Search

[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores migrant Black African youths' experiences of looking for and finding work in Newcastle, a deindustrializing Australian city. Data for this paper were drawn from interviews conducted with young people who migrated to Australia as temporary and permanent residents. Drawing on concepts of coloniality, racialization, bodywork, and hidden labor, this paper demonstrates how, when looking for work, participants' names get attached to their racialized bodies—a situation which deems them as suitable or not for specific kinds of work. Their strategies of finding work differ according to their migration status; that is, temporary residents draw on their personal networks, whereas some permanent residents with full citizenship rights rely on social welfare support services to find work. However, irrespective of the different strategies used to find work, they all end up doing jobs that they described as "work which others do not wish to do." I argue that these experiences re‐articulate the coloniality of labor because, as workers in these jobs, they play a crucial role in the economic transformation taking place in the city due to deindustrialization. This is not merely because they form part of the workforce responsible for working in unwanted jobs, but because they are also consumers of Newcastle's emerging welfare support and educational services sectors. The paper contributes to an understanding of how race shapes the labor market experiences of racialized youth in deindustrializing labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the approaches to poverty elimination adopted by the UK government White Paper on international development and the Australian government's review of its overseas aid programme (Ausaid Review). Both documents adopt sustainable poverty reduction/elimination as the key policy leitmotiv of overseas aid policy. However, a difference of approach is in evidence. The UK White Paper ventriloquizes the DAC and World Summit social policy targets and ambitiously elevates its own departmental policy and values to that of government policy overall--though without specifying the instruments by which this consistency can be assured. The silence on the resource implications of the overriding objective of poverty elimination, in terms of budgetary provision, could create a credibility gap between intentions and programme implementation. The Ausaid Review, on the other hand, hones its cutting edge on the complex, often self-serving array of development programmes that are often lacking in focus and harboured from external scrutiny by an overprotective bureaucracy. The Review suggests the adoption of a single value statement of 'poverty reduction through sustainable development' by which all programmes should be judged. The predominantly Australian-based tertiary education scholarship programme is criticized for pandering to domestic educational constituencies and reflecting a weak linkage to poverty reduction. However, in the final analysis the narrow geographical focus of the programme, the privileged status of PNG and the level of tied aid remain substantially intact--despite serious question marks over their poverty content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Government's White Paper ' Australia in the Asian Century' is the first large-scale official look in the twenty-first century at economic change in Asia and how it affects Australian opportunities and challenges. This paper comments on the analysis embodied in and the objectives defined by the White Paper, especially as it relates to Australian resources. This paper generally endorses the aspirations of the White Paper and notes that their achievement is going to require efforts and changes beyond those that are currently contemplated. It comments briefly on six things: the development context of twenty-first century Asian growth; growth and structural change in Asia and Australia's terms of trade; macroeconomic management of a resource-intensive Australian economy; restoring productivity growth; excellence in education; and linking Australia to Asian opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore determinants of job reallocation, employment change and average job tenure in this paper. A model which associates technological advances with the process of economic growth is modified and analysed. The features of this model allow for the possibility of asymmetric behaviour when looking at the net change in employment. Workplace data from Australia (AWIRS95) are used to test the predictions generated from the model for both employment change and average job tenure. Results are presented that provide clear evidence as to the nature of workplaces in which net employment growth is concentrated. We find that employment growth is asymmetrically related to expected changes in demand for the output of the workplace. We also find that employment is lower for workplaces that are larger, older, have greater union density, offer higher relative earnings, or are operating in a more competitive environment. The impacts on average tenure are as expected from the model and from these changes in employment. Overall there is a substantial degree of agreement between the predictions of the model and our empirical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a market capitalisation of over $1.84 trillion dollars and large annual flows, the Superannuation Guarantee has been regarded as the backbone of Australia's retirement policy scheme and a primary driver of economic growth. However, losses encountered in the aftermath of the global financial crisis led to a major review of superannuation, mainly in response to the lack of accountability, comparability, and transparency discovered within 'default' investment options. An outcome of this review was the My Super initiative, which