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Lists Australian and New Zealand working papers and research reports in the field of economics as of September 1988. Topics, Authors, Manner of obtaining copies.

Lists several papers and research results in economics featured in the June 1978 issue of the periodical 'The Australian Economic Review.' Health care under voluntary insurance; Incidence of poverty; Index of official economic forecasts and projections; Demand for and supply of professionally-trained social workers; Volunteers in social welfare agencies.

Lists technical papers from the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research in Australia. Titles and suggested prices.

This paper analyses data from the University of Western Australia (UWA) Graduate Destination Survey linked to information from the University's Student Records System to explore the determinants of graduates' starting salaries over the years 2002 to 2004. While the details examined also include age, gender, language spoken at home, country of birth, disability status and high school attended, most emphasis is placed on the impact on starting salaries of students' academic performance and their field of study. The analyses show that the main determinant of graduates' starting salaries is the weighted average mark they achieve at university. The salary differentials associated with higher marks in the Australian labour market appear greater than those reported in similar studies of the US and the UK labour markets. Science graduates are shown to have relatively low starting salaries, casting a shadow over recent suggestions that the supply of this group be increased through lower fee regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoclassical economic theory and its supply‐side account of the drivers of economic growth has been influential amongst Australian economic policymakers and advisors. In the post‐Keynesian tradition, we argue instead that aggregate demand drives economic growth, even in the medium term. In particular, the investment and innovation that depends upon that investment are mainly determined by the investment response to consumer demand. Currently, weak wages growth in Australia is weakening that consumer demand. The paper examines the causes of weak wages growth and offers solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an overview of the activities done and papers received by the journal, Australian Economic Review, in 2004. The format of volume 37 of the Australian Economic Review for 2004 remained unchanged, and has continued to retain its strong emphasis on issues of contemporary policy relevance. A Policy Forum was published in each issue with topics on health economics; long-term issues in superannuation; competition issues in the Australian grocery industry; and intellectual property rights. The contributed articles, with two to five in each issue, covered a diverse mix of topics including, for example, labor economics, health economics, greenhouse gases, mergers, and monetary policy. Each issue contained both a special article for tertiary students, and a data survey to highlight the availability and attributes of different databases. Over the year, 35 new articles were submitted, a few below the long-term average. The acceptance rate has continued at around 40 percent, and the backlog of accepted articles awaiting publication is at most one issue. The integrity of the system of peer review depends on the selfless work of referees. Except where the submitted contributed papers obviously were not suitable to the Review and a quick decision was made by the editors, two referees were used on all other submissions. In almost all cases the referees were punctual in sending reports, and they provided a large number of constructive comments, both to the authors and the editors.

Including the quality of life in the economic assessment of health and medical services is well established in the literature and a number of multi-attribute utility (MAU) instruments are available which purport to measure health state utilities. One of these, the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) instrument was developed in Australia and uses Australian importance weights. The present article discusses some of the methodological problems encountered by existing instruments. It outlines the construction of the AQoL Mark 2 and the methodological innovations which have attempted to overcome some of these problems. Technical and other details may be obtained in Richardson et al. (2003a, 2003b, 2003c) and Peacock et al. (2003). These papers may be accessed from the Health Economics Unit web site at http://chpe.buseco.monash.edu.au/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the pattern and determinants of intra-industry trade (IIT) in Australian manufacturing since the late 1970s. The results point to a sharp rise in IIT from the mid 1980s which appears to be linked with an outward- oriented policy. Industry-level analysis indicates that industries which experienced a sharp fall in protection are the industries with the higher levels of IIT. These include textiles, garments, rubber products, and machinery and equipment. An increasing trend in IIT suggests that the short-term adjustment costs associated with trade liberalization are likely to be lower, and that liberalization can proceed without huge short-term adjustment costs. Using a logit model the determinants of IIT are investigated. Results indicate that IIT is positively related to product differentiation and scale economies, and negatively related to the levels of protection and foreign ownership in the preliberalisation period. In the post-liberalization period, however, scale economies explain the inter-industry variations in IIT. R&D intensity and close economic integration appear to have no impact on IIT regardless of the nature of the policy regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the economics of the living wage. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has made an application for the new "Living Wage" which is being heard by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). This paper discusses the key issues focusing on the economic case for fair and equitable wages including the employment, productivity, and equity arguments. The paper is based on the economic submissions made by the ACTU in December 1996. The Living Wage claim reflects the view that the fixing of fair and reasonable award rates of pay should be based on a standard which is sufficient for a worker to belong to and participate in the Australian community. The Living Wage claim sets a minimum award rate based on established AIRC Award skill relativities, which meet the "needs" basis of workers and is set on fair 'market" rates. The objective of the Living Wage claim is to establish a minimum of $12 per hour for work within ordinary hours, and $436 per standard 38-hour week.

