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The article discusses the plans and policies of Social Welfare Commission. This Commission, which came into being early in 1973, presented its first Annual Report in July of that year, in which it outlined its background, philosophy and administrative procedures and briefly discussed some of its major projects, the most far-reaching of which seems to be the Australian Assistance Plan. This is an important and interesting programme important because it could well restructure the planning and administration of social welfare in Australia, because it will transfer considerable decision-making power from the present structures to a new sort of political structure, and because it will affect all sectors of welfare from federal authorities to voluntary agencies. It proposes co-operation, harmony and interdependence among structures that have not, in the post, thought of themselves as interdependent. The purpose of the Australian Assistance Plan is to regionalize welfare services. It proposes the establishment of a number of regions across the nation, each of which is to have a Regional Council for Social Development.

This paper is an attempt to determine the relationship between the pattern of growth of demand for consumer goods and the market behaviour of the firms selling them, particularly their advertising expenditures. The demand for many consumer goods may not witness a steady growth over time. Firms selling such products will have a market behaviour that differs in character and path from that of those selling in expanding markets. In this article, I intend to analyse the market behaviour of firms producing toilet soap in the Australian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent widespread emergence of wage and price inflation seemingly associated with a slowdown in real activity and rise in unemployment makes an analysis of the determinants of average earnings an important matter. This paper examines the determinants of average weekly earnings in Australia, basing the analysis on the extensive overseas literature and previous Australian work in this area. We present quantitative estimates of the influence of imported inflation and award wage changes, as well as of more traditional variables such as demand pressure and productivity changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present some empirical equations explaining the Australian nonbank public's demand for very liquid assets. Very liquid assets are financial assets which can be converted into cash on demand. Four assets fell into this category in the period we are studying: notes and coin, current deposits, savings deposits, and loans to the authorised dealers in the Short-term money market. We also present an equation explaining the public's demand for fixed deposits because this variable plays an important role in the equations for very liquid assets. This group of financial assets merits special attention because economists usually attribute a crucial role in the determination of economic activity to these assets; the study embraces all the assets included in the Reserve Bank's definition of "money". The assets are described in the following section, and in subsequent sections we discuss the specification of the equations, the estimation procedure used, and the empirical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines alternative methods of financing educational activities; it is therefore concerned with sources of finance rather than with expenditure decisions involving the allocation of resources to different educational purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does Australia have a long run trade-off between inflation and unemployment? In other words, if demand management policies were able to select and maintain a steady rate of inflation, would the level of unemployment that emerged be lower, the higher the chosen inflation rate ? If such a trade-off exists, what are its most likely quantitative characteristics? Alternatively, is the Phelps-Friedman accelerationist hypothesis a better characterisation of Australia's long run inflation-unemployment options. That is, is there some rate of unemployment, (usually termed the natural rate), not necessarily a constant rate over time but unrelated to the inflation rate, at which any steady rate of inflation is possible but below which inflation will persistently accelerate? If this accelerationist model better describes the Australian economy, what is (and has been) the natural unemployment rate? These are the main questions dealt with in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines the first conference on medical journalism in Australia and New Zealand, which took place from October 26th to 28th, 1960 in Sydney, Australia. The conference included six formal papers, three round-table discussions, and a concluding session which consisted of a synthesis and summary of the themes presented.

This paper presents the first findings of a survey carried out in Melbourne, Australia. It attempts to test hypotheses based on the embourgeoisement thesis, and its variations, in a social system with a strong equalitarian ideology and compulsory arbitration for all sections of the work force. It assesses the economic differences between white collar and blue collar workers and also the difference between these groups and a middle class group. It also compares the Australian situation with America and Britain. It finds a significant difference between blue collar and white collar income rates, total income medians and career income medians, as against the apparent near parity of the situation in Britain and America. These differences are not mitigated by wives' earnings or income from other sources. There is an almost complete dichotomy between these groups and the middle class group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effect of the Great Depression on employment policy and labor politics in Australia through the 1960s. The psychological effect of high rates of unemployment in the 1930s is discussed, as are policies of full employment, influenced by Keynsian economics, that prevailed in Australia after World War II. In particular, the government's White Paper on Full Employment, published in 1945, is discussed, as are the political reactions of labor unions and the Australian Labor Party.