imposes obligations on fund providers to reconfigure their default investment strategies in accordance with new regulatory requirements. Despite these policy reforms, other challenges remain, such as gender inequality, excessive superannuation fees, low financial literacy, and lack of member participation in growing retirement savings. The paper provides a review of literature pertaining to the background, significant policy changes, and ongoing development of the Australian superannuation system. We emphasise the role of superannuation in the economy; characteristics of the industry, plans, and funds on offer; recent policy initiatives; and perceived inadequacies of the system. The paper concludes with possibilities for further empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Colombo Plan and Point Four program were programs that provided technical and economic assistance to the newly independent countries of Southeast Asia. They represented Commonwealth and American attempts to promote economic development in the region. This paper will investigate how these policies, which were framed by US policy‐makers and academics, were adopted in Australia. In so doing, it will demonstrate the ways that development was perceived as an important consideration in the foreign policies of both Australia and the United States. It will also examine the place of these programs in the Cold War and postcolonial world of the 1950s. As this paper will show, the interaction of these factors would affect Australian foreign policy for decades to come, revealing much about the complex nature of the Australian‐American relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the positive impact that the creation of food processing hubs can have on "smart specialisation" on the economic development of regional Australia. The analysis looks at two existing developments in Australia, as well as providing an economic evaluation of another "regional hub" that is currently being proposed. Our paper provides an economic impact analysis of the proposed establishment of a food processing hub in Victoria. It presents an analysis on its impact both at a regional level (Gippsland), and more widely across Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses various approaches: capital asset pricing, mean-variance, global minimum-variance, Bayes-Stein, Bayesian and multi-prior to develop foreign equity bias measures for Australia’s international equity holdings in 41 countries, over the period 2001 to 2012. Bayesian models allow for various degrees of mis-trust in the ICAPM model. Multi-Prior restricts the expected return for each asset to lie within specified confidence interval around its estimated value. Mean-Variance computes optimal weights by sample estimates of mean and covariance matrix of sample return. Bayes-Stein shrinks each asset’s historical mean return toward the return of the minimum variance portfolio and improves precision associated with estimating the expected return of each asset. The plausible sources of foreign equity bias are trade, GDP per capita, real GDP growth rate, exchange rate volatility, tax credit, stock market development, familiarity and institution variables. The paper finds that economic cost of the observed foreign bias is low. The paper analyses correlation effect on the foreign bias and finds that economic loss decreases with an increase in correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is strong evidence that innovation is a primary driver of a nation's economic growth. As Australia continues to compete in the global economy, it is imperative that businesses should be innovative to improve their performance. In this paper, we evaluate the status and main drivers of innovation in small businesses in the food sector in Australia. Discrete choice modelling and bootstrapping procedures are applied to a panel of firm‐level data collected through the ABS Business Characteristics Survey (2006–2007 to 2010–2011 for the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Business Longitudinal Database Confidential Unit Record File) to investigate the factors affecting the likelihood of small food businesses to innovate. Results show that businesses are more likely to innovate if they collaborate, have higher information and communication technology intensity, and use science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills. We also found that small food businesses, even at the subsector level, do combine different types of innovation when innovating. The propensity to innovate also increases for small businesses that have flexible working arrangements, face moderate‐to‐strong market competition, operate overseas and seek finance through debt and equity. The relative importance of these factors was found to vary between agricultural and nonagricultural food subsectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing numbers of Australian students are travelling overseas to undertake short‐term work‐integrated learning placements with community development organisations. In light of recent criticisms emerging in academic and public commentary on short‐term international volunteering, this paper highlights the need for a support curriculum that caters for students from diverse discipline backgrounds, often with little or no previous understanding of community development principles or intercultural engagement. In doing so, we question who is best placed to develop an appropriate curriculum and what might it look like. We draw on Macquarie University's Professional and Community Engagement community development programme to critically reflect on the importance of engaging with diverse knowledge frameworks, approaches to learning and subject expertise of our international community partners. In particular, this paper showcases a community‐based development module co‐created with community