Search

Analyzes the overseas investment situation in Australian economy. Role of capital inflow in the economy; Relationship of capital inflow with the domestic monetary management; Correlation of capital inflow with the exchange rate.

Presents ways of improving the allocation of land between speculators and users in Australia. Influence of land speculation on the operation of the land market; Efficiency using land resources; Consideration of capital gains as taxable income.

This paper estimates the incidence of total Australian taxation in 1966-67, the incidence of taxation at the Federal, State and local government levels and of some individual direct and indirect taxes. It constitutes the first of a series of studies concerned with the problems of estimating the incidence of taxes and of government expenditures. The aim of the present paper is to provide estimates of Australian tax incidence together with a brief discussion of the nature and reasonableness of the incidence assumptions necessarily adopted in a study of this nature. Consideration of the more fundamental theoretical incidence problems and the formulation of a tax model for tax incidence will be presented in a later paper. There are five sections. The first deals with the data sources and their limitations. The second outlines the methodology decisions made. This is followed by a discussion of the incidence assumptions adopted and a description of the techniques by which each type of tax was allocated to household income classes. In the fourth section the results are presented, and the final section consists of a brief discussion of some policy implications arising from the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes use of a half-yearly series for planned and actual new capital expenditures in the Australian manufacturing sector to examine two investment relationships. Section I of the paper tests a modified form of the acceleration principle in which unfulfilled investment plans of the previous period enter as an explanatory variable. Section II examines reasons for the non-fulfilment of plans, introducing a new hypothesis involving capacity constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The balance of payments in an open economy plays an important role in determining changes in the stock of domestic money. International reserve inflows, for example, will increase the domestic stock of money if they are added directly to the money balances of residents, or if they are exchanged for domestic currency at the central bank. In Australia, reserve flows are an important factor, and occasionally a dominant one, in determining changes in the domestic stock of money. This observation raises the question, what are the major determinants of Australian reserve flows and what role, if any, do policy actions play in affecting reserve flows? In this paper the latter, and simpler, approach is taken. Reserve flows are related to factors determining growth in demand for money, and to policy and other domestically determined factors that contribute to growth in the stock of money. This money-market approach to the balance of payments is a slightly modified version of a model developed by H. G. Johnson (1972). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on an ecological study regarding the coastal zonation of Southern Australian coasts in relation to a generalized scheme of classification put forward by ecologist T. A. Stephenson. It mentions that the generalized scheme is not satisfactorily applicable to Southern Australian coasts and a modified scheme is being proposed. It states that the new scheme is an integration of terms and zones which appear most applicable to Australian conditions. It informs that the general applicability of the new scheme of intertidal zonation to coasts other than Southern Australia must be critically examined on the basis of their topography and habitat conditions.

This paper presents some revisions to estimates made initially by Wilson and more recently revised by Butlin of the balance of payments and capital imports for the period of the First World War and five subsequent years. The acceptance of the existing residual estimate of net private capital inflow for the post First World War period 1919-20 to 1923-24, based on the Wilson-Butlin balance of payments statistics, would immediately raise a paradox, for it suggests that negligible foreign investment took place in Australia during a boom period of rapid industrial development and at a time when British and American investors were once again looking for profitable investment opportunities. This paradox can be resolved only if it is realized that the impression of negligible private capital inflow in the post-war period is a statistical illusion due to the failure of the previously available estimates to take into account the fact that payments for Australia's major exported commodities were made a number of years prior to their ultimate shipment overseas. The revised estimates suggest that private foreign investment in Australia during the nineteen twenties is more important than has previously been thought—the new estimate of its magnitude being fifty percent higher than the previous estimate. Sections II and III respectively place wool and wheat exports for the period, on a "payments basis" rather than the existing "shipments basis". Payments for many millions of pounds worth of these two commodities were made a number of years prior to actual shipment. Export data in the Overseas Trade Bulletins are based on the time of shipment rather than the time of payments for exports. For most purposes, including analysis of the balance of payments, capital imports, the banking system and the level of economic activity within Australia, the actual value at the time of payment rather than the "declared value" of an export commodity at the time of shipment is the... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various papers related to cases of animal and human dermatomycoses in Australia. It says that first recorded paper was appeared 1891with Finch Noyes discussing his experiments of cultivating trichophyton fungus. Moreover, a review of Australian literature published in 1961 reported animal dermatomycoses from isolating Trichophyton equinum from horses and the first survey on mycological research was published in 1956 with awakening interests in animal and human mycology.

