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The purpose of this paper is to examine the positive impact that the creation of food processing hubs can have on "smart specialisation" on the economic development of regional Australia. The analysis looks at two existing developments in Australia, as well as providing an economic evaluation of another "regional hub" that is currently being proposed. Our paper provides an economic impact analysis of the proposed establishment of a food processing hub in Victoria. It presents an analysis on its impact both at a regional level (Gippsland), and more widely across Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the economic analysis of modern rich economies. It argues that standard economic theory acknowledges that it does not apply if there is own‐consumption and/or joint production and suggests that successful economic reforms of the 1980s have used markets to drive down costs in sectors where standard economic theory applies. This process has resulted in a situation where rich country economies are increasingly oriented to sectors – predominantly services – where markets work less well, namely those with extensive own‐consumption and joint production, where theory says that factor rewards and other prices cannot be determined by production and consumption conditions. Arguing that this can explain the “wages squeeze,” the paper concludes that other economic mechanisms should and have arisen to secure better welfare gains, thus explaining the recent shift in policy priorities of the ACTU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First Nation community well‐being is examined with a lens on the role of geographic location and financial indicators as potential determinants of well‐being. Regression analysis makes use of data from the 2016 Canadian Census and First Nation government financial statements to examine six well‐being indices for 446 First Nation communities. The results suggest that geographic location is the most critical factor explaining well‐being with more remote and northern communities experiencing relatively lower levels of measures of well‐being, with the exception of Indigenous language. Numerous well‐being distinctions are also identified among the Canadian provinces and regions. The financial indicators assessing transfer revenue from First Nation entities and Nation‐owned business activity are found to be positively associated with community well‐being. These insights are valuable to public policy‐makers and Indigenous leaders, in Canada and other countries, as they shape policy for the benefit of First Nation people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a general equilibrium model of a developing economy with a capital intensive formal sector and a large informal sector with sector-specific capital to analyse the effects of investments on the sectoral returns to capital, sectoral wage rates, and composition of output and employment. Beginning with capital market disequilibrium (unequal sectoral rates of return) and labour market distortion (formal-informal wage gap), the model traces the evolution of the economy till capital market equilibrium is attained. The investments in the formal sector equalise the wages (a 'turning point' in growth à la Lewis) and reduces the size of the informal sector. The sectoral rates of returns equalise only if there is no factor intensity reversal, otherwise the economy specialises in the production of formal goods. The investments in the informal sector equalise the rates of return, do not affect the size of the formal sector and finally, a formal-informal wage gap persists provided factor intensities are not reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a principles-based government program resourcing decision framework that is designed to produce efficiency and equity through objectively determined decisions. The framework examines the appropriate role for government intervention through the application of a market failure test. It then guides the decision maker to identify the most appropriate government initiative to put in place and to establish the most efficient cost-recovery mechanism. The framework has been endorsed by the NSW Department of Industry for program evaluation purposes and within the NSW Biosecurity Strategy. This framework would be suitable for application to all government programs/initiatives across all tiers of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of economic growth in developing countries within the standard growth regression framework, with special attention being paid to the experience of landlocked developing countries ( LLDCs). The results confirm that the landlockedness hampers economic growth, but the magnitude of negative impact is sensitive to alternative estimation methods. However, the analysis suggests that good governance, trade openness and coordinating infrastructure development with neighbours explain the significant aspect of the inter-country differences in growth rates among LLDCs. The results also suggest that African landlocked countries are not different from the other LLDCs. Contrary to the 'resource curse' hypothesis, natural resources seem to contribute to economic growth of LLDCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Economic Forum ( WEF) recognises in their recent global risk reports the need to better understand the dynamics of the global economic system, and in particular the interconnectedness in the system in order to better appreciate the possibility of both single and multiple risk events occurring. This paper applies a cladistics analysis technique to identify the commonality of identified characteristics across a sample set of the 2014 WEF global risks ( WEF 2014) as a basis for a new understanding of the linkages and potential evolution of the WEF risks. This approach shows strong potential to provide deeper insights into the nature and interdependency of