The article presents a bibliography related to immigration and assimilation in Australia. Some of the books listed are "Immigration, Australia's Problems and Prospects," by W.D. Borrie; "The Peopling of Australia," by F.W. Eggleston and P.D. Phillips; "Non-Britishers in Australia," 2nd ed., by J. Lyng; "The Scandinavians in Australia, New Zealand and the Western Pacific," by J. Lyng. Some of the papers listed are "Australia and the Refugees," by M. Berger, published in the September 1941 issue of the journal "The Australian Quarterly"; "The Problem of Refugee Immigration," by R. Limberg, published in the journal "The Australian Quarterly"; "The Assimilation of Refugee Immigrants in Australia," by H.B.M. Murphy, published in the March 1952 issue of the journal "Population Studies"; "Immigration and Foreign Policy in Australia and Canada," by David Corbett, published in the Spring 1958 issue of the journal "The Economic Record"; "The Administration of Asian Immigration Into Australia: A Comparative Study," by O.E. Phillips, published in the December 1956 issue of the journal "The Australian Quarterly."

In this paper three orientations were distinguished: monism, interactionism, and pluralism, but the last was held by only a few of the subjects. Interactionism, which advocates that immigrants and host group should tolerate each other and should gradually converge as a result of interaction, was more often preferred to monism, which advocates complete assimilation as quickly as possible. Monism among Australians was higher for males than for females and was associated with unfriendly attitudes towards immigrants. Among immigrants, monism was associated with being more highly assimilated and with being intolerant of ambiguity. The evidence suggests that monism is more likely to be a result of assimilation than a cause of it. A study was also made of the mutual perceptions of' the orientation of Australians, of British, and of non-British immigrants. These perceptions and misperceptions reflect the attitudes of the subjects towards these groups, per ceived interactionism being a sign of a favourable attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a different perspective on the birth and future of the Australian Democratic Labor Party (DLP). Although religious in its origins and sponsors, the DLP has deep roots in the strains of shifting socio-economic status. It may therefore serve a transitional function of realigning politics and social class in Australia. The DLP's political permanency is thus far from guaranteed. The paper is divided into four sections. It will first explore the historical antecedents of the DLP, giving special attention to the Catholics and their allegiance to Labor in general and the Australian Labor Party in particular. Next, it will trace the actual evolution of the DLP. Third, it will examine the socio-economic status of the DLP constituency as compared with that of other parties. And finally, it will consider some general problems of political change with reference to the role of third parties within nominally two-party systems. In this respect, the DLP serves as a case study for broader speculation concerning other "two-party systems" such as those in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Like the politics of other Western democracies, Australian politics have always been based primarily upon social class. In fact, they have been even more devoid of religious and ethnic complications than most.

This paper examines the effects of aggregation over time (or, alternatively, the effects of using different lengths of observation period) of a sectoral macro-econometric model and shows that temporal aggregation can have a significant effect on the estimation of the model. The structure of the monetary sector as developed by Norton, Cohen and Sweeny [8] in the Reserve Bank's overall quarterly model of the Australian economy is considered and an analogous monthly model is constructed for the same sector for the period 1959 (2) to 1969 (4). While the rationale of the monthly model is no different from that of the Bank's quarterly model, the specification of variables for the former is dictated, at least in some eases, by the availability of monthly data. An immediate comparison of the effects of temporal aggregation is made by aggregating this monthly model into a quarterly one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cobb-Douglas function indicates that the demand for labor in the United States and Australia is elastic. This would indicate that total labor income decreases as wages rise. Must trade unionists' insistence on maintaining or raising wages even under conditions ot widespread unemployment necessarily indicate short-sightedness or selfishness on the part ot employed unionists? This article answers in the negative. In the first place, a mathematical bias in the Cobb-Douglas function prevents its showing simultaneously an inelastic demand for labor and a positive share of labor in the national dividend. In the second place the function considers only the "gross" elasticity of demand. The "net" elasticity which takes account of workers' income while unemployed, is necessarily lower and more relevant here. In the third place, the Cobb-Douglas function is inapplicable to the long run in which population is variable, and in which labor seeks maximum real wages consistent with full employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines a range of soil chemical data over a variety of climates and parent rocks in north-eastern Australia and within an area of uniform climate and physical substrate on Fraser Island to determine the relevance of these data in the differentiation of forest types. It presents an investigation of the ecological role of soil chemical properties. It aims to evaluate the relative importance of soil physical and chemical factors under defined ecological conditions. The article argues that for the development of intensive management of the forests along the eastern Australian coast, it is of considerable interest for foresters to know the extent to which simple measurements of edaphic factors can predict forest site potential.

