Search

This paper documents firm mark‐ups and competition in Australia, and their impact on productivity, using administrative data. I find that mark‐ups increased by around 5 per cent since the mid 2000s, less than previously documented for Australia and slightly less than documented for the average advanced economy. While part appears to reflect technological change, part appears to reflect an increase in market power. This increase appears to explain part of the slowdown in productivity growth observed in Australia over the past decade, by slowing the efficient reallocation of resources from low productivity to high productivity firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 studies the nature of earnings dynamics in Australia, using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey 2001–2020. Our results indicate that the distribution of earnings shocks displays negative skewness and excess kurtosis, deviating from the conventional linearity and normality assumptions. Wage changes are strongly associated with earnings changes and account more for the dispersion of earnings shocks; meanwhile, the contribution of hour changes is largely absent in upward movement and relatively small in downward movement of earnings changes. Furthermore, family and government insurance plays distinct roles in reducing exposure to earnings risk. Government insurance embedded in the targeted transfer system is important in mitigating the dispersion of shocks, whereas family insurance via income pooling and adjustment of secondary earners' labour market activities is dominant in reducing the magnitude and likelihood of extreme and rare shocks. The magnitude and persistence of earnings risk as well as the insurance role of family and government vary significantly across gender, marital and parental status. Accounting for these non‐Gaussian and non‐linearity features is important for evaluating the insurance role of government transfer programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the difference in academic performance of the oldest (treated) and youngest (control) students in a given grade. We employ Queensland Department of Education school administration panel data for the population of 2008–2016 state school students. Academic performance is measured using standardised test scores (National Assessments Program in Numeracy and Literacy) and teacher‐assessed measures of performance and effort for individuals in grades 3, 5 and 7. The empirical analysis employs a regression discontinuity design based on birth date relative to administrative rules on age of school enrolment. The class‐assigning mechanism operates via a known cut‐off date and results in the oldest child in the grade being almost a year older than the youngest. However, lack of enrolment compliance implies the regression discontinuity design is fuzzy rather than sharp, identifying the local average treatment effect rather than the average treatment effect. In particular, given the one‐sided nature of non‐compliance, we employ the partially fuzzy estimator of Battistin and Rettore (Journal of Econometrics, 142, 715–30, 2008). Exploiting a 2008 enrolment cut‐off date reform, which delayed school starting age by 6 months, we find a large increase in enrolment compliance. This exogenous change in the enrolment age enables one to gauge the importance of enrolment non‐compliance in estimating the treatment effect of being older versus younger in cohort. We find that pre‐reform the treatment effect is small and generally statistically insignificant and post‐reform it is sizeable and statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the writings of Peter Lloyd, one of Australia's best-known economists, who has been elected Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia. It notes the importance of his work, mostly done jointly with Herbert Grubel, on intra-industry trade, and his extensive contributions to trade theory. In addition there have been many papers on the global trading system and regionalism, and on the Australian and New Zealand economies. It describes his approach to economics and his many professional activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper analyses citations in the work of a large number of PhD students. We show that the pattern of citations of journal articles, books and other reference material differs substantially across areas within economics. An investigation of reciprocal citations reveals a surprisingly low degree of communication among the Group of Eight universities and a high propensity to cite authors from the same institution, especially supervisors. We also analyse the Australian share of cited works, and identify journals, articles and authors that PhD students value highly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the first estimates of the extent of common ownership of competing firms in Australia. Combining data on market shares and substantial shareholdings, we calculate the impact of common ownership on effective market concentration. Among firms where we can identify at least one owner, 31 per cent share a substantial owner with a rival company. Analysing 443 industries, we identify 49 that exhibit common ownership, including commercial banking, explosives manufacturing, fuel retailing, insurance and iron ore mining. Across the Australian economy, common ownership increases effective market concentration by 21 per cent. Our estimates imply that if listed firms seek to maximise the value of their investors' portfolios, then they place the same value on $3.70 of their competitors' profits as on $1 of their own profits. We discuss the limitations of the available data, and the potential implications of common ownership for competition in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the gender gap in financial literacy and pension savings is examined in this paper. In Australia, individuals have considerable discretion with respect to how their pension savings are managed. We argue that financial literacy should have a positive impact on the profitability of these decisions. Analysis based on micro‐data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey suggests that a sizable share of the gender gap in pension savings can be attributed to the gender gap in financial literacy. Therefore, policies aimed at improving the financial literacy of women should help improve the living standards of women in retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research to date has failed to generate a comprehensive understanding of the source of the gender gap in financial literacy in adulthood. Using microdata from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey and an analysis covering four age groups (15–19, 20–24, 25–29 and 30–34), this paper suggests that the gender gap starts young and well before individuals enter adulthood. The analysis also suggests that that raw (unadjusted) gender gap likely underestimates the underlying gap. It is important to establish whether the gap begins before or after children enter school, since policy aimed at addressing it would be very different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on developments which are of interest to economists. The Program Committee for the 2005 Australian Conference of Economists has bestowed the Economic Society's prize of Best Paper to Ralph Bayer and Susana Iranzo. The A. R. Bergstrom Prize in Econometrics for 2005 has been given to Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy and Leo Krippner. The Economic Society of Australia is calling on economists to participate in the 35th Australian Conference of Economists which will be held on September 25-27, 2006 at the Curtin University of Technology.