A terms-of-trade shock boosted growth in income and living standards over the past decade. It also brought on Australia's productivity growth slump. Now that the terms of trade have peaked, re-invigorated productivity growth is needed to boost income and living standards. However, the economy is still going through the adjustments that have stifled productivity growth. Australians may not enjoy the same growth in prosperity as they have over the past two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does increasing the minimum wage lead to employment losses? For many years most economists thought that the answer to this was a straightforward ‘yes’. However, research during the 1990s began to overturn this conventional wisdom and showed that increases in the minimum wage did not automatically lead to employment losses. A recent Australian study, by Leigh (2003), examined the impact of statutory minimum wages in Western Australia and reached conclusions which supported the conventional view. However, close scrutiny of Leigh's article shows that it is fundamentally flawed. Despite Leigh's efforts, it remains the case that we simply do not know a great deal about the employment impact of Australia's system of minimum wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the changes in the monetary policy of Australia and the U.S. for the period since 1985. The average number of weeks between policy changes was 8.9 weeks for the United States and 16.6 weeks for Australia. Australian monetary policy was changed less frequently than that of the United States. In the pre-announcement period the average number of weeks between policy changes for Australia was 10.7 compared with 5.2 weeks in the United States. In the announcement period the average number of weeks was 18.2 weeks for the United States and 26.6 weeks for Australia. Australian monetary policy has been changed less frequently than US monetary policy throughout the period, although the relative number of changes has dropped slightly in the post-1990 period.

This article discusses how teaching public economics is, and should be, related to national cultures. The article shows how the US culture of distrust of government influences the two major US texts (Rosen and Gayer 2014; Gruber 2016) that dominate the teaching of public economics in Australia and elsewhere. By contrast, Stiglitz and Rosengard's (2015) text on public economics emphasises the role of government in providing social welfare. These traditions may be described as neo‐liberal and social democratic respectively. I conclude that the social democratic approach reflects Australian culture and is more appropriate for teaching public economics in Australian universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The form and potential contributions of cooperative federalism and the additional skills and tasks required of the public service to turn well‐known and developed tax reforms into actual reforms are evaluated. Cooperative federalism seems necessary for reforms involving state taxes and changes in the mix of taxes. Additional public sector skills and involvement in developing details of tax reform packages and their implementation, and then monitoring the outcomes, are important to raise community understanding of, and confidence in, taxation reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this article is to comment on ‘Healthier Australians’, Chapter 2 in the Productivity Commission's report Shifting the Dial. The report elevates health and wellbeing to a central role in lifting the nation's productivity. The main recommendations centre around better information in the health care system and improving the architecture of the system to ensure more decentralised decision making. If acted upon, these solid building blocks could provide significant opportunities to save lives and improve the health of the population and the wealth of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retirees and creatives, significant cohorts in the Australian economy, are used in this article to demonstrate the challenges faced by policy-makers when addressing the housing environment. The housing market is characterised by many participants, often with competing needs and wants, all contributing to the complexity of housing policy. As a result, policy can be difficult to define with multi-directional interdependencies. We identify five characteristics of complexity-uniqueness, layers of government, dynamism, actors and knowledge spheres-that if duly considered in the policy formation process could contribute to a more integrated approach that minimises negative and conflicting policy consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period since 1970 has seen a very significant rise in house prices and rents in real terms in Australia. The geographical variance in house prices in the United States over the same period provides an insight into the rising value attached to amenity and the impact of supply constraints in explaining the rise. Financial deregulation and low interest rates are the key factors that, after 1991, boosted prices but at the same time limited rent growth. These factors are a one-off and not a guide to the future. The decline in home-ownership rates requires a more nuanced debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The section focuses on changes in the publication of 'Australian Economic Review' in 2003. The journal continued to retain its strong emphasis on issues of contemporary policy relevance, publishing policy forums on the security of superannuation assets, the pricing and availability of water resources, and executive remuneration. The contributed articles published have also covered a diverse mix of policy-relevant topics. One disappointing feature of 2003 was the number of submissions received for the contributed articles section. Static and even falling rates of submission are not unexpected given that the size of the economics profession within academia has not been growing.