Focuses on the studies of the ethnohistory of Australian Aborigines. Historical studies on Aboriginal tribe; Impact of missionary efforts on the physical and spiritual life of the Aborigines; Implication of the theory that the Aborigines is a dying race on the study of Aborigines; European-Aboriginal relations in South Australia; Areas in which Aboriginal studies are lacking.

This article examines the involvement of Australian professional associations in accounting research from 1930 through 1949. In October 1940 a new form of research activity was instituted with the Inaugural Commonwealth Institute of Accountants Annual Lecture in the University of Melbourne. The purpose of establishing the lectures was said to be to stimulate research in accountancy and to encourage original contributions to accountancy thought. The inaugural lecture was delivered by A. A. Fitzgerald, on The Field for Research in Accountancy. He proposed to review research activity in other countries in the hope of arousing similar interest in this country. As well, he accepted that much of the criticism was justified, and attributed its cause to the state of uncertainty which exists in the accounting profession as to the principles or standards of sound accounting.

This article discusses the response of the Australian accounting profession to company failures during the 1960s. The appropriate response of the profession to the criticism following company failures was, to R. A. Irish that of educating the public in the proper use and significance of public accountants. Some members of the profession, in papers at later conferences, engaged in postmortems on company failures, but evidently saw no problem in relation to accounting practices. The professional competence and integrity of the chartered accountant was, to Irish, without question the degree of chartered accountant was only earned after passing stiff examinations.

The article deals with the recent widespread increase in marriage rates in the Western world. A convenient method of studying aspects of the recent history of marriage is provided by easily available data regarding the proportion of single persons at various dates. The article uses these data to disentangle two effects in the marriage boom: the extent to which the cohorts whose marriages have formed the main contribution to the marriage boom are marrying more, i.e. whether the proportion who will ultimately remain single is likely to be lower than in previous generations, the extent to which the mean age at marriage of these generations is likely to fall below that of their predecessors. The raw material for the computations to be presented consists of the proportions single at two recent dates for each of thirteen countries used in the study. The countries included in the study are Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. The study from the proportion single shows that both reduction in the age at marriage and an increase in the proportion marrying at least once in the course of their lives is occurring in several countries.

A model of a complete system of k linear expenditure functions introduced by Leser in 1960 [6, 7] has the advantage of great computational simplicity. An arbitrary specification, however, equating all cross elasticities of substitution results in unreliable estimates of price effects. In the present paper, a result in the theory of additive preferences [Houthakker, 5] is used in order to obtain a more plausible specification. This is achieved at the expense of an iterative procedure; however, the number of parameters (2k + 1) is identical in both models. A system of ten equations is fitted to Australian personal consumption data for the period 1949-50 to 1961-62. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on last minute changes in voting intention and its effects on public opinion in Australia. Errors in prediction on the part of public opinion surveys are usually ascribed to faulty sampling, unexpected turnout of voters, or changes in voting intention between the date of interviewing and the date of election. This article suggests that in certain types of elections last-minute changes may present a serious problem for forecasters. The article describes the predictions and the steps taken to trace the cause of errors. Political set-up in Australia has been described. The Australian Gallup Poll accurately predicted the vote for the House of Representatives and one of the referendums. It had discrepancies, however, of plus 8.6 per cent and minus 4.6 per cent on the other two referendums. All four predictions were based on interviews with the one cross-section of 2,027 people, a week before polling day. Voting in Australia is compulsory, so an unusual turnout of voters could not have caused an error.