This paper provides new data of personal consumption expenditure at current and constant prices from 1900 to 1938–1939. The series is linked in with the official estimates, available from 1948–1949, to provide a broadly consistent series of estimates of consumers’ expenditure from Federation, based on new series of data. We comment on the differences in estimates often used to compare trends in real incomes, and attribute the differences as being mainly due to limitations of official data. We use the present results to describe the changes in the pattern of expenditure by main functional groupings, and compare the changes in real per capita expenditure in Australia with that in the UK and USA since the end of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inflation leads individuals to work harder to spend and not carry their money holdings. Two alternative margins have been used to model this effect: the extensive margin (the frequency of shopping per period) and the intensive margin (the average shopping time per trip). This paper investigates how inflation affects these two margins. It deviates from the previous literature by allowing individuals to vary both margins simultaneously. The analysis reveals that the impact of inflation on these two margins is determined by the interaction between the opportunity cost of carrying money and direct search costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a fiscal database for Australia including measures of government spending, revenue, deficits, debt and various sub‐aggregates as initially published and subsequently revised. The data vintages are collated from various sources and provide a comprehensive description of the Australian fiscal environment as experienced in real time. Methods are described which exploit the richness of the real‐time data sets, and they are illustrated through an analysis of the extent to which stated fiscal plans are realised in practice and through the estimation of fiscal multipliers which draw a distinction between policy responses and policy initiatives. We find predictable differences between plans and actual fiscal policy and a larger multiplier for policy initiatives than for implementation errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies the productivity advantages of urban firms in Australia. Following Combes et al. (Econometrica 2012, 80, 2543), we decompose the source of urban advantages into agglomeration and selection effects using the most exhaustive data source on Australian businesses: the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE). We find that urban advantages increase the productivity of the average firm by nearly 6 per cent, and that most of such advantages are attributed to agglomeration effects rather than selection. Urban advantages differ substantially across sectors and by firm age. In particular, they are larger in services than in manufacturing and relatively benefit mature firms. We also perform a state‐level analysis, which largely confirms our main findings at the country level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Economic Society of Australia has made the decision to stop producing hard copies of its journals in an effort to reduce paper and plastic usage and cut costs. Starting in January 2024, all financial members of the society will have free access to the journals through the society's website. The article also mentions that the 52nd Australian Conference of Economists will be held in July 2024 at the University of Adelaide, with Professor Leonardo Bursztyn as one of the keynote speakers. Additionally, the text pays tribute to the late Professor Max Corden, a highly respected economist known for his contributions to international economics and Australian economic policy. The first part of the text provides an overview of Max Corden's career and his impact on Australian public policy. The second part is an obituary for Brian Parmenter, a colleague of the author, highlighting his personality and contributions to economic modeling. The author also shares personal experiences working with Brian and describes his coaching and mentoring abilities. The text concludes with a summary of Brian's employment history. [Extracted from the article]

This paper estimates the market‐wide impact of utility‐scale renewables on Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM) wholesale prices from 2009 to 2020. The goal is to understand the medium‐run impact of renewable generation, as opposed to the short‐run impact of weather‐driven changes in renewable output. The focus is, therefore, on the relationship between renewable generation (and its growth) and wholesale prices over a long period of time. In particular, we exploit the half‐hourly nature of wholesale price setting in the NEM to uncover the impact of solar and wind daily production on the distribution of prices throughout the day. In contrast to the merit‐order effect literature, which focuses on the short‐run (contemporaneous) impact of renewables, our results suggest that the total daily solar production has a positive, although not always significant, impact on wholesale prices throughout the day during an early development stage of solar generation. For a more recent period, following a substantive increase in utility‐scale solar generation, the results are more in line with the merit‐order effect literature with total daily solar production reducing wholesale prices for most of the day. This impact, however, is of several orders of magnitude lower than that predicted in the literature. We also show that the daily production of wind has a small negative impact on wholesale prices for most of the day, throughout the entire period of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on articles published in the June 2003 issue of the journal 'Economic Records.' Selection of papers from the 31st National Conference of Economists held in Adelaide from September 30 to October 4, 2002; Help by Australian economists for publishing this issue.

