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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.

Reviews the development of open access and deregulation of trunk pipeline natural gas transportation in Australia and the United States. Institutional and theoretical background of Australian natural gas industry; Key factors in determining economies of scale in pipelines; Competition in pipeline natural gas transportation in North America; Primary goal of the National Third Party Access Code for Australian natural gas pipelines.

Economists have long been involved in public policy-making, both as policy advisors and policy advocates. This article revisits the two questions that future Nobel Prize winner, George Stigler, posed to the economics profession in his seminal 1946 American Economic Review article urging us to speak out in the debate over the efficacy of increases in the minimum wage: (i) 'Does such legislation diminish poverty?'; and (ii) 'Are there efficient alternatives?'. I review this literature in the United States in the context of the Congressional Budget Office's answers in 2014 to these questions and what Australian policy-makers can learn from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We revisit the benefits of the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) and, in particular, evaluate the insurance value of this agreement in the face of regional and global trade wars. The insurance benefits are quantified by comparing the AUSFTA against alternative scenarios where some or all regions raise tariffs by 10 percentage points. Issues regarding expectations and the timing of potential trade wars are considered by using a dynamic model. The potential gains relative to these alternative trade war status quo scenarios are found to be as much as four times larger than the traditional efficiency gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Australia seems to be moving slowly towards a wage and welfare system more similar to that of the United States. Wages of the low paid are falling relative to community averages and it is likely that over the next few years there will be changes to the welfare system that reduce access and perhaps the level of benefits and pensions. To illustrate the income implications of a system that might use lower wages and reduced benefits to produce more employment, the article compares economic outcomes for U.S. and Australian indigenous sole mothers. This comparison makes clear that across countries the income of indigenous sole mothers and their children depends more on the generosity and access to the welfare system and the extent of government intervention to lift low wages than it does on additional employment that may accompany lower wages and benefits.

There has long been a tension between institutional explanations of the gender pay ratio and the human capital model which predicts that females will be paid less than males because they have less human capital, as measured by years of formal education and labour force experience. The tension is made clear by the 1969, 1972 and 1974 Equal Pay and Female Basic Wage judgements of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission which increased the gender pay ratio by about 30 per cent over the period 1969 to 1975. It has been assessed that the ability of countries to influence the gender pay ratio depends on labour market institutions. Countries with centralised wage fixing systems and strong unions, such as Australia, were able to increase the relative pay of all women quite quickly during the 1970s. Other countries, such as the United States, found it more difficult to change the gender pay ratio, even though they responded with the institutional structures that they possessed.