The article presents a study regarding the incidence of dermatological conditions in private practice in Australia, including conditions such as Eczema, Acne, and Scabies, among others. The author indicates that the latest report of this type shows an increase in the incidence of chronic solar dermatitis in temperate Australia.

The article discusses the advent of X-Rays used for radiotherapy in Australia. The participation of several figures in the science is highlighted such as that of Dr. Cleaver Woods, who was the first recorded physician to treat skin lesions with X-ray therapy in Australia, and Herschel Harris, the first to do so in the city of Sydney.

The article presents a discussion about the Australian species in Tasmania. The article provides geographical knowledge of the distribution of some Australian plants and animals which are said to be belt-forming and intertidal. It explores the literature and nomenclature to decribe the ecology of such species. Also, it defines Ecklonia radiata, Phyllospora comosa, Hormosira banksii, sarcophycus potatorum, pyura, stolonifera, serpulid, barnacles, and other species found in Tasmania. The article is supplemented with details on their habitats and their interaction.

This section presents abstracts of articles on economics published in the June 1965 issue of the journal The Economic Record. The article Measuring Australian Economic Growth, 1861 to 1938-39, by E. A. Boehm provides a detailed review of the book Australian Domestic Product, Investment and Foreign Borrowing 1861-1938/39, by N. G. Butlin. An appendix to the article discusses the nature and size of the unrecorded transhipments in Australia's trade of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Meanwhile, the paper titled The Development of Trade and Specialization in a Primitive Economy, by R. T. Shand considers the problems of how to expand production and income of economic units in the subsistence sector of a primitive economy such as Papua-New Guinea, once one or more of the factors of production initially available have become fully employed. Three ways of obtaining further growth are examined such as new techniques, greater specialization in resource use among units and additions to the resources of units. Moreover, the article Economic Change and Differentiation in New Britain, by Scarlett Epstein presents a research in one Tolai parish and collected a 100 per cent socio-economic census plus detailed economic statistics for a 15 per cent stratified random sample of all parish households. The data indicate that Tolai economic progress is basically due to European contact. Most Tolai ex-migrant labourers have tried to imitate European productive activities much more than they have attempted copying European consumption patterns. This new stress on entrepreneurship is in line with Tolai customary emphasis on enterprise and thriftiness in terms of shell money. The use of cash has not ruled out shell money accumulation, which continues side by side with capital and cash accumulation.

Presents a series of abstracts on various topics of economics published in the March 1964 issue of the periodical 'The Economic Record,' vol. 40. Survey of Australian economy; Overview of the economies of Oceanian region; Appraisal of surveys of business opinion in New Zealand; Introduction of dynamic process analysis in a model of trade cycle; Overview of the industrial scene in Australia.

Presents information related to several abstracts on economics published in the June 1962 issue of the journal 'The Economic Record.' Marginal labor and investment coefficients of Australian manufacturing industry; Economic analysis of investment in New Zealand manufacturing from 1957-58; Private savings banks in Australia from 1956-60; Soviet investment policy.