The article reports several issues and events related to economics in Australia. The South Australian Branch of the Economic Society of Australia invites all economists to attend the 38th Australian Conference of Economists (ACE) 2009 held in Adelaide, South Australia on September 28-30, 2009. The History of Economic Thought Society of Australia (HETSA) announces that the organization will already accepting applications for the 2009 (HETSA) Prizes award. The Economic Society of Australia has two publications entitled "The Economic Record and Economic Papers" and "Economic Papers: A journal of applied economics and policy."

This paper briefly outlines the many achievements of Professor Maureen Brunt, who was elected Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia in 2006. It describes both her academic career, and her major contributions to competition law in Australia and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a simple model of the Australian economy to empirically examine the consequences of parameter uncertainty for optimal monetary policy. Optimal policy responses are derived for a monetary authority that targets inflation and output stability. Parameter uncertainty is characterised by the estimated distribution of the model coefficient estimates. Learning is ruled out, so the monetary authority can commit to its ex ante policy response. For certain shocks, taking account of parameter uncertainty can recommend more, rather than less, activist use of the policy instrument. While this finding is specific to the model specification, parameter estimates and the shocks analysed, it contrasts with the widely held belief that the generic implication of parameter uncertainty is more conservative policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a new explanation of the recent Australian wage inequality and unemployment experience. Building on a standard international trade model, it is argued that trade affects wage inequality and unemployment through changes in the bargaining power of different groups of workers in the presence of hiring and firing costs. This allows previously puzzling aspects of the trends to be explained, including the inconsistency of the existing Stolper-Samuelson trade explanation with rising relative skilled wages at the same time as rising skilled labour intensity of production. Considering differences in labour market institutions, in particular hiring and firing costs and minimum wages, allows differences between the experiences of Australia, the USA and Europe to be explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey together with OLS and quantile regressions, this paper examines the changing returns to education and the evolving wage structure of young adults (aged 25–34 years) between 2001 and 2019. Estimates show that real wage growth was strong for both males and females over the 2000s, underpinned by wage structure effects. Between 2010/11 and 2018/19 wage growth was flat (zero) for males and subdued for females. Institutional factors are thought to underpin the growth in wages of low‐paid females over recent years, while education investments underpin recent wage growth amongst high‐paid females. Since 2001/2 the wage premium on a degree qualification has declined for males and females. There has been no change in the adjusted gender wage gap across successive cohorts of 25–34 year olds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the determinants of changes in welfare caseloads is an important, but little studied, topic in Australia. This paper evaluates the role of labour market conditions in explaining the changes in the Australian welfare caseload since the late 1990s. The paper employs a stock-flow approach to better control for persistence in welfare receipt and includes different specifications to deal with measurement error in labour market data. The results suggest that the labour market is an important determinant of movements on and off welfare, accounting for the majority of the caseload decline during 1997-2005. The results also highlight the importance of robustness checks when data are measured with error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using firm‐level data, we examine the efficiency of labour reallocation in Australia over the period 2002–16. We find that more productive firms account for a higher share of employment – particularly in trade‐exposed sectors – and Australia appears more successful at reallocating resources to high‐productivity firms than many OECD countries. But the propensity for high‐productivity firms to expand and low‐productivity firms to contract (or exit) has declined over time. Counterfactual estimates suggest this decline in productivity‐enhancing labour reallocation is a key feature of Australia's productivity slowdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces various economic-related information in Australia. Professor Alan Woodland has been elected to receive the award as the Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia for 2008. The 38th Australian Conference of Economists will be held at the University of Adelaide in South Australia on September 28-30, 2009. The Best Paper Prize has been awarded to Nikola Dvornak and Marion Kohler for their paper entitled "Housing Wealth, Stock Market Wealth and Consumption: A Panel Analysis for Australia," Volume 83.

