views expressed by economists reported in the main body of the paper, as follows:

‘Thirty-six of the entries in Table A2 were of the extremist persuasion’ (‘thirty-six’ should be ‘thirty-five’); ‘Among the 36 extremist contributions’ (‘36’ should be ‘35’).

We apologise for this error.