partners that aims to encourage students to rethink western‐dominated understandings of development, poverty and inequality. To conclude, we explore how co‐creating curriculum with community partners unsettles assumptions of the university as the only site of expert knowledge and knowledge‐making practices, and reflect on the challenges encountered as we try to contribute to the development of socially and environmentally conscious students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian economy experienced very frequent and sizeable terms of trade shocks. These shocks at times were more pronounced than commodity exporting developing countries and disproportionately benefited the extreme top end of income distribution. Did they derail overall economic progress? Circumstantial evidence suggests that they did not, but hard econometric evidence appears to be rare. In this paper, I revisit the Australian resource curse question from a long‐run perspective. Using time series data on commodity prices, real GDP, real wages, non‐farm GDP, manufacturing share of GDP, and manufacturing share of employment covering the period 1900 to 2007, I find very little evidence of a resource curse. Commodity booms in general and positive agricultural price shocks in particular appear to have impacted the rest of the economy positively both in short‐ and long‐run. The positive effect is primarily led by expansion in manufacturing. This is perhaps reflective of trade protection, labour and credit market flexibility, and relatively open skilled migration in Australia especially during the post‐war period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on infrastructure spending and unemployment in Australia. The Australian government's policy package had several components. The first was a recognition that high economic growth was required if significant inroads into unemployment were to be achieved. Given the government's beliefs about the likely outcomes for labour productivity and the labour force participation rate, it was thought that a real growth rate of 4.8 per cent would be required to achieve the target unemployment rate of 5 per cent by 2001. The Green Paper and the subsequent White Paper were pretty vague as to exactly how such a long stretch of high economic growth was to be achieved, placing a lot of faith on microeconomic reform and improving the quality of labour through training reform. However, it was also recognised that high growth by itself was not sufficient, and that a policy of active labour market programs directed at the long-term unemployed and those at high risk' of becoming long-term unemployed would be necessary to reduce long-term unemployment. The Job Compact was an extensive raft of active labour market programs which included an expanded wage subsidy scheme, training programs and case management of the chronically unemployed and which placed an obligation on targeted individuals to participate in the scheme to retain unemployment benefits.

The history of Australia since the 1960s has been one of substantial economic change. One of the key drivers of this has been the growth in the importance of human capital formation and the knowledge intensification of occupations. This paper analyses the intensification of knowledge in different types of employment, over the longer term and the corresponding increase in human capital formation. In order to undertake this analysis, the O*NET measures of knowledge and Australian employment data are used to determine the degree to which human capital in Australia has changed. The paper concludes that there has been a slow but steady rise in the knowledge intensity of Australian occupations over the past thirty-five years, although not uniformly across different groups and consequent level of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development has become an arena where people bring already existing political and philosophical outlooks to a debate characterized by fundamental dichotomies. This paper presents an analysis of ten Australian Aboriginal law stories to derive a range of principles for how the Nhunggabarra people of Australia sustained their society against three such dichotomies: holism versus fragmentation, ‘strong’ versus ‘weak’ SD and growth versus no-growth economy. The Aboriginal sustainability model is possibly the oldest we have some evidence of, with a successful track record of several tens of thousands of years. It is a surprisingly ‘realistic’ model: neither representative of strong SD, nor giving arguments to no-growth proponents. The paper argues against a common perception that modern industrialized societies cannot learn from indigenous societies: it is a matter of perspective. Although many practices and solutions are not viable for our time, we can learn from the principles and the governance models as a whole. The Nhunggabarra society model provides a set of such principles, with a sustainability track record. Australia, therefore, has two models, the Aboriginal and the industrial, both implemented on a continent, which can be seen as a bellwether for the planet as a whole – a unique learning opportunity for the discourse on sustainable development. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [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]