The article presents a discussion on immigration into Australia after the Second World War. Between 1947 and 1956, over one million immigrants arrived in Australia. This represents an average annual increase of about 1.1 per cent in the total population of the continent. With the exception of Israel, the rate at which these immigrants poured in was the highest of any country. Sustained immigration, plus the equally fast natural growth of about 1.3 per cent annually, should result in a total population of 10 million in about 1960. In 1946, similar to Great Britain's White Paper on full employment, the Commonwealth government of Australia issued its White Paper on Employment. This paper established high and stable employment as the principal objective of economic policy. The original immigration policy has hardly at all been considered in relation to the full employment goal of the Welfare State. In fact, economic motivation became prominent only after humanitarian and national defense reasons of the early post-war Operation Welcome more or less ran out.

A conference paper about the biological control of Chondrilla juncea is presented. It presents the results of the detailed ecological study being made on C. juncea and the organisms attacking it in Mediterranean Europe, as a prelude to biological control introductions into Australia. Using a line transect method at the dense Chondrilla sites between Barcelona, Spain and Nice, France, observations have shown that the plant populations decline to a greater or lesser extent according to conditions.

The object of this paper is to examine some issues relating to foreign exchange market arrangements and policies which may be significant for the future of trade and other economic relations between Australia and Japan. The issues, for the most part, are not of crucial importance. But some of them have been the subject of rather ill-informed discussion, while others have hardly been considered at all. Such an examination may therefore be informative for both Australians and Japanese concerned with the bilateral economic relationship. The paper will concentrate on the Australian side, but it is hoped that it will stimulate the preparation of a Japanese counterpart, if such is not already on the way. The paper will deal with five main aspects: 1. Foreign exchange market arrangements. 2. Foreign exchange controls. 3. Forward exchange facilities. 4. Transaction currency. 5. International reserves. We will not discuss questions of exchange rate policy which would demand a paper to themselves. We shall merely assume that exchange rates will vary a good deal more frequently than they did before 1971 and that greater uncertainty about exchange rates will be a fact of life from now on. Nor shall we discuss the pros and cons of the new Australian policies on foreign (including Japanese) investment in Australia, though something will need to be said about the nature and consequences of the new system of exchange controls on capital inflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests for certain benefits of foreign direct investment in the manufacturing sectors of two leading host countries---Canada and Australia. A quest for evidence on the effects of the multinational corporation needs little defense at a time when host and source countries alike incline towards restricting its activities. Economic theory tells us that intramarginal[2] gains from foreign investment take diverse forms. An evident and tangible gain to the host government stems from the corporate income tax collected from subsidiaries (net of the incremental cost of public services supplied to them). Other benefits, conjectural and elusive but possibly large, lie in the effects of direct investment on the value productivity of resources owned by the host economy (Macdougall, 1960; Corden, 1967; Caves, 1971). The host nation's private sector does not benefit directly because the foreign subsidiary is efficient, or brings to its shores skilled entrepreneurship or productive knowledge. Rather its gains depend on spill-overs of productivity that occur when the multinational corporation cannot capture all quasi-rents due to its productive activities, or to the removal of distortions by the subsidiary's competitive pressure. These potential benefits can be divided into three classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to examine these conflicting points of view. This will involve a comparison of the growth of local government tax bases and revenue collections with those of other bases; consideration of local government taxing policy; and an examination of the incidence of the local government tax. Factors affecting the popularity of the local government tax will be considered. And then the policy implications with respect to local government revenue policy that arise from this discussion will be spelt out. This paper has two important limitations. First, it is concerned only with local governments in urban areas. The problems facing local governments in rural areas and country towns are a different story. Secondly, no consideration is given to the possibility of local governments alleviating any revenue-raising difficulties they may have by relinquishing some of their functions to the State Governments or the Federal Government. This limitation was imposed in order to keep the paper of manageable length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present an empirical loan supply function for Australian trading banks. The work described here is part of a wider study of the Australian monetary sector, but it is worth describing in detail because it takes greater account of the unique