global risks and in particular how this allows for more efficient management of these risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over regional inequality and economic growth is ongoing. Previous research has shown that economic growth reduces regional disparity in the unemployment rate and increases regional disparity in income as measured by Census data. This paper examines the jobless rate and income from taxation data to further explore the effect economic growth has had upon regional inequalities. Here, we find while economic growth acts to significantly reduce jobless rates, the differences between statistical local areas is much more stubborn particularly for remote regions. Additionally, we show a much stronger link between economic growth and regional divergence in market income, with changes in economic growth impacting mostly upon statistical local areas with higher median incomes located in capital cities and remote regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microeconometric evidence reveals high private returns to education, most prominently in low-income countries. However, it is disputed to what extent this translates into a macroeconomic impact. This paper projects the increase in human capital from higher education in Malawi and uses a dynamic applied general equilibrium model to estimate the resulting macroeconomic impact. This is contingent upon endogenous adjustments, in particular how labour productivity affects competitiveness and if this in-turn stimulates exports. Choice among labour market assumptions and trade elasticities results in widely different outcomes. Appraisal of such policies should consider not only the impact on human capital stocks, but also adjustments outside the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research examining the growth impacts of institutions have found that institutions are important in fostering economic growth. By building a framework around the institutional taxonomy proposed by Rodrik (2005), our paper contributes to the literature in the following way. First, we confirm the result that 'institutions matter' and show that different types of institutions matter differently for growth. By applying a dynamic panel model, we find that market-creating and market-stabilising institutions are important in fostering economic growth. We then extend this analysis and investigate whether countries at different levels of development could respond heterogeneously to changes in their institutional structure. We find that poor countries benefit the most from market-creating institutions and institutions that support market stability. We also find some evidence that market-legitimising institutions such as 'democracy' are not necessarily optimal for growth in poor countries. These results have important implications for countries that decide on the optimal strategy to improve their institutional framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current mainstream neoclassical economic analysis of growth in a "Western" economy holds that in anything but the relatively short run, defined as the length of a business cycle, the economy reaches an equilibrium growth rate determined entirely by supply side factors and unaffected by measures taken to increase aggregate demand during a slump. In addition, the process of transformation to this long-run equilibrium position is never explained. As a result of these views, the finance sector, both domestically and internationally, has obtained undue influence and behaved in a manner that caused the crisis which started in 2007. This paper considers these propositions, focussing on neoclassical growth theory. After establishing these claims, the policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commonwealth Grants Commission's recommended allocation of some $45 billion of GST (VAT) revenue annually to the states and territories is heavily influenced by its estimate of their revenue-raising capacity, which it argues is primarily a function of the value of a jurisdiction's tax bases. This paper argues that a jurisdiction's revenue-raising capacity is primarily a function of the real household disposable income of residents after allowances for major cost-of-living differences, such as housing and journey-to-work costs, and tax exportation (the ability to tax non-resident income). Using this measure of revenue-raising capacity, we find that the CGC methodology significantly underestimates the real revenue capacity of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Victoria and significantly overestimates the capacity of Queensland and Western Australia. The paper provides numerical estimates of the differences. The paper concludes that the principles on which the CGC determines the distribution of billions of dollars of funds are flawed and should be reformed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My impressions of inframarginal economics are: • It is best interpreted as providing underlying support for marginal economics. • Inframarginalists take as self-evident that division of labour and specialisation economies are paramount in economic progress. To justify this, inframarginalists need to develop the empirical side of their field. • Inframarginalists make insufficient use of computers. They specify stylised models, omitting many real-world phenomena that are routinely included in models computed for applied work. Inframarginalists seem wedded to analytical solutions. • Inframarginalists write papers mainly for inframarginalists. They need to demonstrate the value of their work by making it relevant to others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates a simple method to derive the income accounts in the context of limited macroeconomic data. The method is relevant for several developing countries where the statements on income are clearly absent and the national accounts are confined to statements on expenditure and/or value