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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the usefulness of the yield spread for forecasting growth in the Australian economy since 1969. Design/methodology/approach – This paper applies time series analysis to evaluate the in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting power of the spread-growth nexus in Australia for the period spanning from 1969 to 2014. Findings – This paper concludes that the spread serves as a useful predictor of growth in output, private dwellings, private fixed capital formation, and inventories in Australia, both in-sample and out-of-sample. Its predictive content is not sensitive to the inclusion of monetary policy variables or the switch to the inflation-targeting regime by the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 1990s. Originality/value – This paper provides significant evidence to policy makers and market participants on the usefulness of the spread in forecasting output growth for up to eight quarters ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - To investigate the extent of over-education for recently arrived tertiary educated male immigrants in order to ascertain if higher educated immigrants face assimilation hurdles in the Australian labour market. Design/methodology/approach - Using immigrant longitudinal data (LSIA), this paper uses the job analysis/objective method of defining over-education. Also, bivariate probits are used to account for selectivity into employment when studying the determinants of graduate over-education. The over, required and under-education (ORU) earnings function is utilised to find the rates of return to education investment. Findings - It is found that English speaking background (ESB) immigrants to have similar rates of over-education compared to the native born, while only Asian non-English speaking background (NESB) immigrants see a rise in over-education after tighter immigration and welfare policies were introduced. Returns to required schooling are substantial, but the penalty for excess years of schooling is large, though consistent with the stylised facts of over-education. Research limitations/implications - Short time-frame (up to five years) only allows for an investigation of initial assimilation. Originality/value - Using panel data, this paper is the first to study the initial phase of highly educated immigrant assimilation into the Australian labour market from the viewpoint of job matching rather than just employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the Australian equity market is informationally efficient in the semi-strong form with regard to interest rates and the exchange rate shocks during the period 1994-2006. Design/methodology/approach - There is evidence that the data are non-normal and that autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) effects exist and in such circumstances, standard estimation methods are not reliable. A new method introduced by Hacker and Hatemi-J which is robust to non-normality and the presence of ARCH is applied. Findings - The results show the Australian equity market is not informationally efficient with regard to either the interest rate or the exchange rate. Originality/value - The empirical findings, in contrast to several previous studies, imply that the possibility for arbitrage profits in the equity market might exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study attempts to explore the determinants of tourism demand that impact tourist arrivals in Australia from Asia using an augmented panel gravity model. Design/methodology/approach: The augmented panel gravity model was utilised to analyse the demand for Australian tourism from 15 major countries of Asia over the period 1991 to 2018. Tourist arrivals were the dependent variable while per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and weighted distance were important explanatory variables. Further other indicators like population, money supply, globalisation, price index, exchange rate, uncertainty and two dummy variables were added as control variables. Findings: The results demonstrate based on the novel methodology of Pesaran (2006), namely CCE (common correlated effects) that tourist arrivals are impacted positively and significantly by per capita GDP of both the country of origin and destination country, globalisation also impacts tourist flows positively. However, tourist arrivals are adversely affected by distance and prices confirming the economic theory. Originality/value: Gravity models have been intensively used in the recent literature on tourism; however, this study has attempted to explore tourism demand from Asia into Australia which is indeed an unexplored area further the study has used the CCE methodology which takes care of the problems of cross-sectional dependence unlike the earlier methods widely used in the literature like the DOLS and the FMOLS. Last by utilising a wide-ranging set of macro factors the study contributes a novel assessment to the recent literature on tourism demand model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to reflect on the sources of the technical inefficiency of health care foodservice operations, using a sample of Australian and American hospitals. Design/methodology/approach - The paper applies the stochastic frontier model to reflect on the technical inefficiency and its sources. The advantage of the model is that it allows the simultaneous parameters estimation of technical efficiency as well as the factors that explain variations in technical efficiency. A set of hypotheses are tested to ensure the applicability and suitability of the suggested model. Then the model parameters are estimated, discussed and checked against the theoretical requirements and the literature. Findings - Results show that all the variable coefficients are correctly signed and that the average technical efficiency is around 83 percent for Australia and 80 percent for the USA. Practical implications - The technical efficiency results, according to the introduced model, suggest that health care foodservice operations in both countries are not operating at a full efficient level. The results also reveal that factors such as manager's education, manager's experience, and size have a direct impact on reducing the level of technical inefficiency of these operations. Originality/value - This paper overcomes the limitations of the existing efficiency techniques in the area of health care foodservice and also provides policy implications by emphasizing on the sources of technical inefficiency of health care foodservice operations for Australia and USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the determinants of taking out government-funded student loans for university study in Australia. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses an ordered probit model to quantify the influence of the various factors which affect students' decisions on funding their tertiary study using student loans or through other means. Findings - The study finds that the probability of taking out student loans for the full cost of university is largely influenced by students' socioeconomic status. Other major influences on this decision include students' demographic and university enrolment characteristics. Research limitations/implications - A limitation of the work is that only a neighbourhood (rather than an individual-level) measure of socioeconomic status was available, and future research should seek to address this. Practical implications - The research shows that the parameters of loan schemes do not seem to be able to over-ride the influence that family background has on loan taking behaviour. That is, poor students use loans regardless of the parameters of the loans scheme in order to overcome short-term credit constraints. In other words, these student loan schemes channel funds to those without other means of funding their higher education. Originality/value - By showing the impact that income contingent provisions have on loan taking behaviour, the paper informs policy makers of potential impacts from modifying loans schemes to reflect this characteristic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]