This article provides a guide to economic information on Australian resource projects. Three sources are described in some detail and their differences, strengths and weaknesses are discussed. As the data are under-researched, some examples of how they can be used in economic analysis are mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Price trends in housing markets may reflect herding of market participants. A natural question is whether such herding, to the extent that it occurred, reflects herding in forecasts of professional forecasters. Using more than 6,000 forecasts of housing approvals for Australia, we did not find evidence of forecaster herding. On the contrary, forecasters anti-herd and, thereby, tend to intentionally scatter their forecasts around the consensus forecast. The extent of anti-herding seems to vary over time. We also found that more pronounced anti-herding leads to less accurate forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks three questions. First, how do carbon taxes drive economic and environmental outcomes? Second, what is the appropriate economic base on which carbon taxes should be levied? Finally, how well does a carbon tax deliver economic and environmental outcomes compared to a comparable emissions trading scheme? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide estimates of the effects of completing a Vocational Education and Training (VET) qualification on individual labour market outcomes, particularly on the probability of employment and on earnings. Estimates are provided for 1997, 2001 and 2005. The estimation methodology is based on matched comparisons of persons at each level of VET qualification among Year 12 completers and non-completers. We find that among Year 12 completers, there is little benefit from obtaining certificate level qualifications, but there are positive employment and earnings outcomes associated with obtaining diploma level qualifications. Among persons who did not complete Year 12, however, there are benefits from obtaining any kind of VET qualification, including the lower level Certificate I and II qualifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has long been the beneficiary of low, stable power prices. A decade-long state of oversupply underpinned this result and while plant capital costs had been rising, the cost of capital had been declining. These offsetting effects locked the wholesale market into an average cost of $35–$40/MWh. However, from 2007, a simultaneous and sharp rise in new entrant plant capital costs and the cost of capital occurred. The combined effects crept up on the industry while it was in a state of oversupply. This ‘entry cost shock’ disrupted a 7 year long equilibrium price, with average power system cost rising to $60/MWh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern era, the extent and character of technical change features prominently in discussions of productivity growth and movements in the competitiveness of manufacturing. While technical change is pervasive in modern manufacturing, it occurs unevenly. In this study, technical change is estimated by fitting dual cost functions for each of 38 sectors of Australian manufacturing over the 32 year period, 1968–69 to 1999–2000. The estimates show that technical change is heavily labour-saving in all industries, but that the overall rate of change, as measured by a rate of cost diminution, and the degree of bias towards saving labour, rather than capital or material, varies substantially across industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the proposal to add special taxes on energy-dense food to reduce the prevalence of obesity in Australia. It states that market failures were noted with the decision on food consumption by the government wherein it presents several graphs depicting marginal costs of the market. It mentions that the market test revealed no significant findings hence the special added tax was not implemented.

The article discusses the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) to Australia's financial system industry. The GFC's impact on Australia's financial services industry include the increased dysfunctional behavior of markets such as the dramatic reduction in credit and liquidity. The two most substantial interventions during the GFC were the introduction of a guarantee of bank deposits, and the banning of short-selling activity.

The article presents the study on children's social, economic and cultural environment contributions in the economy of Australia. The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) describes the impact of the children's early experiences on their later development and the mapping of the diverse pathways that children follow as they develop. It also provides the opportunity to identify the long-term consequences of policy for children and their family.