added. Furthermore, the method is illustrated for four Central Asian economies, namely Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. A Cobb-Douglas factor utilisation function is then used to estimate factor income shares and the relative contributions of factors to economic growth. The analysis reveals limited contribution of labour to economic growth in these economies. This limitation appears to be strongest in the resource dependent economies of Kazakhstan and Mongolia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in five SAARC member countries - Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Using time series data from 1990 to 2010, an empirical model is estimated in which growth of real GDP depends on FDI, investment, openness, tax policy and inflation. After establishing the stationarity of the data series, cointegration tests are performed, and an error correction model is developed and estimated. The empirical results indicate that, unlike investment and openness to international trade, FDI has not played a significant role in promoting economic growth in these countries. We conclude that the effectiveness of FDI may depend in part on the size of the inflows, as well as the level of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the static optimisation strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation using net marginal benefit analysis, and goes on to develop a dynamic optimisation solution using a modified Hotelling approach. Unfortunately, the situation required for a Hotelling-type optimisation to hold is rarely observed in practice, as there are numerous sources of uncertainty that impact upon a forward-looking optimisation exercise. The situation is no different within the climate change debate, with opportunities and threats to the value-maximising exercise arising as uncertainties are resolved through new information. Choices of how to deal with and take advantage of these opportunities and threats are keys to identifying the optimal trade-off between the strategies, and need to be included in the calculation of the optimal mixture of mitigation and adaptation activities. Based on reasonable assumptions, this paper discusses the impact of the real options valuation technique on the theoretical Hotelling-type optimisation to show what the effects of its application would have on the theoretical dynamic optimal solution and what those economic implications represent to public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Australia since the 1960s has been one of substantial economic change. One of the key drivers of this has been the growth in the importance of human capital formation and the knowledge intensification of occupations. This paper analyses the intensification of knowledge in different types of employment, over the longer term and the corresponding increase in human capital formation. In order to undertake this analysis, the O*NET measures of knowledge and Australian employment data are used to determine the degree to which human capital in Australia has changed. The paper concludes that there has been a slow but steady rise in the knowledge intensity of Australian occupations over the past thirty-five years, although not uniformly across different groups and consequent level of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monetary and fiscal rules are complementary. Whereas monetary policy and monetary institutions have been reformed in line with developments in modern macroeconomics, fiscal policies and institutions have not kept pace with these developments. review of Australia's existing fiscal responsibility legislation, the Charter of Budget Honesty, has pointed out significant shortcomings. This paper outlines a proposal by to reform Australia's fiscal responsibility legislation. It proposes three fiscal policy rules that are designed primarily to tie-down expectations in relation to the long-run path of the Commonwealth government's net debt. It also proposes the establishment of an independent Fiscal Commission to monitor and enforce compliance with the rules and to improve the transparency, independence and accountability of the federal budget process. The proposal aims to give politicians the commitment technology they need to address the fiscal challenges posed by an aging population and innovations in the terms of trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost 20 years ago, an article in Economic Papers by Altman and Daly asked 'Do fluctuations in the macroeconomy influence Aboriginal employment status?' This paper revisits this question in view of recent evidence. Indigenous people are more likely than before to be employed in industries similar to that of other Australians, and hence are less insulated from the business cycle. The greater engagement in the Australian economy is not something to be feared as it means that Indigenous employment will eventually respond to sustained macroeconomic growth. Indeed, Indigenous employment in the private sector converged rather quickly to the Australian average over the ten years of buoyant economic conditions between 1996 and 2006. Economic slow-downs do circumscribe the ability to improve Indigenous employment outcomes, but this simply means that educational and training investments become even more important in ensuring that Indigenous people are in a competitive position once economic growth picks up again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gross Product of the Northern Territory accounts for approximately 1.2% of Australian GDP. The economic growth record of NT in the past few years has been well below all Australian states and territories but the per capita income of NT remains higher than the national per capita income. Due to continued interstate migration, higher birth rate among the indigenous population and the inability of NT to attract international migrants, the Territory's population mix is slowly changing. This