characteristics of the Australian institutional structure than previous empirical studies, and because, in the course of the study, we were able to test certain hypotheses about trading bank lending. We were able to examine the possibility that bank lending is affected by general business conditions and the pressure of demand by borrowers. Also, the approach adopted in this paper allowed us to evaluate more thoroughly than previous studies the effect of Central Bank "moral suasion" on trading bank behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of government measures on the market for crude oil in Australia. Section I of the paper analyses the market under various positions of the long-run home supply curve. Estimates of the future costs of local crude are made in section II in an attempt to test the need for the high level of protection given to the industry. The final section considers a number of alternative future policy measures open to the Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Edward Hearn, first Professor of Economics in the University of Melbourne, and author of Plutology or the Theory of the Efforts to Satisfy Human Wants (1863), is a figure familiar to those who have even a casual acquaintance with the development of economic thought in Australia. His work has been the object of studies by a number of distinguished scholars, most notably Professor J. A. La Nauze in his Political Economy in Australia, and earlier, Sir Douglas Copland in the Macrossan Lectures of 1935. More recently, Professor Craufurd Goodwin has dealt with some of the aspects of Hearn's contribution. The purpose of this article is not to retrace the ground covered by these writers, but to draw attention to a short, but interesting, item by Hearn which seems so far to have escaped notice. This item, which sheds new light on the genesis and contents of the Plutology, is a discourse On Cottier Rents read before the Dublin Statistical Society in 1851. The address was given during Hearn's tenure as Professor of Greek at Queen's College, Galway, and in the year which saw the publication of his Cassell Prize Essay on the Condition of Ireland. In contrast with the latter, the Statistical Society paper embodies economic analysis of some merit, although both works are concerned with the need for legal reform in Ireland. The paper examines the bases of social and economic stagnation in Ireland through a consideration of the influence of certain pervasive market forces. In the course of this consideration, Hearn displays an analytical facility which warrants the attention of the historian of economic ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of the relationship between companies' inventories and their turnover, investigating the extent to which there are realized economies of scale in inventory holding. It also uses aggregate data in an endeavour to examine the extent to which firms increase their holdings of individual stock items in proportion to the square root of sales, in conformity with recent theoretical findings about optimal inventory behaviour. The study is a cross-section one and compares the inventory/turnover ratios of firms of different size. The data used are for Australian companies for the financial years 1962-63 and 1983-61. As companies do not have to disclose turnover in their annual accounts, the size of the sample is limited to those that voluntarily provide the information. Section I below describes the data used. Section II examines the extent to which there are realized economies of scale. Section III introduces the square-root hypothesis and considers some problems involved in testing it. Section IV involves the specification of the square-root model in testable form, and the tests on this model arc reported in Section V. The paper's conclusions are given in Section VI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to apply to Australian statistics certain techniques of the National Bureau of Economic Research for detecting stages of the trade cycle. A major objective of this type of analysis is to reduce the time between a turning point and its identification. The results do not provide a mechanical procedure for interpreting movements in statistical series. This is true not only for current analysis but also when the techniques are applied in historical studies; they do not, for example, eliminate the difficulties of interpreting the period 1956-58. However, the task of subjective judgement is facilitated by the appropriate processing and classification of the statistics. The most highly developed of the National Bureau's techniques is the distinction between "leading", "coincident" and "lagging" series, according to the usual relationship between the cycles of specific series and the general business cycle. Another device is the diffusion index, a summary measure pertaining either to groups of economic series or to components of significant aggregates. Examples of both types of diffusion indexes, which show the percentage of components rising in any particular month, are given in this paper. Their logical justification is that they tend to move in advance of the general business cycle and therefore give advance warning of turning points. Other techniques devised by the National Bureau are not considered in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the isolation of dermatophytes in laboratories in Queensland, Australia. The author explains that the organism most frequently isolated was Microsporum canis, which was the chief cause of tinea capitis in children. Additionally, it is explained that Trichophyton mentagrophytes was the most frequently isolated Trichophyton.