This paper studies the spectra and cross-spectra of Australian share prices and share price indices to observe the trend, business cycle, seasonal and irregular components of our series in the frequency domain. In particular, the spectra provide a non-parametric test of the random walk hypothesis. We observe a seasonal pattern in all the indices, which is contrary to current beliefs about share prices. This appears to be the first authenticated seasonal movement in any share market in the world. Finally, using cross-spectral methods, we observe certain lead-tag relationships and their strengths between pairs of indices at the business cycle frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prime purpose of this paper is to identify the main trends in the unit cost of electricity during the period and in particular to indicate the principal reasons for the fails in the real price charged to consumers. Most of the analysis is based on accounting reports published by the supply authorities, and the usual deficiences of historical accounting data as indicators of real costs need to be borne in mind. In this regard, it has been assumed that current expenditure gives a reasonable picture of the cost of inputs in each accounting period. As far as capital charges are concerned, there seem to be good reasons to have serious doubts about the adequacy of the accounting data as indicators of the real cost of capital used in the industry. These deficiencies are discussed in Parts V and VI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the third in the series of studies entitled "Household Consumption and Income in Australia" undertaken by the author. It shows how an equivalent income scale may be estimated for Australian families of varying composition. An examination of previous work in this field suggested that no existing method should be adopted and used without qualification—thus some of the methodological and theoretical problems are discussed at length. The data used to derive the scale are taken from the Australian Survey of Consumer Finances—the first time appropriate data have been available. An exposition of the problem and the approaches adopted in deriving the scale are given in the first section. In the second section the methods of estimation are developed, and the results and conclusions are presented in the final section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the publication of the Brigden Report [1929], income distribution has always been an important element in the arguments for protection put forward by academic economists in Australia. It is noteworthy that, although the theoretical developments necessary to begin to unravel the income redistributive effects of protection have been well-known for nearly 30 years, there have been few attempts to estimate empirically such income redistributive effects of a tariff structure for any country. Perhaps the best known studies of protection which attempt, amongst other things, to say something about direction of change in factor prices induced by the tariff structure are by Vaccara [1961], Travis [1964] and Basevi [1966]. However, I know of no attempts to assign orders of magnitude to such effects. Part of the reason for the lack of attention to problems of income distribution and the tariff stems from the difficulties in building theoretical models which give a priori predictions about factor price changes when more than two factors are included and the empirical problems involved in implementing such models. Another reason may be that economists today tend to be more concerned with growth which increases everyone's income, rather than worrying about redistributing what is already available. Be that as it may, there is in Australia a long history of concern with both static and dynamic effects of tariffs on wages, employment, and income distribution, and economic welfare in general, and it is to these questions that this paper is addressed. In section II, a brief history of the empirical and theoretical aspects of the income redistribution argument for protection in Australia is outlined. A two sector version of a multi-sectoral growth model, which can be used to estimate empirically the effects of tariffs on factor prices, is described in section III. The empirical implementation of the multi-sectoral version of that model is described in section IV, and... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a case study of investment in an inland (or "country") silo. These silos are used as local "collecting centres" for the on-movement of bulk grain (by rail) to a port terminal. Though specifically oriented to South Australian conditions, the general issues are common to those in any state where bulk grain must be moved to the coast from inland areas. To be economically justifiable the saving in bulk rail and farmers' time must outweigh the cost of resources used in country silo construction. At some point the double handling of grain through the country silo and the proximity of a port terminal will make such investment expenditure uneconomical. In this study an estimate has been made of the present value of the pay-off yielded by the construction of a silo at Crystal Brook (S.A.), 19 miles from a terminal at Port Pirie. Crystal Brook is on a major railway line and at the time of the survey did not have a silo, nor the prospect of one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper our primary aim is to present an estimation procedure for an evolving, or changing, seasonal pattern and in particular to discuss general problems of seasonal estimation where such a pattern is assumed. As a preliminary step we sketch the theoretical background which is fundamental to our approach, omitting any detailed investigation of proposed models, estimation methods and the many formulae employed. The suggested estimation procedures have been applied to a number of Australian economic time series and some of the problems encountered in this implementation are discussed with reference to the series in which these difficulties appeared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main principles of fiscal stabilisation is the regulation of taxation (and, to a lesser extent, expenditure) in a manner which will dampen fluctuations in national income and so avoid unemployment and inflation. A change in taxation or expenditure can be made by a change in legislation. Such changes are referred to as discretionary fiscal policy. Tax revenues and expenditures may also change automatically. These changes are generally referred to as built-in or automatic fiscal policy. The aims of this paper are to examine, in what is essentially a static framework, the built-in changes in some of the components of the Australian budget and to evaluate their stabilisation performance during the period 1948-64. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In searching for possible causes of inflation one is led to consider a wide range of fields encompassing, among others, monetary and fiscal problems, labour economies and international trade theory. In all these areas contributions have been made towards understanding the generation of inflation and there has been some progress towards a synthesis of various approaches. Of considerable interest is the question of how far each of the various possible sources of inflation have contributed towards explaining overall price movements. This paper attempts to develop and apply a method which will, for the period under consideration, allow this question to be asked. Judging from the amount of discussion of the subject, it would seem that in Australia the wage-fixing machinery of the arbitration system must be considered as a possible source of inflationary pressure. Indeed a number of authors have proposed rules which they argue should be followed in order to prevent inflation arising from this source. The divergence of the minimum hourly wage rate from the value prescribed for it by each rule would seem then to indicate the degree of inflationary (or deflationary) pressure originating from the system of wage fixation in the opinion of each author. Variables so constructed will be used to test these opinions. Part I is devoted to a theoretical discussion of the variables which may be important in explaining inflation, and to the way in which the impact of these variables may be measured. In part II the results are presented, whilst part III is devoted to a discussion of their possible economic interpretation. The sources of data are mentioned in the Appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As has often been observed, the Australian economy, especially its secondary and tertiary sectors, has grown rapidly since World War II. This growth, however, was not continuous, but took place in a rhythmic "stop-go" pattern; and it is with such "growth cycles" rather than the overall average growth itself that we will be concerned. Recently there has been an interest in approaching this subject by an application to Australian statistics of some well-known methods devised by the National Bureau of Economic Research (N.B.E.R.) for analyzing the U.S. business cycle. Specifically, peaks and troughs are found for individual economic time series showing the business cycle either in the raw data or in short moving averages of it. From the conspectus of these, the peaks and troughs of a "general reference cycle" are determined. Finally a distinction is made between "leading", "roughly coincident", and "lagging" series according to the typical relationship between cycles of individual series and "the general reference cycle". The aim of this paper is to re-examine this whole area, but beginning from the standpoint of the methods of spectral and cross-spectral analysis in an attempt to achieve a better characterization and estimation of the properties of the business cycle in different areas of the Australian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pricing, capital raising and investment practices of ports have been studied in some official reports mainly to provide a guide to the optimal allocation of resources by port authorities. These studies have naturally considered the domestic social costs and benefits of changes in the policies of ports, since their operations are part of the economy's infrastructure. The literature is smaller on the private aspect of port costs to users—the direct and indirect costs to shipowners and shippers or consignees. This may be because the direct costs involved, which are fairly easily calculated, are frequently a small component of the total operating costs of shipping and o the selling prices of goods. On the other hand, the indirect costs involved, which include both monetary and imputed costs, may be a large cost component and are not easily calculable. The building up of sound generalisations rests ultimately on the evidence of actual situations. This paper makes some analysis of data on user costs in Australian ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Econometric models of the Australian economy have not yet reached the levels of completeness and complexity that are necessary for reliable forecasts and tenable assessments of economic policy. It is generally believed that this stage is more effectively reached by gradually extending comparatively simple aggregative systems to more complicated ones. The model presented in this paper serves primarily to fill an important gap remaining from the two previously published studies. It develops, in relatively simple terms, a monetary sector that is complementary to the investment and consumption relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical and modern demand theory provide parametric linear and nonlinear hypotheses which may be used as prior information in the estimation of systems of demand equations. Restricted estimation using this prior information enables the optimal demand parameters obeying the conditions of consumer maximisation theory to be established and also provides a test of the consistency of the sample and the prior information. Price and income elasticities are estimated subject to the classical restrictions of demand theory—the Slutsky condition, the Engel aggregation condition and the homogeneity conditions—using Australian data. Tests of significance are made on the individual restrictions and the equivalence of three overall tests of significance is examined. The consumer utility function is then postulated as separable, two commodity groupings are suggested, and the demand elasticities are estimated subject to various assumptions about additive and separable utility functions. Again, the null hypothesis on the prior information is tested. Finally, there is a brief comparison of the methods and results in this paper with the methods and results of A. A. Powell on the same data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two purposes. First, the concept of directly additive preferences, introduced by Houthakker and exploited by Powell, and Powell et al., is used to compute demand elasticities for Australia as a whole and also for the six States in order to explore consumer demand patterns during the postwar years. Secondly, a number of tests either on interregional or money flexibility criteria is employed to examine aggregation bias of demand elasticities for a number of combinations of total market and market sections. The rationale of these tests by means of the analysis of covariance is given in the Appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note has two purposes: first, to provide the balance-of-payments argument missing in the analyses of the wage policy advocates and of Professor Russell—not in terms of fundamental balance-of-payments disequilibrium as suggested by Russell, but in terms of the growth aspect of the Australian balance of payments; second, to point out that, contrary to Russell's belief, his own