paper shows that the NT's economic growth rate is closely linked to the growth rate of labour force and private investment. Although the overall labour force participation-rate is almost unchanged, the male and female participation rates are moving in the opposite direction. Finally, the paper presents short-term forecasts for NT's Gross State Product per person employed, private investment and employment. The forecasting exercise shows that the cyclical pattern is likely to continue in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous papers in this issue of Economic Papers have dealt with some substantive issues surrounding food security. The purpose of this article was different. We provide a general commentary on other Australian agricultural policy issues where the rhetoric of food security is used to exaggerate the challenges faced and/or to support solutions to some challenges that are expensive and unrealistic. This article comprises opinion based on historical observations of the agricultural policy process in Australia and the underlying principles of mainstream agricultural economics. It does not offer detailed empirical analysis of the issues discussed. The issues discussed are irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin, prospects for agricultural production in northern Australia, especially irrigation development, the bias in favour of further processing of agricultural products (value adding), food imports and foreign ownership, and the effects of Asian economic development on Australian agriculture and agricultural trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic structure of local government areas ( LGAs) of the Northern Territory ( NT) are mapped and analysed using economic base theory. Using a three-stage geospatial visualisation we find that: (i) Mining and agriculture are predominantly providing job concentration in a handful of remote LGAs. (ii) Employment growth is derived from public services, with private sector industries contributing almost equally in most LGAs. (iii) NT LGAs exhibit core-periphery characteristics including vulnerable peripheries, often alongside mature mining operations. (iv) However, mature mining is also found alongside diversified sub-cores, providing a model for more vulnerable LGAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the direction of causality between public debt and real economic growth in a sample of 20 OECD countries for a period of 40 years starting in 1970. Given the persistence of real growth rates, we estimate canonical cointegrating regressions to allow for the possibility of stochastic cointegrating vectors. We then make inferences about the direction of causality by means of both Granger tests and VAR-based tests that do not depend on whether the series are integrated or cointegrated. We found that while modern welfare states tend to face low real growth following increases in public debt, more traditional welfare states and those with larger governments typically exhibit either causality from low growth to debt accumulation or bidirectional causality. However, the heterogeneity of the results suggests caution when making general statements about the relationship between these variables. In particular, the causal link is intrinsic to each country and it cannot be inferred that higher debt always leads to lower economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Indigenous people in the poorest developing countries of the world confront the most severe hardships, nevertheless even in the most developed countries such as Australia, Indigenous standards of living in terms of economic, educational and basic human standards are far inferior to other groups within society. It has been argued that Indigenous affairs in Australia is divided into 'two ideological tribes' both vigorously opposed with respect to the preferred manner in which the substantial disadvantage of Indigenous Australians can be overcome. Although more complex categorisations of ideological positions are possible, both maintain considerable influence within the field of Indigenous policy formulation in Australia and in the Northern Territory in particular, where nearly 30 per cent of the total population is Indigenous. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the central arguments advanced by these two sides of the debate and the implications for public policy decision making and Indigenous people, within the context of the Northern Territory of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

of the Grattan Institute released the report titled Investing in the Regions: Making Difference in May 2011. The report sought to question the rationale for differential funding of regional infrastructure projects and concluded that 'government spending cannot make economic water flow uphill' (). The report was used to argue that fast growing regional areas were being deprived of important government funding and that this approach 'has treated people unfairly' (). The authors also scrutinised the argument that regional universities can impact on the economic development of regions and found that 'the economies of university cities do not develop faster than regions without a university' and thus 'it may well be that the additional spending on universities and regional campuses in smaller cities should be redirected to assist students from regional areas to study at larger campuses in our capital cities and largest satellite and coastal cities' (). In this paper, we identify the limitations of this report. We also take the opportunity presented by the release of this report to consider other important policy areas requiring attention, especially in the field of higher education in regional settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts, through a comparative analysis, to assess the significance of foreign direct investment to the growth and development of both China and India, from the period following the introduction of economic reform programmes, to the last few years. It suggests that foreign direct investment (FDI) has had a significant positive bearing on the Chinese economy and a considerably more moderate effect on that of India. This discrepancy is attributed, in particular, to the composition and nature of FDI, and the institutional framework within which FDI is received. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the industrialisation experience in Sri Lanka following the outward-oriented policy reforms initiated in 1977. The reforms helped transform a primary product exporting economy into one in which manufactures dominate exports. The improved performance of the economy is seen in significant terms of trade gains, improvement in output growth, and employment generation, with a notable shift in labour absorption in favour of workers belonging to low-income families. Were it not for the civil strife and inconsistent macroeconomic policies that existed during much of the post-liberalisation period, the economy would have performed even better than it did. The experience over the past two decades makes a strong case for a firm commitment to an export-led growth strategy while guarding against possible policy backsliding emanating from the newfound enthusiasm for state activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that, based on Yang and Zhang's (2003) analysis, economic development can be viewed as an evolutionary process of division of labour that is driven by improvements in transaction efficiency. Both economic development and income inequality are consequences of this process; there is no systematic relationship between the two. Implications of the Yang-Zhang analysis for government policies, including the allocation of foreign aid, are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital, or a better educated labour force, is a major determinant of economic growth and productivity. However, recent trends in the cost of education in Australia may cause growth and productivity to suffer. For example, during the period 1982-2003 inflation rose on average by 4.4 per cent per annum, whereas the cost of education grew overall on average by 7.8 per cent. This has made education a relatively expensive item among Australian households. However, one can argue that the increased cost of education to private households may reflect choices to purchase a higher quality for their children in private schools and as such government should not be concerned about it. This paper compares and contrasts the cost of education in Australia and comparable economies with the cost of other goods and services embedded in the CPI (Consumer Price Index) basket, using the latest available quarterly data. Finally, the major determinants of the rising cost of education in Australia are examined. It is found, inter alia, that over the period 1986-2003 the increasing number of students enrolled at non-government primary and secondary schools and the introduction of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) were two important determinants of the rising cost of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to measure markup and returns to scale for eight Australian manufacturing industries, for the period 1971-72 to 1984-85, and to explore the relationship between markup, the business cycle and openness to the international economy in this period. A Hall type model is used for this purpose, where allowance is made for non-stochastic time variation in the contribution of technical change to output growth and intermediate materials are included in the production function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional and remote tourism in Australia is characterised by micro‐, small‐ and medium‐sized businesses, spatially dispersed and fragmented. Characteristics which present unique challenges for these communities attempting to develop tourism as a way of diversifying their economy. This study explored the views and experiences from residents and businesses in six remote local government areas in South Western Queensland to identify the barriers and enablers for remote communities to using tourism as a driver of economic and social‐cultural growth. We found a lack of understanding of the structure and behaviour of the tourism industry; a lack of business acumen; a lack of financial and human resources; and a reluctance to collaborate by tourism businesses to be barriers to tourism‐led economic growth. Enablers to tourism led growth included: local government support for tourism development; a sound understanding of the mechanics and structure of the tourism industry; and the capacity to engage in marketing that captured and narrated the visitor experience in digital channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2000s, Australia experienced a rapid and substantial resources boom. The impacts from this boom were particularly felt in Western Australia, which has the largest share of mining revenue as a proportion of both gross state product and exports. Some states have reported that although mining export earnings have risen due to strong commodity prices, there was less impact on the populations, labour markets and regional development than may have been expected. This paper will investigate the impact of the mining boom on the population and labour markets of Western Australia. Of particular policy relevance are skilled labour shortages and the effects that any changes in population and employment have on the remote communities where the majority of the mining activities are located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to reassess the relationship between economic growth and inequality using an up to date data set, 2003-2007, for a sample of seventy-four developed and developing countries. Average economic growth during this studied period is regressed against the 2003 values of inequality, growth, education, human