The article reports the outbreak of twenty-two cases of ringworm infection due to trichophyton rubrum in South Australia this. Topics discussed include the presence of tinea circinata, and lesions on the regions of buttocks and abdomen. The article concludes that the key to clinical diagnosis is the presence of the chronic brownish pigmented lesion.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the size distribution of income of Australian families and to evaluate the inequality measures of the distribution. In addition to the estimation of the degree of inequality from the full sample, the families are subdivided into homogeneous groups on the basis of certain socio-demographic characteristics and the distribution of income within each sub-group is examined. As income does not always represent the actual economic position of the family, it is sometimes replaced or supplemented by the total family expenditure. Again, as families differ in size and composition, inter-family comparison of income is difficult. In order to obtain an idea of the relative economic position of a family, the family income distribution is transformed by deflating the incomes for the differences of family composition, and the inequality measures are then computed. The scope and limitations of the study are discussed in the first section of the paper. Some of the shortcomings of the data are also discussed in the same section. In the second section different inequality measures arc examined for their comparative efficiency. The results are presented and considered in the third section. In the final section an international comparison of the inequality of income distribution is attempted and a few concluding remarks are then made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A perusal of the contents of this paper will undoubtedly show up the virtues and shortcomings of this approach. Those searching for ideas for particular reforms of particular taxes will be sorely disappointed. What this paper suggests is that a look across the whole board of taxation at all levels of government is required; that such a survey will disclose unnecessary taxes which have outlived their usefulness and which can therefore be scrapped; and that only in a general reorganization of the taxation structure can a real solution to the problem of financial independence for the various levels of government be found. This generality of the paper precludes a great deal of immediate practical use, but it is hoped that by concentrating on principles some worthwhile purpose may be served. The Australian tax structure can be discussed in various ways. It can be looked at from the point of view of the taxing body and the level of government with which it is associated--that is, Federal, State and local government taxation--or it can be looked at and classified according to the tax base on which it is levied, that is, whether it is tax on income, a tax on property, or a tax on the outlays of individuals or enterprises. Both approaches are useful, highlighting as they do different features of the taxation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first purpose of the present paper is to examine empirically the importance of intra-industry trade under the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) used by the majority of countries today. In Part II, we examine first Australia's trade, analyzing the magnitude of intra-industry trade as a function of different levels of aggregation from 7-digit to 1-digit SITC classes, and consider whether intra-industry trade is a real phenomenon or an accident of statistical aggregation. Second, we measure the magnitude of intra-industry trade for the major industrial countries of the OECD at the most widely-used 3-digit level of aggregation. The second major objective of this paper is to present some evidence on the causes of the phenomenon of intra-industry trade. This evidence is useful for choosing the level of aggregation for empirical studies and for assessing the significance of intra-industry trade. The phenomenon of intra-industry trade calls for a re-examination of the traditional Heckscher-Ohlin models of international trade. In one way the phenomenon resembles the Leontief paradox, which gave new directions to empirical and theoretical work in international economics without, however, changing the validity of the basic principles of comparative advantage as derived in the Heckscher-Ohlin model. In other papers we have indicated how product differentiation by style, model, and quality can give rise to intra-industry trade [4], [5], [6], but unfortunately the series needed to test these hypotheses are not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a managerial accounting system for agriculture in Australia. This is the system operated by the Farm Management Service Laboratory at the University of Western Australia as part of its managerial information service. It has been designed specifically to generate managerial information from within the farm-firm for farmers in Australia. The system reflects the distinguishing features of agriculture and aims to be economic, timely, accurate and relevant. The distinguishing features of Australian agriculture are: interdependence of home and business; unity of ownership and management; unspecialized management; numerous independent firms; saleability of assets; joint products and joint costs; production flexibility; and long duration of production processes. The managerial accounting system operated by the Fann Management Service Laboratory has been designed in accordance with the general requirements of economy, timeliness, accuracy and relevance. Several features of the system contribute to low cost. The farmer is encouraged to do his own recording, and instructed how to do it. This avoids the service costs of commercial recorders, and the costs of time and travel to and from the farm.