recommendation, as compared with that of wage policy advocates, may result in a lower rate of growth of real wages in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been several attempts in the last few years to identify the Peaks and Troughs of the post-war Australian business cycle. The latest and most detailed study, that of J. S. Mallyon, supports the generally accepted view. Peaks occurred somewhere about July 1951 and September 1960, with corresponding Troughs at October 1952 and August 1961. In between there were one or two less well-marked fluctuations. The object of this paper is neither to contradict nor confirm these opinions, but to examine in more detail the precise chronology of each episode. In addition to the conventional maxima and minima, therefore, six other business cycle reference points have been defined. The timing of any "cycle" may thus be described in terms not only of its "Peaks" and "Troughs", but also of the peaks and troughs of the growth rate curve, the dates at which activity rises above or falls below its trend value, and the dates at which it stands at a maximum above or minimum below trend value. The method used to establish these other dates yields estimates of Peaks and Troughs as a by-product. In this respect there is an overlap with Mallyon's research, the advantage of which lies in the cheek it provides on the dating of the other reference points not previously established for Australia. If the estimates of Peaks and Troughs made by this method agree in general with those of Mallyon (which they do) and if the other reference points are as well authenticated as the Peaks and Troughs (which they are) then there is some ground for regarding the other dates as a useful addition to existing knowledge. The conceptual framework of this study is outlined briefly in the next section. The method of research is described in Section III and the results reported in Section IV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this paper is to examine the way in which mechanisms for transferring hospital costs have been modified by the development of the voluntary insurance system. There are three distinct stages in the analysis. Section II consists of an outline of the changing structure of public hospital incomes, in which patients' fees and voluntary insurance payments have tended to displace government subsidies as sources of finance. Sections III and IV deal with the transfer effects of this trend and with the effects of changes in fee structures and the composition of voluntary insurance payments. Finally, in Section V an attempt is made to measure the consumer response to the pricing pattern of voluntary insurance. The broad conclusion is that the incidence of hospital costs with respect to income has become increasingly regressive. The consequences include increased individual hardship and exacerbation of the chronic problem of public hospital finances. The evidence presented here is limited in two respects. First, the available data are largely confined to the public hospital systems. This is not a serious limitation, since these systems operate five-sixths of all beds, including all the public ward accommodation, and also provide all the facilities for medical education, casualty, emergency, super-specialist and outpatient treatment. Private hospitals, whose function is limited to the in-patient care of private patients, may be regarded as external supplements to the intermediate and private wards of public hospitals. Fee discrimination on the basis of income is practised only in public hospitals: the fee structure of private hospitals is related to public hospital charges for private and intermediate beds. The second limitation is that the statistics used are largely Victorian, with some comparable New South Wales data shown where the layout of tables permits. However, the observations should be broadly true of all the state systems except those of Queensland... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore, in an Australian context, some of the implications of adjusting money wages for productivity. The analysis may offer a rationale for the past reluctance of the Commission to take the advice of the economists; it will point to some of the difficulties that the 1965 policy might be expected to meet. Section II examines the mechanism by which productivity-geared wages are said to ensure price stability. There are two essential linkages, one between award wages and average earnings and a second between average direct costs and the general level of prices. Section III notes some possible implications for the structure of earnings of operating on award wages in order to control the rate of increase of average earnings. Section IV examines the implications of the productivity rule when there is a general change in world prices. It is argued that, in this case, important consequences follow either for the distribution of income between exporters and wage-earners or for exchange rate policy. Section V notes briefly the implications of the productivity rule for balanceof-payments policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been several periods during the last fifteen years when the Australian central bank has sought and achieved a reduction in outstanding advances. The most recent was in 1960-61. This article will consider what sectors of the community were most affected by the contraction in the supply of trading bank finance during this year. A number of writers have discussed the overall effectiveness of government policies and the usefulness of monetary policy during this period, and these questions will not be considered in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent and forthcoming studies of the relationship between output and employment have used a demand-determined model in which desired employment is a function of output and with actual employment determined by linking such a relationship with a dynamic adjustment mechanism. The present article is a further study of such a model but is oriented to a country of fast industrial and population growth, Australia. The results obtained are interpreted in the light of the new specification of the relationship advanced by economists N.J. Ireland and D.J. Smyth. The employment functions that authors have fitted to Australian manufacturing appear to produce reasonably sensible results and some interesting comparisons with previous studies. But authors must stress the difficulties and limitations of this form of analysis. First, there is the problem of identifying a demand relationship and in this study there is no way of ascertaining if authors achieved this. Secondly, there are statistical problems, arising principally through multicollinearity and the use of a distributed lag model. Finally, there are problems of interpretation, for instance, the distinction between returns to scale and returns to labor and between shifts in capital and shifts in technology.