This paper explores the relationship between local unemployment rates and the length of time people who have lost their job spend unemployed, using a competing risks model. High local unemployment is found to reduce the probability of re-employment for someone who was employed prior to a period of unemployment. However, individual factors such as age, education and experience are more important predictors of re-employment. This suggests there could be benefits from a policy response that focuses more on the individuals, and building skills that are resilient to structural change, than on job creation in local areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monetary policy and commodity prices are key drivers of Australian house prices, but endogeneity between these variables complicates empirical research. To address this, we use local projection methods and instrumental variables for estimation. We find that one standard deviation expansionary monetary and commodity shocks increase house prices at peak by 1.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively. Using geographically disaggregated panel data, we exploit the heterogeneity in house price responses to study the different channels through which these shocks affect housing markets. We find that both monetary policy and commodity price shocks have significant effects on housing markets through income channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses micro data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to estimate the marginal propensity to consume (MPC). Estimates are made by examining two types of policy changes – to income tax rates and lump-sum transfers – which help to identify the effect of shocks to income on consumption. Using a fixed effects model the point estimate of MPC out of the tax cuts is around 1.0 and out of the Baby Bonus is at least 0.1. The paper also explores differences in the MPC across households according to measures of liquidity constraints and unemployment risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia data to assess the performance of second-generation Australians in full-time employment in 2007. It examines the role of job mismatch and cultural and linguistic diversity at the individual and family levels. The study accounts for non-random sample selection. The new evidence shows that: (i) over-education and over-skilling carry a wage penalty; (ii) there are significant but heterogeneous second-generation effects; and (iii) language effects explain most of the disadvantage associated with non-English-speaking background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dungey and Pagan (2000) present a SVAR model of the Australian economy which models macroeconomic outcomes as transitory deviations from a deterministic trend. In this paper we extend that model in two directions. First, we relate it to an emerging literature on Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium modelling of small open economies. Second, we allow for both transitory and permanent components in the series and show how this modification has an impact on the design of macroeconomic models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the incidence and wage effects of overskilling in Australia. It finds that approximately 30 per cent of employees believed themselves to be moderately overskilled and 11 per cent believed themselves to be severely overskilled. The incidence of skills mismatch varied little when the sample was split by education. After controlling for individual and job characteristics as well as the potential bias arising from individual unobserved heterogeneity, severely overskilled workers suffer an average wage penalty of 10.2 per cent with the penalty ranging from about 6 per cent among vocationally qualified employees to just less than 20 per cent for graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the efficacy of the Australian points system in a family context among working‐age permanent resident immigrants who arrived between 2000 and 2011 when there was a major focus on skills selection. Sixty‐seven per cent of these immigrants were granted a skilled visa while 25 per cent hold a spousal visa (spouses of Australian citizens). More than half of the skilled visa recipients are the spouses of the primary applicants. Primary applicants among skilled visa holders are assessed for their skills in line with the Australian points system but secondary applicants, such as spouses, among skilled visa holders and spousal visa holders are not subject to any skills assessment before becoming permanent residents. We study differences in economic outcomes by permanent visa types and the role of points system factors in explaining these differences using the Personal Income Tax and Migrants Integrated Dataset and the Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset. We find that primary skilled visa holders earn at least 26–28 per cent more than spousal visa holders, and this is similar for both genders. However, spouses of primary skilled visa holders earn 13–18 per cent more than spousal visa holders. This difference is higher among females than males. Occupation differences can account for nearly half of the differences in income and can entirely capture the role of education and English proficiency. Primary skilled immigrants and their spouses have higher rates of labour force participation and employment than spousal visa holders, starting in the first year of arrival, and the gap is much higher for primary skilled visa holders, but these differences do not disappear quickly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the degree of risk aversion amonsg Australian households using panel data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Using households' share of risky assets, we test whether relative risk aversion is constant in wealth. After accounting for measurement error, we