Regional economic policy-makers are increasingly interested in the contribution of creativity to the economic performance of regions and, more generally, in its power to transform the images and identities of places. This has constituted a ‘cultural turn’, of sorts, away from an emphasis on macro-scale projects and employment schemes, towards an interest in the creative industries, entrepreneurial culture and innovation. This paper discusses how recent discourses of the role of ‘creativity’ in regions have drawn upon, and contributed to, particular forms of neoliberalisation. Its focus is the recent application of a statistical measure — Richard Florida's (2002) ‘creativity index’— to quantify spatial variations in creativity between Australia's regions. Our critique is not of the creativity index per se, but of its role in subsuming creativity within a neoliberal regional economic development discourse. In this discourse, creativity is linked to the primacy of global markets, and is a factor in place competition, attracting footloose capital and ‘creative class’ migrants to struggling regions. Creativity is positioned as a central determinant of regional ‘success’ and forms a remedy for those places, and subjects, that currently ‘lack’ innovation. Our paper critiques these interpretations, and concludes by suggesting that neoliberal discourses ignore the varied ways in which ‘alternative creativities’ might underpin other articulations of the future of Australia's regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant investments in developing technological innovations have been made in the Australian beef industry but with low adoption rates. By modelling the key variables and their interactions in the innovation adoption process, this research seeks to demonstrate the complexity and dynamics of the process. This research uses causal loop modelling and develops a holistic model of the current innovation adoption system in the Australian beef industry to show the complexity of dynamic interactions among multiple variables. It is suggested that innovation adoption is such an extremely complex issue, and we need to shift our views on this issue from a paradigm of linear thinking to systems thinking. Innovation adoption is more likely to be enhanced based on a full understanding of the complexity and dynamics of the system as a whole. The paper demonstrates to practitioners and developers of innovation the multiple variables and interactions impacting innovation adoption. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human capital model is the basis of neoclassical analysis of labour markets, education and economic growth. However, education policy in Australia has been influenced by models based on screening theory and public choice theory which yield the policy implication that reductions in education spending are generally desirable. In this paper, the competing models, and the evidence supporting them, are surveyed. It is concluded that the human capital model is strongly supported by the available evidence. The predictions of screening models are generally not supported by empirical tests, except where they coincide with those of the human capital model. The main evidence supporting the public choice model, derived from the literature on educational production functions, is shown to be deficient. The principal policy conclusion of the paper is that the negative effects of recent cuts in education spending will outweigh any benefits achieved through reductions in public debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Gough Whitlam's Labor government came to office in December 1972 with a vast and transformative reform agenda, at the heart of which was a fundamental policy shift in Aboriginal affairs away from assimilation and toward self‐determination, described by Whitlam as; 'Aboriginal communities deciding the pace and nature of their future development as significant components within a diverse Australia'. Whitlam's commitment to self‐determination reflected the United Nation's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which refers to the right of all peoples to 'freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development'. Whitlam made it clear that Aboriginal Affairs would be a priority of his government with the establishment of the first separate Ministry for Aboriginal Affairs and his government introduced a suite of path‐breaking policies for Aboriginal people. Pat Dodson, the inaugural chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, later described the change in policy and intent under Whitlam as, 'a transforming sentiment in this country for Aboriginal people'. This article explores the key features of Whitlam's Indigenous policy and argues that Whitlam's commitment to self‐determination was a unique and radical policy reframing in Indigenous affairs not seen before or since. These advances were wound back by the conservative government of Malcolm Fraser and the 'transforming sentiment' soon reverted to one of 'self‐management' and unarticulated assimilation. This article explores the key elements of the Whitlam government's commitment to self‐determination, described as 'Aboriginal communities deciding the pace and nature of their future development', as the defining feature in Indigenous policy. The paper argues that Indigenous self‐determination was a unique policy reframing specific to the Whitlam government which was rapidly over‐turned by the Fraser conservative government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous papers in this issue of Economic Papers have dealt with some substantive issues surrounding food security. The purpose of this article was different. We provide a general commentary on other Australian agricultural policy issues where the rhetoric of food security is used to exaggerate the challenges faced and/or to support solutions to some challenges that are expensive and unrealistic. This article comprises opinion based on historical observations of the agricultural policy process in Australia and the underlying principles of mainstream agricultural economics. It does not offer detailed empirical analysis of the issues discussed. The issues discussed are irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin, prospects for agricultural production in northern Australia, especially irrigation development, the bias in favour of further processing of agricultural products (value