The article outlines the first Conference of Medical Journalism in Australia and New Zealand, held in Sydney, Australia, from October 26th to 28th, 1906. The conference consisted of six formal papers, three round table discussions, and a concluding session in which the themes were synthesized and summarized. The sponsors were the Post Graduate Committee in Medicine of the University of Sydney and the Post-Graduate Medical Foundation.

The recent widespread emergence of wage and price inflation seemingly associated with a slowdown in real activity and rise in unemployment makes an analysis of the determinants of average earnings an important matter. This paper examines the determinants of average weekly earnings in Australia, basing the analysis on the extensive overseas literature and previous Australian work in this area. We present quantitative estimates of the influence of imported inflation and award wage changes, as well as of more traditional variables such as demand pressure and productivity changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present some empirical equations explaining the Australian nonbank public's demand for very liquid assets. Very liquid assets are financial assets which can be converted into cash on demand. Four assets fell into this category in the period we are studying: notes and coin, current deposits, savings deposits, and loans to the authorised dealers in the Short-term money market. We also present an equation explaining the public's demand for fixed deposits because this variable plays an important role in the equations for very liquid assets. This group of financial assets merits special attention because economists usually attribute a crucial role in the determination of economic activity to these assets; the study embraces all the assets included in the Reserve Bank's definition of "money". The assets are described in the following section, and in subsequent sections we discuss the specification of the equations, the estimation procedure used, and the empirical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines alternative methods of financing educational activities; it is therefore concerned with sources of finance rather than with expenditure decisions involving the allocation of resources to different educational purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does Australia have a long run trade-off between inflation and unemployment? In other words, if demand management policies were able to select and maintain a steady rate of inflation, would the level of unemployment that emerged be lower, the higher the chosen inflation rate ? If such a trade-off exists, what are its most likely quantitative characteristics? Alternatively, is the Phelps-Friedman accelerationist hypothesis a better characterisation of Australia's long run inflation-unemployment options. That is, is there some rate of unemployment, (usually termed the natural rate), not necessarily a constant rate over time but unrelated to the inflation rate, at which any steady rate of inflation is possible but below which inflation will persistently accelerate? If this accelerationist model better describes the Australian economy, what is (and has been) the natural unemployment rate? These are the main questions dealt with in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the rate of technological changes in Victorian agriculture for the period of 1870-1910 in Australia. Scrutiny on the major investment plants in the country; Implications of the advancements with the productivity of the rural sector; Consequences of the technological change on the input and output in the country.

The article outlines the first conference on medical journalism in Australia and New Zealand, which took place from October 26th to 28th, 1960 in Sydney, Australia. The conference included six formal papers, three round-table discussions, and a concluding session which consisted of a synthesis and summary of the themes presented.

The article presents a bibliography related to immigration and assimilation in Australia. Some of the books listed are "Immigration, Australia's Problems and Prospects," by W.D. Borrie; "The Peopling of Australia," by F.W. Eggleston and P.D. Phillips; "Non-Britishers in Australia," 2nd ed., by J. Lyng; "The Scandinavians in Australia, New Zealand and the Western Pacific," by J. Lyng. Some of the papers listed are "Australia and the Refugees," by M. Berger, published in the September 1941 issue of the journal "The Australian Quarterly"; "The Problem of Refugee Immigration," by R. Limberg, published in the journal "The Australian Quarterly"; "The Assimilation of Refugee Immigrants in Australia," by H.B.M. Murphy, published in the March 1952 issue of the journal "Population Studies"; "Immigration and Foreign Policy in Australia and Canada," by David Corbett, published in the Spring 1958 issue of the journal "The Economic Record"; "The Administration of Asian Immigration Into Australia: A Comparative Study," by O.E. Phillips, published in the December 1956 issue of the journal "The Australian Quarterly."