cannot reject the constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) assumption. Using a CRRA utility function, we estimate the elasticity of intertemporal substitution and infer a coefficient of relative risk aversion of 1.2 to 1.4. These findings can provide guidance for calibrating household preferences in macroeconomic models of the Australian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the growing literature on poverty dynamics in Australian households. The results reveal that a range of life-changing events, household head, partner and demographic characteristics have an impact on both the likelihood of remaining poor and slipping into poverty. These findings have important implications for Australian policymakers: tertiary education and employment are key factors in keeping households out of poverty; having a disability or living in outer-regional or remote areas increases the probability of becoming poor and remaining in such a situation; and finally, life-changing events, especially becoming separated, can lead households into persistent poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies factors affecting energy‐related financial stress in Australia, a key economic challenge facing a minority of households. We find that low net wealth is a particularly important factor affecting difficulty in paying energy bills. Having insulation reduces reported difficulties in being able to heat and cool homes. The odds of not paying energy bills on time are doubled by households not having solar panels. Other important factors contributing to energy‐related financial stress include being a renter, being a mortgage holder, having a large number of occupants in a household, and having a resident who requires energy‐consuming medical equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to the well-documented puzzle of the forward bias of exchange rates. While the exchange rate of a small commodity-exporting economy, such as Australia, can be closely tied to commodity prices, this paper demonstrates empirically that a portfolio of commodity futures exhibits little, if any, bias. A microfounded small open economy model is developed in which the exchange rate depends on export commodity prices. This is used to demonstrate how systematic expectation errors about the monetary process could cause the bias in exchange rate forwards when there is an absence of bias in commodity futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine how the stresses associated with the transition to a new country combined with additional stress arising from a period of unemployment affect the mental health of immigrants. Australian immigrants are found to have poorer mental health at 6 months after arrival in Australia compared with 18 and 42 months. Furthermore, unemployment, and especially a long duration of unemployment, is found to be associated with poor mental health. We found that although immigrant women appear unaffected by their spouses’ labour force status, there is evidence that immigrant men's mental health is affected by spouse labour force status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What influences the probability that someone will leave unemployment? Informed by a search-theoretic framework and allowing for exits to not in the labour force and employment, in this paper I examine what influences the probability that somebody will leave unemployment. The unemployment data used are derived from the retrospective work history information from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. The results show that variables that increase wage offers and lower reservation wages are associated with shorter unemployment durations, and that exit rates from unemployment appear to remain steady initially with duration before declining relatively sharply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that detailed studies of particular economies, such as Bob Gregory's work on Australia, are relevant to all of economics. The paper builds on the concept of a model species from biology to develop the notion of a model economy – one whose experiences illuminate fundamental economic issues; examines the criterion for an economy to serve as a model economy; and describes three areas – labour relations and the awards system of wage-setting, marketising public services and growth through immigration and natural resources – where Australian experience provides insights into economic behaviour and the operation of markets broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical analysis of household expenditure behaviour has traditionally ignored the issue of resource allocation between household members, assuming that they have identical or unitary preferences. This paper relaxes that assumption, develops a household sharing rule and proposes intra-household demand systems that are able to identify differences in the preferences of members from conventional data. The resulting price and expenditure elasticities are used to demonstrate that collective demand models suggest different directions for commodity tax reforms to those implied by the traditional unitary model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the measurement of equilibrium unemployment in Australia using the Phillips curve. To provide a theoretical framework through which these measurement exercises can be understood, the theory of equilibrium unemployment based on wage bargaining is also described and reviewed. The paper shows how studies have moved from specifying a unique and constant equilibrium rate of unemployment to specifications which emphasise the influence of unemployment benefits, hysteresis and a range of equilibrium rates of unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new rankings for Australian university economics departments for the periods 1988-2000, 1988-1994 and 19942000 using the ECONLIT database. We rank