adding), food imports and foreign ownership, and the effects of Asian economic development on Australian agriculture and agricultural trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The development of start‐up communities is seen as critical to the successful development of entrepreneurship in a region. However, it remains unclear what exactly start‐up communities are and how they can be facilitated. Ambiguity concerning the geographical scale and membership of start‐up communities leads to different conceptualisations. In this paper, we apply communities of practice (CoP) theory to understand how conceptualisations of start‐up communities work and how they can be facilitated. To this end, we qualitatively study start‐up communities in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Australia. Our results show that start‐up communities that are confined to a particular workspace strongly resemble a CoP. Furthermore, many elements of CoPs can also be found in regional start‐up communities. Finally, we find that workspace communities have more direct and top‐down facilitation activities, while regional start‐up communities have more indirect and bottom‐up facilitation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's remarkable economic development has had profound domestic and international effects. Among the most important of these is China's growing impact on the region of which it is an increasingly important and influential part. For countries such as Australia, which has rapidly become deeply economically integrated with - even dependent on - China, this presents a major and much-discussed challenge as it tries to balance economic and strategic priorities. Australia provides an important and revealing illustration of how China's elites view key states in its region, which have assumed a growing economic and even strategic importance. This paper aims to develop a more comprehensive overview of the way the strategic, economic and political dimensions of the Sino-Australia relationship are understood in both countries. It also highlights the importance of realist thinking in both Australia and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to examine the ' Code of Ethics Quality' ( CEQ) in the largest companies of Australia, Canada and the United States. For this purpose, a proposed CEQ construct has been applied. It appears from the empirical findings that while Australia, Canada and the United States are extremely similar in their economic and social development, there may well be distinct cultural mores and issues that are forming their business ethics practices. A research implication derived from the performed research is that the construct provides a selection of observable and measurable elements in the context of CEQ. The construct of CEQ consists of nine measures divided into two dimensions (i.e. staff support and regulation). They should not be seen as a complete list. On the contrary, it is encouraged that others propose and elaborate revisions and extensions. A practical implication of this paper is a structure of what and how to examine the CEQ in a managerial setting. It may assist companies in their efforts to establish, maintain and improve their ethical culture, norms and beliefs within the organization and supporting them in their ethical business practices with different stakeholders in the marketplace and society. The dimensions and measures of the construct may be used as a frame of reference for further research. They may be useful and applicable across contexts and over time using similar samples when it comes to large companies, as small- or medium-sized ones may not have considered all areas nor have the elements in place. This is a research limitation, but it provides an opportunity for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

of the Grattan Institute released the report titled Investing in the Regions: Making Difference in May 2011. The report sought to question the rationale for differential funding of regional infrastructure projects and concluded that 'government spending cannot make economic water flow uphill' (). The report was used to argue that fast growing regional areas were being deprived of important government funding and that this approach 'has treated people unfairly' (). The authors also scrutinised the argument that regional universities can impact on the economic development of regions and found that 'the economies of university cities do not develop faster than regions without a university' and thus 'it may well be that the additional spending on universities and regional campuses in smaller cities should be redirected to assist students from regional areas to study at larger campuses in our capital cities and largest satellite and coastal cities' (). In this paper, we identify the limitations of this report. We also take the opportunity presented by the release of this report to consider other important policy areas requiring attention, especially in the field of higher education in regional settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has experienced frequent and large commodity export price shocks similar to commodity exporters in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but this price volatility has had much more modest impact on economic performance. Why? This paper explores Australian terms of trade volatility since 1901. It identifies two major price shock episodes before the recent mining-led boom and bust. It assesses their relative magnitude, their impact on de-industrialisation and distribution during the booms, and the labour market and policy responses to the shocks. Australia has indeed responded differently to volatile commodity prices than have other commodity exporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Arbo and Benneworth (2007) have alerted us, higher education institutions are now