In this paper three orientations were distinguished: monism, interactionism, and pluralism, but the last was held by only a few of the subjects. Interactionism, which advocates that immigrants and host group should tolerate each other and should gradually converge as a result of interaction, was more often preferred to monism, which advocates complete assimilation as quickly as possible. Monism among Australians was higher for males than for females and was associated with unfriendly attitudes towards immigrants. Among immigrants, monism was associated with being more highly assimilated and with being intolerant of ambiguity. The evidence suggests that monism is more likely to be a result of assimilation than a cause of it. A study was also made of the mutual perceptions of' the orientation of Australians, of British, and of non-British immigrants. These perceptions and misperceptions reflect the attitudes of the subjects towards these groups, per ceived interactionism being a sign of a favourable attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines a range of soil chemical data over a variety of climates and parent rocks in north-eastern Australia and within an area of uniform climate and physical substrate on Fraser Island to determine the relevance of these data in the differentiation of forest types. It presents an investigation of the ecological role of soil chemical properties. It aims to evaluate the relative importance of soil physical and chemical factors under defined ecological conditions. The article argues that for the development of intensive management of the forests along the eastern Australian coast, it is of considerable interest for foresters to know the extent to which simple measurements of edaphic factors can predict forest site potential.

The article presents a discussion about the Australian species in Tasmania. The article provides geographical knowledge of the distribution of some Australian plants and animals which are said to be belt-forming and intertidal. It explores the literature and nomenclature to decribe the ecology of such species. Also, it defines Ecklonia radiata, Phyllospora comosa, Hormosira banksii, sarcophycus potatorum, pyura, stolonifera, serpulid, barnacles, and other species found in Tasmania. The article is supplemented with details on their habitats and their interaction.