The article presents the forum on financial deregulation and household debt in Australia. Topics are links between financial deregulation and higher levels of household debt, the implications for inter-temporal choice and macroeconomic stability. It concludes that sharp falls in interest rates have supplemented household income substantially, mitigating the impact on consumption of falling income and falling asset prices.

The article focuses on the high levels of household debt in Australia that is said to evolve into a full-brown crisis. It describes the distribution of debt across the households in the country, focusing on the incidence of excessive debt. It also examines the characteristics of households with high debt levels and the apparent consequences for financial well-being. In addition, data collected by the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey is discussed.

The article focuses on the household debt in Australia. It notes that private debt is largely ignored by conventional macroeconomics, but the impact of it on the economy is affected by its scale relative to gross domestic product (GDP), its composition, purpose and rate of change. It describes the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 to the Great Depression in 1929-1930, which is caused by high levels of debts and Ponzi schemes.

The article analyzes the urban transportation challenges linked to social disadvantage in Australia and discusses their economic impact. It reports the lack of focus on social issues in transportation policy design and mentions the role of transport in causing and addressing social disadvantage. It discusses the disadvantages of the country's traditional models of urban transport, which include low-car access, and driving cessation due to old age, physical disabilities and unemployment. It mentions the government's policy responses to fill urban transport gaps including funds, coordination and monitoring. It also presents a review of the emerging transportation models and gives an overview of the future trends related to transportation policies.

This article examines the prices of housing in Australia and recommends several policy options. The housing price to income ratio rose from 5:3 in 1997 to 9:1 in 2007. Demand is far exceeding supply of new housing. Growth in household formation, rising incomes and a very strong immigration program are adding to the demand. Among their suggestions, the authors describe the need for greater investment in infrastructure development and tax policies that promote savings to counter rising household debt.

This article examines the prices of housing in Australia and recommends several policy options. House prices in Australia have been trending upwards in real terms for several decades. The authors hope to determine if there truly is a housing crisis by examining the rate of housing stress. Other factors are difficulties in paying the rent or mortgage; whether or not households are behind in their mortgage repayments; and movements to and from home ownership. They found housing stress at upper income levels but not among low-income owners and renters.

This article focuses on the economic effect of sports facilities and teams in the U. S. And Australia. Approximately 70% of the funds to build new sporting facilities comes from public monies even though the teams are privately owned. Whether or not a local community benefits from the location of sports facilities and teams is discussed. The subsidization of sports stadiums or arenas with tax revenues in order to attract a new team or keep an existing one may generate consumer interest in fans who attend the matches and public relations interest, however, economic theory and empirical tests show that sports facilities to not stimulate local economies.

Recent studies have indicated that government bonds are an imperfect substitute for money in providing transaction services. Based on these studies, this article develops a theoretical framework showing that, as with money seigniorage, the government can gain an interest benefit from issuing government bonds. The article terms this interest benefit as ‘government bond seigniorage’. Further, the article estimates government bond seigniorage in comparison with money seigniorage for five countries (Australia, Canada, France, Italy and the United States) during the period 1959–2001. It is found that government bond seigniorage accounts for a larger percentage of Gross Domestic Product than money seigniorage, but also experiences greater fluctuations for all sample countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the economic design of professional sporting competitions and how labor markets and rules affect their outcome. Details discussed are player assignments to clubs, the player payment determination process and the numbers of players on teams. The article discusses the effects of the reverse-order draft mechanism, which is used to allocate players to clubs. This mechanism is used in the U. S. National Football League and National Basketball Association and in the Australian Football league. The way in which trade and market outcomes are affected by the draft is mentioned.

This article looks at data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) available to researchers. The ABS produces statistics on the economic, social and demographic issues that are relevant for all Australians. It is the country's official statistical organization and assists and encourages informed decision-making, research and discussion within government institutions and the community. The data gathered by the ABS is produced through a large number of statistical collections such as periodic censuses, regular surveys and one-off collections. The ABS collects economic, international trade, demographic and social statistics. The bureau makes the statistics available free of charge on their website.