expected not only to conduct education and research, but also to play an active role in the development of their economic, social and cultural surroundings. They call this the ‘regional mission’ of HEIs. This paper is concerned with cultural engagement. Research on universities’ cultural engagement in their regions and the impact of that engagement is still in its infancy, partly because there are different understandings of ‘culture’ and of what ‘engagement’ entails. In this paper, qualitative data from the reports of mixed teams of academics and regional administrators involved in a large international project designed to improve universities’ regional engagement are analysed and discussed. The on-going study — PASCAL Universities' Regional Engagement (PURE) — investigates the role of HEIs in their regions across in a variety of fields such as the economy, community development, the environment and others. This article analyses the data from the study to identify the different perspectives universities and regions have of cultural engagement. The aim here is to demonstrate the value of PURE in facilitating the development of mutual understanding both between universities through a common language and between universities and their regions in respect of mutual expectations. For example, particularly difficult to de-construct is universities’ engagement with disadvantaged communities (Doyle, 2007) but Powell's (2009) work suggests that universities might engage more broadly and effectively ‘through better knowledge sharing and co-creation with business and community partners’ to become ‘real drivers of creative change in developing socially inclusive projects’. Others have written about the educational role of universities in developing a ‘lifelong learning culture’ in their region (European Universities’ Charter on Lifelong Learning, 2008). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipal amalgamation has been the main policy instrument of local government structural reform programmes in Australia for well over a century. However, council consolidation programs have not achieved the intended cost savings or improved service provision promised by advocates of this means of structural reorganisation. This paper considers whether the failure of municipal amalgamation processes to produce significant economic benefits necessarily implies that structural reform programs that invoke consolidation have no place in Australian local government policy. It is argued that ‘top-down’ state government structural reform policy initiatives carrying the threat of amalgamation constitute an efficient mechanism for evoking optimal ‘bottom-up’ structural change models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period 1996/97–2001/02 was characterised by rapid economic growth and substantial structural change. This paper analyses this period in detail, relying on results from historical and decomposition simulations with the MONASH model. Changes in the level and composition of economic activity are traced to the effects of a number of government policies, external shocks, and domestic structural changes. The influence of policies such as the GST and tariff reduction proves small, with much of the change in the size and structure of economic activity attributable to technical change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Intergenerational Report (IGR) released by the Department of the Treasury of the Commonwealth of Australia in 2002 highlighted pressures that in the future would threaten the sustainability of the Australian government's budget balance. These pressures result from the growing needs of an aging population and labor shortages that will limit economic growth and taxation revenue. The IGR has become a driving force in planning government policy. The Treasurer has recently said that “the whole economic agenda of the government at the moment is drawn from the IGR.” In response, the Prime Minster and Treasurer have promoted deferred or gradual retirement as part of the solution. However, about 50% of men and 20% of women retire early as a result of ill health, indicating that poor health is potentially a limiter of economic growth. This paper reports lower labor force participation among persons with poorer health and that these persons move out of the labor force at a faster rate as they age. A range of measures suggests some decline in health in the pre-retirement age group (those aged from 40 to 64 years). This indicates that better health may be a facilitator of greater labor force participation in the baby boomer cohort. However, there is evidence that improving economic conditions in Australia leading to low unemployment has created an environment more favorable to the employment of older workers with health problems as there has been a rise in labor force participation in these groups, and measures to prevent chronic disease may further increase the employment prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's lacklustre economic growth performance in the first four decades following World War II was in part due to an antitrade, antiprimary sector bias in government assistance policies. This paper provides new annual estimates of the extent of those biases since 1946 and their gradual phase-out during the past two decades. In doing so it reveals that the timing of the sectoral assistance cuts was such as sometimes to improve but sometimes to worsen the distortions to incentives faced by farmers. Also, the changes increased the variation of assistance rates within agriculture during the 1950s and 1960s, reducing the welfare contribution of those programmes in that period. While the assistance pattern within agriculture appears not to have been strongly biased against exporters, its reform has coincided with a substantial increase in export orientation of many farm industries. The overall