development, inflation and governance quality using OLS cross-country models. The findings support a negative impact of inequality on economic growth for the entire sample. In particular, an increase (decrease) in inequality would lead to greater deterioration (expansion) in economic development in low-income countries than in high- and middle-income countries. Furthermore, improvement in governance does not either stimulate or hinder the economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the effect of economic institutions on financial development, where economic institutions themselves are endogenous and determined by political power. Following the theory of 'economic institution' proposed by , two groups of political power ( de jure political power or political institution and de facto political power or distribution of resource) are employed in the analysis. By using the panel data of sixty counties during 1980-2006, the empirical results show that political power is a statistically significant determinant of economic institutions and hence affects the development of financial systems. The result demonstrates that de jure political power has great significant effect on financial development than de facto political power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies the consequences of fragility in African states but with more focus on countries in the Greater Lakes region. Such countries constitute a development challenge given their enormous needs and difficulties associated with implementation of recovery and development programmes. Although there is no universally agreed definition of fragility, this study pays much attention to both national conflicts and those with a regional bearing. Given the scale and frequency of these conflicts, Africa has witnessed the destruction of institutions, infrastructures and systems which have impacted negatively on the growth of economies. The article reviews the causes and analyses the consequences of fragility and the conclusions are that the causes range from historical perspectives, social to economic. Similarly, the consequences not only include the destruction of human capital, institutions and infrastructures, but also the erosion of good governance and accountability. This article also emphasises the principles for engagement in the stabilisation, recovery and development programmes, but most important is the reorganisation of capacity constraints and political will as well as aligning interventions with local priorities and systems. The article concludes that provision of recovery and development programmes should be integrated within the local programmes for ownership and sustainability in such engagements and financing mechanisms should be aligned within the existing framework for efficiency and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which financial development contributes to output expansion in Malaysia, during the period 1960-2003. An augmented neoclassical growth framework is adopted to provide an evaluation of the impact of financial sector development on economic development. Using the recently developed ARDL bounds procedure, the results show that aggregate output and its determinants are cointegrated in the long run. The results suggest that financial development, private capital stocks and the labour force exert a positive impact on economic development whereas the accumulation of public capital appears to curtail output expansion in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a preliminary exploration of the role of adaptive efficiency and institutional learning as the basis for long-run economic growth in Australia by means of an analysis of the institutional changes in water rights between 1850 and 1886 in the colony of Victoria. It is argued that the effects of adaptive efficiency and institutional learning led to the replacement of growth-hindering institutional arrangements in water supply in favour of growth-enhancing frameworks that provided the basis for better economic performance over the long-run. The analysis presents evidence that suggests that in addition to the colonial experience, adaptive efficiency embedded in the inheritance of British culture rather than institutions has played an important role in Australia's economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to integrate measures of well-being and sustainability have long existed within the literature. A recent approach is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). The GPI is a monetary-based index that has been designed to ascertain the impact of a growing economy on sustainable well-being. The GPI is comprised of a large number of individual items that account for these wide-ranging impacts of economic growth, including social and environmental benefits and costs as well as those of the standard economic variety. Within this paper, the methodology of the GPI is presented. The impact of economic growth on sustainable well-being is also briefly reviewed for Victoria. This analysis is conducted by estimating a GPI for Victoria over the period 1986-2003. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The retirement risk zone represents a fragile period in the financial life cycle of people in defined-contributions superannuation. It primarily affects people of middle means. Sequencing risk has been described as an independent risk, but it has largely been a consequence of the dominant asset allocation strategy, described here as aggressive constant-mix. Lifetime glide paths should instead resemble a displaced V: the share of growth assets should fall by something like 20-50 percentage points over working life, then another 5 or 10 percentage points on the day of retirement, but should subsequently rise through retirement, by something like 20-30 percentage points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Aghion et al. (), this article provides new insights regarding whether financial development can affect economic growth non-linearly by adopting the concept of threshold effects. The empirical approach adopted in this article allows for the finance-growth relationship to be piecewise linear with a set of indicators including access to finance acting as a regime-switching trigger. Using cross-country observations from 144 countries stretching from 1985 to 2009, strong evidence of threshold effects in finance-growth link is found. It is suggested that financial development in general, and access to finance in particular, is among the important forces contributing to cross-country (non)-convergences in growth rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the mining investment boom turned down and became a drag on growth, the question has often been asked: “Where is the growth going to come from?” Commentators started speaking of a growth “handover”: if mining investment was not going to provide our growth, something else needed to. And for a while, particular non‐mining sectors did seem to pick up, to become in turn the new “engine of growth.” However, this article argues that the underlying drivers of growth over the longer term do not depend on external triggers. Instead, they can be found in the “three Ps” – population, participation and productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to a small, but growing stream of literature exploring the contagious nature of corruption by examining the rate at which the correlation between countries' corruption measures decays as the geographical distance between country capital cities increases. Focusing on countries in Africa and the Middle East and using historical data from Transparency International to measure perceived levels of country corruption and the great circle distance (in miles) between country capitals, the results of this analysis indicate that corruption is contagious and can spread beyond its neighbour's borders. The rate at which corrupt practices are adopted decays as the distance between the countries' capitals increases and the first order conditions suggest that corrupt practices can spread and impact practices beyond 2700 miles. The results also suggest that reducing corruption within a nation's borders can be viewed as a positive externality as reductions in corruption levels can spillover to other countries and help to lower corruption within a larger geographical region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that micro-equity may be used to complement or substitute micro-credit programmes, which involve lending rather than risk sharing. By becoming a stockholder in the micro-enterprise rather than a lender, the micro-equity provider is in a more tightly coupled relationship, providing knowledge and guidance necessary for ensuring success of the venture. Moreover, I show that while micro-credit financing places a heavy cash drain on micro-enterprises and leads to sub-optimal growth during the course of the evolution of the micro-enterprise, the mix of micro-equity with micro-credit may prove to be more valuable to nurture the sustainable growth of micro-enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth and development, along with expanding population, place a continuing pressure on our basic necessities in a world with depleting natural resources, overharvested ecosystems, and volatile commodity markets. These factors pose a range of competing demands relating to: economic and population growth and demographic changes; food, energy and resources security; ecological regime shifts; and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Key indicators of the processes that underlie these competing demands point to continuing food insecurity in low-income countries, exploitation of ecosystems, and depletion of natural resources. This emphasises the need for productivity improvements combined with innovation in institutional and governance structures to help foster global sustainability and ensure food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developed world is dependent upon an increasingly unreliable strategy of economic growth to avoid a range of social problems. The character of growth in the developed world has become increasingly perverse, being based partly on frustration strategies, in response to the widespread satiation of basic needs. The rise of satiation has been obscured by the focus of economists on output measures, such as GDP. Meanwhile, trade engagement with the developing world - a potential strategy for need-satisfying growth - is hampered by fears of intellectual property arbitrage and agricultural protectionism. Near term, growth could be sustained by overcoming these impediments. Longer term, a transition is required from growth in output to growth in sophistication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency and equity arguments for changing the structure of, and the aggregate level of, special taxation of the mining industry are reviewed. An economic rent base tax would cause smaller taxation distortions than the current quantity base royalties. A higher level of taxation of immobile factors, including mining resources, as part of a tax-mix change to fund lower taxation of internationally mobile capital would lead to higher Australian economic growth and after-tax returns to labour. The Brown tax, the Allowance for Corporate Capital, and versions of a resource rent tax, including the petroleum resource rent tax and minerals resource rent tax variants, are described and evaluated as measures of economic rent in the mining industry. In principle, the Brown tax has greater transparency and desired efficiency properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a brief introduction to the Yang model of specialisation and its implications for economic growth; and seeks to provide a basis for further research by suggesting some ideas on how work on the model might be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]