This article examines the link between workplace relations policies and prosperity in Australia, especially in recent history. The lesson from the past 15 years of workplace relations reforms, beginning 1990, would be that we should have more of the same. Wealth creation is best left to the private sector. The workplace relations system should be directed entirely towards maximizing efficiency in the labor market. To that end, employer-employee negotiations about the most productive arrangement for their workplaces should be less fettered by the intrusion of third parties. On the other hand, wealth redistribution is best left to elected public representatives. The Australian tax-transfer system should be regarded as the appropriate transparent instrument for implementing community wishes regarding fairness in both its absolute and relative dimensions. At the time of writing,aspects of the following agenda appear to be under consideration by the government of Australian Prime Minister John Winston Howard for implementation after it takes control of the Senate in July 2005. The streamlining of federal agreements offered by the use of Australian Workplace Agreements and Certified Agreements applies a global no disadvantage test to 20 allowable matters. It says a lot about the complexity of awards that the move to only 20 allowable matters was regarded as a simplification.

Abstract Unexpected inflation, disinflation or deflation cause arbitrary income transfers between an economy's borrowers and lenders. This redistribution results from distorted real interest rates that are too high when price level changes are over-predicted and too low when they are under-predicted. This article shows that in Australia's case, inflation expectations were mostly biased upwards throughout the 1990s, according to the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research series and to a new derived series based on bond yields, implying that real interest rates were too high over this time. In turn, this caused substantial arbitrary income transfers from debtors to creditors, estimated to have averaged up to 3 per cent of gross domestic product over the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a basic version of the inter temporal model and examines its ability to explain fluctuations in Australia's current account. The empirical results presented in this article suggest that the present value model is able to explain annual fluctuations in Australia's current account deficit since the beginning of the 1980s. This provides some support for the position that the current account deficit is appropriately viewed as the outcome of forward looking inter temporal saving and investment choices by Australians. The year-to-year fluctuations in the current account are the outcome of actions by Australians to smooth their consumption paths. The present value model in equation implies a simple relationship between the means of the current account and the change in national cash flow. Present value model tested in this article is derived from a quite restrictive inter temporal model. Although the ability of the current account to forecast changes in national cash flows is consistent with the present value model, it does not provide a full test of all of the restrictions imposed on the data by the model.

This article presents estimates of the impact of child rearing on the lifetime earnings of Australian women using 1997 cross-sectional data. It is found that women with children have substantially lower lifetime incomes than do childless women. For example, women with a secondary education with one child have lifetime after tax earnings around $160 000 lower than is the case for childless women. Additional children are associated with much lower cumulative earnings. The article shows that the impact of having children on women's lifetime earnings decreased over the period 19861997. Explanations for the observed decrease are not directly investigated in the article. However, we canvass several possibilities including the increased availability of child care places which may have allowed women with pre-school children to return to the labour force much earlier than previous cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Tax compliance costs represent an important area of tax policy but have, until recently, been neglected by mainstream economists'. The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in Australia on 1 July 2000 has heightened public interest in and concern for the simplification impact of tax reform. The GST Bills were accompanied by tile Government's Regulation Impact Statement (RIS), which provided an assessment of the GST on tax compliance and administrative costs. This RIS is by far the best known of its kind in Australia to date. This article argues that taxation RISs are generally not appropriate for policy evaluation because they focus on business taxpayers only. In particular, the RIS on the GST obscured the issue by the use of incorrect terminology and was not based on a valid perspective for policy evaluation. Using the same assumption as the Government, it is estimated that, contrary to the Government's claims, the GST would raise tax compliance costs by more than $1 billion annually. At the same time, it is also recognised that Australia's RIS process rates amongst the OECD's best practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a public debate, whether a population of 6-12 million or a population of 50 million would boost Australian economy. The point is that population accompanied by complementary investment is what generates prosperity as well as sustainable growth, and that is called "nation building." Creative and complementary investment in capability building can overturn the law of diminishing returns. In modem economics it is embodied in the endogenous approach to growth, replacing older neoclassical growth notions and reemphasizing well-targeted investment in human and physical capital.

Highlights the alternative choices open to Australian policy makers in their quest to achieve an acceptable balance between three potentially conflicting policy goals. Alternative paths of economic reform; Concerns on rising social inequality; Impact of socially progressive policies on economic performance.