pattern for Australia is contrasted with that revealed by comparable new estimates for other high-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews recent research on the changing spatial structure of Australia's major cities from the early 1990s, concentrating on (a) the location of employment and journey to work patterns, (b) the changing nature of housing, and (c) patterns of residential differentiation and disadvantage. The paper argues that the 1990s was a watershed decade during which some taken-for-granted aspects of Australian urban character experienced significant change. It then examines the latest generation of strategic planning documents for these major metropolitan areas, all published between 2002 and 2005, and argues that there is a mismatch between the strategies’ consensus view of desirable future urban structure, based on containment, consolidation and centres, and the complex realities of the evolving urban structures. In particular, the current metropolitan strategies do not come to terms with the dispersed, suburbanised nature of much economic activity and employment and the environmental and social issues that flow from that, and they are unconvincing in their approaches to the emerging issues of housing affordability and new, finer-grained patterns of suburban inequality and disadvantage. Overall, the paper contends that current metropolitan planning strategies suggest an inflexible, over-neat vision for the future that is at odds with the picture of increasing geographical complexity that emerges from recent research on the changing internal structure of our major cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital, or a better educated labour force, is a major determinant of economic growth and productivity. However, recent trends in the cost of education in Australia may cause growth and productivity to suffer. For example, during the period 1982-2003 inflation rose on average by 4.4 per cent per annum, whereas the cost of education grew overall on average by 7.8 per cent. This has made education a relatively expensive item among Australian households. However, one can argue that the increased cost of education to private households may reflect choices to purchase a higher quality for their children in private schools and as such government should not be concerned about it. This paper compares and contrasts the cost of education in Australia and comparable economies with the cost of other goods and services embedded in the CPI (Consumer Price Index) basket, using the latest available quarterly data. Finally, the major determinants of the rising cost of education in Australia are examined. It is found, inter alia, that over the period 1986-2003 the increasing number of students enrolled at non-government primary and secondary schools and the introduction of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) were two important determinants of the rising cost of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to measure markup and returns to scale for eight Australian manufacturing industries, for the period 1971-72 to 1984-85, and to explore the relationship between markup, the business cycle and openness to the international economy in this period. A Hall type model is used for this purpose, where allowance is made for non-stochastic time variation in the contribution of technical change to output growth and intermediate materials are included in the production function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyses the European Union's regional policy framework and considers its implications for Australia's multi-level governance system. The analysis is made with reference to the ‘new regionalist’ debates in Europe and North America that have asserted the importance of regional economic development in the context of globalisation. New regionalism's advocacy of ‘economic normalisation’ as a leading regional policy aim is critically evaluated against the EU policy experience. Conclusions about the adequacy of new regionalist claims are drawn for Australian policy debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which sectoral trends and fluctuations in the Australian economy can be understood using international trade theory and knowledge of key policy developments. It suggests they are consistent with theory, but it also reveals several features that make Australia's economy unusual. The most striking are the facts that (i) the agricultural sector's share of GDP remained fairly constant rather than falling during 1860-1960 and even during the latest mining boom; and (ii) the farm sector continued to enjoy a strong comparative advantage despite periodic spurts of growth in mining exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of agriculture on Australia's nineteenth and twentieth century economic development is well known. While wool's contribution is rightly celebrated, the contribution of agricultural crops has received less attention. This paper focuses on one major staple, wheat, from 1861 to 1939. Both patent data and a new measure of technological progress, the cumulative number of wheat varieties tested for local adoption, are used to quantify the contribution of agricultural innovation to growth. We find innovation in this sector made an important contribution to the growth of total factor productivity over the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the determinants of city growth in Australia from 1981 to 1991. Population and labor force growth during the period; Link among city growth, city's initial size, government sector employment and specialization level.

Discusses a rationale for a positive relationship between the military and the environment. Holistic interpretation of military corporate goals; Military's traditional contribution to society; Contributions of the Australian military to sustainable development.