The social life of the primitive Australian aborigines has been a fascinating field of scientific interest and rheoretical speculation for several generations of European and American sociologists and social anthropologists. Knowledge of the native family and kinship systems and their associated esoteric totemic rites, for example, stimulated such social theorists as Emile Durkheim and Lewis H. Morgan. The present article is an attempt to present some results of investigations done in Australia. Special emphasis is given to the several typical forms of kinship found in Australia and the principles underlying the organization of the immediate family and larger kinship structures. A somewhat different method of kinship analysis, which applies not only to Australian but to any other systems, is used in an effort to remove the strangeness and complexity from the minds of those, who have not specialized in this field of family research. The kinship terms are always designating instruments organized around the individual who places his various kin by the use of them, and by so doing, also socially places himself as the designator. In other words, Ego anchored in his immediate family, looks out at his kinship world and places all the kindred in relation to himself by means of his kinship terms and in so doing also socially orientates himself.

Focuses on the views of British economists on the significance of Australian gold discoveries in 1851, in conjunction with their assessment of the overall value of the colonies. How information about the gold flowed from Australia to Britain; Discussion about the probable effects of the discoveries; Immediate reaction of most economies to the discoveries.

In this paper an attempt is made, first, to study consumer behaviour in the United Kingdom and in Australia for the period 1956-66 by exploiting the concept of want independence [9] or directly additive preferences [4] for a complete model of linear expenditure relations [10]. A welfare indicator and a cost-of-living index are then developed using Frisch's money flexibility linking income and price elasticities and the strongly separable utility function of the Stone-Geary type [3]. Finally, the analysis of covariance is applied to examine the possibility of homogeneous demand patterns between the United Kingdom and Australia. The extent of market homogeneity or heterogeneity will be further analysed in the light of individual commodities grouped in strict accordance with the notion of neutral want association [9]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News briefs related to the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History are presented. Norman Jeffrey presented a paper on the International Workers of the World (IWW) to the Sydney, New South Wales branch of the society. Joe Harris presented a paper on the Queensland labor movement to the Brisbane branch. The first edition of the society monograph "Tom Barker and the I.W.W." sold out.