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During the Costello era, Australian Budgets under-estimated tax receipts for the upcoming fiscal year on 11 out of 12 occasions. The Swan-Hockey era saw over-estimates of tax receipts for eight fiscal years in a row. In this way, the last two decades have seen substantial serial correlation in the errors of Budget revenue forecasts, revealing an inefficient forecasting process. We improve the efficiency and accuracy of Budget forecasts of tax revenue by incorporating National Accounts data on household saving behaviour. In particular, the adjusted R2-statistic is substantially higher. Household saving behaviour also helps to predict nominal gross domestic product growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the forecast of Australian inflation based on four alternative procedures: a univariate time series model, an interest rate model, an error correction model and a public survey of inflation forecasts. We derive estimates of expected and unexpected inflation from each of the methods and compare the out-sample forecasting results. Based on a range of evaluation criteria, the time series model dominates the other models, with the interest rare model, the error correction model and the survey forecasts following in that order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents forecasts of key variables for the Australian economy in 1988-89 and 1989-90. The first section summarises our forecasts. Section 2 provides the underlying details for 1988-89. It includes a comparison of our forecasts with those in the Budget Papers and an analysis of the sensitivity of our forecasts to variations in key assumptions. The underlying details and some sensitivity analysis for 1989-90 are in Section 3. Section 4 contains concluding remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines the main features of the Federal budget of Australia for 1982-83 and presents a broad assessment of how the budget measures alter the economic outlook for 1982-83. The budget incorporates estimated growth of 11.3 per cent in receipts to $45,393 million and estimated growth of 13.9 per cent in expenditures to $47,067 million, resulting in an overall deficit of $1674 million and a domestic surplus of $230 million. The budget estimate of total expenditures differs very little from the forecast, but the distribution of spending among categories is rather different. The budget estimates for cash benefits to persons exceeds the estimate by $362 million, but abstracting from the effect of policy initiatives announced in the budget, the forecasts would imply only slightly stronger growth. The budget leads to increase the forecast of the rate of inflation but appears unlikely to affect the forecast of the rate of growth of real output or employment. The measures introduced in the budget will on balance have a direct positive effect on real household income.

The article discusses trends, updates, and outlook for the Australian economy. Topics explored include the gross domestic product (GDP), consumption, and unemployment rates recorded from 2017 to 2018, international economic developments in the U.S., Europe, and China which could impact Australia, and the contribution of non-mining business investments to Australian economic growth.

The article presents information on the Australian economy as of 1982-83. Strong growth in domestic demand pushed up the rate of growth of real non-farm gross domestic product (GDP) in 1980-81 to 5.1%, its highest level since 1972-73, according to March quarter 1982 national accounts data rebased to 1979-80 prices. But the subsequent twelve months brought a marked slowing in the growth of domestic demand, together with a further weakening in net exports, and non-farm GDP is estimated to have increased by only 1.9% in 1981-82. On the usual forecasting assumption of no change in the policy stance, it was expected that the slowing in growth of domestic demand will continue during 1982-83. Although some improvement in net exports is expected, it will not be sufficient to offset the further slackening in domestic demand. Non-farm GDP is forecasted to increase even more slowly, by only 1.2% in 1982-83. This slowing in the pace of economic activity has, not surprisingly, exerted a strong adverse impact on the labor market.