A model of a complete system of k linear expenditure functions introduced by Leser in 1960 [6, 7] has the advantage of great computational simplicity. An arbitrary specification, however, equating all cross elasticities of substitution results in unreliable estimates of price effects. In the present paper, a result in the theory of additive preferences [Houthakker, 5] is used in order to obtain a more plausible specification. This is achieved at the expense of an iterative procedure; however, the number of parameters (2k + 1) is identical in both models. A system of ten equations is fitted to Australian personal consumption data for the period 1949-50 to 1961-62. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the spectra and cross-spectra of Australian share prices and share price indices to observe the trend, business cycle, seasonal and irregular components of our series in the frequency domain. In particular, the spectra provide a non-parametric test of the random walk hypothesis. We observe a seasonal pattern in all the indices, which is contrary to current beliefs about share prices. This appears to be the first authenticated seasonal movement in any share market in the world. Finally, using cross-spectral methods, we observe certain lead-tag relationships and their strengths between pairs of indices at the business cycle frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prime purpose of this paper is to identify the main trends in the unit cost of electricity during the period and in particular to indicate the principal reasons for the fails in the real price charged to consumers. Most of the analysis is based on accounting reports published by the supply authorities, and the usual deficiences of historical accounting data as indicators of real costs need to be borne in mind. In this regard, it has been assumed that current expenditure gives a reasonable picture of the cost of inputs in each accounting period. As far as capital charges are concerned, there seem to be good reasons to have serious doubts about the adequacy of the accounting data as indicators of the real cost of capital used in the industry. These deficiencies are discussed in Parts V and VI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the publication of the Brigden Report [1929], income distribution has always been an important element in the arguments for protection put forward by academic economists in Australia. It is noteworthy that, although the theoretical developments necessary to begin to unravel the income redistributive effects of protection have been well-known for nearly 30 years, there have been few attempts to estimate empirically such income redistributive effects of a tariff structure for any country. Perhaps the best known studies of protection which attempt, amongst other things, to say something about direction of change in factor prices induced by the tariff structure are by Vaccara [1961], Travis [1964] and Basevi [1966]. However, I know of no attempts to assign orders of magnitude to such effects. Part of the reason for the lack of attention to problems of income distribution and the tariff stems from the difficulties in building theoretical models which give a priori predictions about factor price changes when more than two factors are included and the empirical problems involved in implementing such models. Another reason may be that economists today tend to be more concerned with growth which increases everyone's income, rather than worrying about redistributing what is already available. Be that as it may, there is in Australia a long history of concern with both static and dynamic effects of tariffs on wages, employment, and income distribution, and economic welfare in general, and it is to these questions that this paper is addressed. In section II, a brief history of the empirical and theoretical aspects of the income redistribution argument for protection in Australia is outlined. A two sector version of a multi-sectoral growth model, which can be used to estimate empirically the effects of tariffs on factor prices, is described in section III. The empirical implementation of the multi-sectoral version of that model is described in section IV, and... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the third in the series of studies entitled "Household Consumption and Income in Australia" undertaken by the author. It shows how an equivalent income scale may be estimated for Australian families of varying composition. An examination of previous work in this field suggested that no existing method should be adopted and used without qualification—thus some of the methodological and theoretical problems are discussed at length. The data used to derive the scale are taken from the Australian Survey of Consumer Finances—the first time appropriate data have been available. An exposition of the problem and the approaches adopted in deriving the scale are given in the first section. In the second section the methods of estimation are developed, and the results and conclusions are presented in the final section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper our primary aim is to present an estimation procedure for an evolving, or changing, seasonal pattern and in particular to discuss general problems of seasonal estimation where such a pattern is assumed. As a preliminary step we sketch the theoretical background which is fundamental to our approach, omitting any detailed investigation of proposed models, estimation methods and the many formulae employed. The suggested estimation procedures have been applied to a number of Australian economic time series and some of the problems encountered in this implementation are discussed with reference to the series in which these difficulties appeared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a case study of investment in an inland (or "country") silo. These silos are used as local "collecting centres" for the on-movement of bulk grain (by rail) to a port terminal. Though specifically oriented to South Australian conditions, the general issues are common to those in any state where bulk grain must be moved to the coast from inland areas. To be economically justifiable the saving in bulk rail and farmers' time must outweigh the cost of resources used in country silo construction. At some point the double handling of grain through the country silo and the proximity of a port terminal will make such investment expenditure uneconomical. In this study an estimate has been made of the present value of the pay-off yielded by the construction of a silo at Crystal Brook (S.A.), 19 miles from a terminal at Port Pirie. Crystal Brook is on a major railway line and at the time of the survey did not have a silo, nor the prospect of one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pricing, capital raising and investment practices of ports have been studied in some official reports mainly to provide a guide to the optimal allocation of resources by port authorities. These studies have naturally considered the domestic social costs and benefits of changes in the policies of ports, since their operations are part of the economy's infrastructure. The literature is smaller on the private aspect of port costs to users—the direct and indirect costs to shipowners and shippers or consignees. This may be because the direct costs involved, which are fairly easily calculated, are frequently a small component of the total operating costs of shipping and o the selling prices of goods. On the other hand, the indirect costs involved, which include both monetary and imputed costs, may be a large cost component and are not easily calculable. The building up of sound generalisations rests ultimately on the evidence of actual situations. This paper makes some analysis of data on user costs in Australian ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main principles of fiscal stabilisation is the regulation of taxation (and, to a lesser extent, expenditure) in a manner which will dampen fluctuations in national income and so avoid unemployment and inflation. A change in taxation or expenditure can be made by a change in legislation. Such changes are referred to as discretionary fiscal policy. Tax revenues and expenditures may also change automatically. These changes are generally referred to as built-in or automatic fiscal policy. The aims of this paper are to examine, in what is essentially a static framework, the built-in changes in some of the components of the Australian budget and to evaluate their stabilisation performance during the period 1948-64. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As has often been observed, the Australian economy, especially its secondary and tertiary sectors, has grown rapidly since World War II. This growth, however, was not continuous, but took place in a rhythmic "stop-go" pattern; and it is with such "growth cycles" rather than the overall average growth itself that we will be concerned. Recently there has been an interest in approaching this subject by an application to Australian statistics of some well-known methods devised by the National Bureau of Economic Research (N.B.E.R.) for analyzing the U.S. business cycle. Specifically, peaks and troughs are found for individual economic time series showing the business cycle either in the raw data or in short moving averages of it. From the conspectus of these, the peaks and troughs of a "general reference cycle" are determined. Finally a distinction is made between "leading", "roughly coincident", and "lagging" series according to the typical relationship between cycles of individual series and "the general reference cycle". The aim of this paper is to re-examine this whole area, but beginning from the standpoint of the methods of spectral and cross-spectral analysis in an attempt to achieve a better characterization and estimation of the properties of the business cycle in different areas of the Australian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Econometric models of the Australian economy have not yet reached the levels of completeness and complexity that are necessary for reliable forecasts and tenable assessments of economic policy. It is generally believed that this stage is more effectively reached by gradually extending comparatively simple aggregative systems to more complicated ones. The model presented in this paper serves primarily to fill an important gap remaining from the two previously published studies. It develops, in relatively simple terms, a monetary sector that is complementary to the investment and consumption relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two purposes. First, the concept of directly additive preferences, introduced by Houthakker and exploited by Powell, and Powell et al., is used to compute demand elasticities for Australia as a whole and also for the six States in order to explore consumer demand patterns during the postwar years. Secondly, a number of tests either on interregional or money flexibility criteria is employed to examine aggregation bias of demand elasticities for a number of combinations of total market and market sections. The rationale of these tests by means of the analysis of covariance is given in the Appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical and modern demand theory provide parametric linear and nonlinear hypotheses which may be used as prior information in the estimation of systems of demand equations. Restricted estimation using this prior information enables the optimal demand parameters obeying the conditions of consumer maximisation theory to be established and also provides a test of the consistency of the sample and the prior information. Price and income elasticities are estimated subject to the classical restrictions of demand theory—the Slutsky condition, the Engel aggregation condition and the homogeneity conditions—using Australian data. Tests of significance are made on the individual restrictions and the equivalence of three overall tests of significance is examined. The consumer utility function is then postulated as separable, two commodity groupings are suggested, and the demand elasticities are estimated subject to various assumptions about additive and separable utility functions. Again, the null hypothesis on the prior information is tested. Finally, there is a brief comparison of the methods and results in this paper with the methods and results of A. A. Powell on the same data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this paper is to examine the way in which mechanisms for transferring hospital costs have been modified by the development of the voluntary insurance system. There are three distinct stages in the analysis. Section II consists of an outline of the changing structure of public hospital incomes, in which patients' fees and voluntary insurance payments have tended to displace government subsidies as sources of finance. Sections III and IV deal with the transfer effects of this trend and with the effects of changes in fee structures and the composition of voluntary insurance payments. Finally, in Section V an attempt is made to measure the consumer response to the pricing pattern of voluntary insurance. The broad conclusion is that the incidence of hospital costs with respect to income has become increasingly regressive. The consequences include increased individual hardship and exacerbation of the chronic problem of public hospital finances. The evidence presented here is limited in two respects. First, the available data are largely confined to the public hospital systems. This is not a serious limitation, since these systems operate five-sixths of all beds, including all the public ward accommodation, and also provide all the facilities for medical education, casualty, emergency, super-specialist and outpatient treatment. Private hospitals, whose function is limited to the in-patient care of private patients, may be regarded as external supplements to the intermediate and private wards of public hospitals. Fee discrimination on the basis of income is practised only in public hospitals: the fee structure of private hospitals is related to public hospital charges for private and intermediate beds. The second limitation is that the statistics used are largely Victorian, with some comparable New South Wales data shown where the layout of tables permits. However, the observations should be broadly true of all the state systems except those of Queensland... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In searching for possible causes of inflation one is led to consider a wide range of fields encompassing, among others, monetary and fiscal problems, labour economies and international trade theory. In all these areas contributions have been made towards understanding the generation of inflation and there has been some progress towards a synthesis of various approaches. Of considerable interest is the question of how far each of the various possible sources of inflation have contributed towards explaining overall price movements. This paper attempts to develop and apply a method which will, for the period under consideration, allow this question to be asked. Judging from the amount of discussion of the subject, it would seem that in Australia the wage-fixing machinery of the arbitration system must be considered as a possible source of inflationary pressure. Indeed a number of authors have proposed rules which they argue should be followed in order to prevent inflation arising from this source. The divergence of the minimum hourly wage rate from the value prescribed for it by each rule would seem then to indicate the degree of inflationary (or deflationary) pressure originating from the system of wage fixation in the opinion of each author. Variables so constructed will be used to test these opinions. Part I is devoted to a theoretical discussion of the variables which may be important in explaining inflation, and to the way in which the impact of these variables may be measured. In part II the results are presented, whilst part III is devoted to a discussion of their possible economic interpretation. The sources of data are mentioned in the Appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]