economics departments using two different journal ranking criteria — one based on citations and the other based on perceptions of journal quality. In addition, we provide updates on the rankings using the Towe and Wright (1995) methodology. We find that the perception-based rankings are quite different from the citation-based rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines occupational performance in Australia across three racial groups in Australia: Indigenous Australians; Asian people, defined as all those whose language spoken at home was either Chinese, Vietnamese or other forms of a South-east or East Asian language; and white people, defined as the residual category. The paper has as its starting point, observed differences in occupational attainment among the three groups in Australia and sets out to account for these observed differences on the basis of both race and non-racial attributes such as, age, education and area of residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the impact of foreign business cycles on Australian exports. After accounting for the effect of domestic activity on exports it has been found that foreign activity has at times had a large impact on Australian exports and, therefore, also on Australian GDP. Evidence is also found that the US and Japan have a high output elasticity of demand for Australia’s exports. Consequently, their business cycles have a larger impact on Australia’s exports than that suggested by their market shares of Australian exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new method of explaining the temporal change in economic inequality in terms of changes in the sources of income. The method is based on the decomposition of the Gini coefficient by source of income. Using this method, the paper also examines changes of the sources of private income in Australia over the last two decades and their impact on the distribution of income. It will be seen that not only have the shares of income from different sources changed, but that there has been significant change in inequality of distribution of the components themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making allowance for the ageing structure of the population, this paper calculates the levels of optimal national saving and future living standards for Australia for the period 1999-2050. For this period, the optimal saving response to the ageing of the Australian population is for national saving to increase from its current level by 2.7 per cent of GDP by the year 2017 and then to decline to the year 2050. The implied growth of living standards is 1.20 per cent per year. Reduced immigration would reduce the rate of growth of living standards but reduced fertility would not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamic behaviour of the Okun coefficient using quarterly data (1980Q3-2014Q1). It is found that a rise in labour productivity and a fall in output can increase unemployment. A 1 per cent reduction in the unemployment rate requires only a 2.4 per cent increase in real output growth above the average growth rate, but during recessions this figure increases to 4.53 per cent. The probability of observing a higher coefficient was limited to recessionary periods. Given that recessions are now less frequent, Okun's law continues to be a useful rule of thumb in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the way in which Australia's dividend policy, financial policy and investment decisions has been affected by its full imputation company tax system and capital gains tax provisions. Information on incentives provided by the Australian tax system; Provisions made by Australia's tax system; Features of the tax system; Impact of the full imputation reform on business in Australia.

In this paper, the responses of 90-day Bank Accepted Bill futures prices to the unexpected components in the announcements of money supply, inflation rate and balance of payments are examined Expectations of these variables are generated using VAR and ARIMA models. The unexpected components were extracted by deducting the expected changes from the announced changes. The results show that the efficient market hypothesis cannot be rejected Summary In this paper, the responses of interest rate futures prices to the unexpected components in the announcement of money supply, inflation rate and balance of payments respectively are examined. Expectations on these economic variables are generated using BVAR, UVAR or ARIMA time-series econometric models. Empirical results are obtained by regressing the changes in futures price on the unexpected and the expected changes in the economic variables concerned with a constant term using ordinary least squares method. There are a few points worth mentioning here. First, futures prices did not respond to the expected changes in all the three economic variables announced. This complies to the EMH since all known information has already been incorporated into the price prior to the announcements. Any change in the price immediately after the announcement is due to the new information contained in the unexpected component of the announcement. Second, futures prices did not respond to the unexpected changes in all the three economic variables either. This seems to reject the hypothesis that interest rate futures market is efficient. However, after careful analysis, it is deemed that the EMH cannot be rejected based on the empirical results obtained from the price data which are at least a few hours after the announcements. It is also possible that the new information contained in the announcements is not an important determinant of the futures prices in Australia. The market may simply ignore this information unless it is of significant importance to the future course of the economy. Therefore, the EMH in this case cannot be rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]