The article presents information on Australian government policy for full employment. Creating more jobs is the key to reducing Australia's too high level of unemployment and moving towards full employment. The authors will not dwell on the definition of full employment. Perhaps a target rate of unemployment, like the 5 per cent of Working Nation, might be helpful in the medium term. It may be possible, however, in the long term, to reduce unemployment to lower levels. There will need to be a focus on raising aggregate employment supplemented by special initiatives for those with lower skills who are disproportionately represented among the unemployed. The path and underlying causes of unemployment in Australia since 1945 are reviewed to provide a background for proposed solutions. The analysis indicates that faster economic growth and constrained average labour cost growth clearly have to be major parts of a successful strategy to increase employment. However, special initiatives will be required to raise the employment prospects of those with low skills who are heavily represented among the unemployed. The paper considers key elasticities and the order of potential employment gains from restraining real wages, especially of the low skilled. It also considers options for changing the tax and social security system to more directly and explicitly meet social equity goals than can be achieved through the wage system, in order to allow the wage system to be more efficient in creating employment.

The question of what constitutes the discipline of business history has been the focus of ongoing debate for several decades. The output of business history researchers is diverse ranging from company histories to the application of theoretical frameworks used to interpret the many facets of business development. This article, in introducing this special edition of the Australian Economic History Review, provides an overview of the development of the business history discipline and the contribution it has made to understanding the operation of business enterprises and the markets in which they operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological modernization has become a popular policy choice to mitigate negative effects on the environment. Rather than promoting radical changes, ecological modernization combines economic development with the limitation of environmental damage through technological advances. Such ideas are reflected in emissions trading schemes, which take a market approach to offer incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This paper compares the development of emissions trading schemes in Australia and South Korea to explore the factors that contribute to the adaptation of ecological modernization policies. The two countries share a dependence on energy-intensive industries for economic growth, but the debate on emission policies is dominated by different actors, offering alternative scenarios for the adaptation of ecological modernization in domestic policies. The role of business interests and civil society as well as priorities on the political agenda also differentiate the two cases, highlighting the role of political networks in the process of ecological modernization and the depth of such policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Northern Australia Development Committee (NADC) was established in late 1945 to coordinate the efforts of the Commonwealth, Queensland and Western Australian governments in developing the north of the continent. At the outset, defence considerations were uppermost. However, the NADC soon became entangled in disputes among Commonwealth departments and personalities over the relevance of northern development to national defence. Some - notably the Department of Defence - insisted that northern Australia no longer possessed special strategic significance. Others - notably the Department of External Affairs - argued that northern development must be conceived within a broader geo-political context. This paper examines the NADC's entanglement in these disputes, and explains how this entanglement contributed crucially to the committee's ineffectualness and early demise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Financial Crisis reduced economic growth, impacted equity and credit markets, and increased business risk. To the extent that this increased risk translates into greater uncertainty of companies' ability to continue as going concerns, this should be reflected in audit reports. This paper investigates how the crisis impacted auditor reporting in Australia by examining the period 2005-2009. It finds that the main reason for audit report modification is going concern and that modification rates increased from 12% in 2005-2007 to 18% in 2008 and 22% in 2009. Serious audit report qualification rates remain around 3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the manner in which labour services are modelled in the aggregate production function, concentrating on the specification of the relationship between the number of persons employed and average hours worked. We argue that, given the presence of quasi-fixed costs of employment, hours of work and the number of employees cannot be perfect substitutes. We then show that estimates using total hours worked as the measure of labour input implicitly assumes that they are perfect substitutes and this false assumption results, inter alia, in biased estimates of the rate of labour and multifactor productivity growth in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a debate on the ‘big questions’ and ‘research challenges’ facing economic history in Australia and New Zealand. Noting the changes in research direction that occurred in the discipline over the past 50 years, and the resource challenges it currently faces, it identifies many areas of potentially fruitful research. These include the environment, market regulation and industry development, the interaction of peoples and culture, and the examination of units other than the national economy. While there is potential for exciting and diverse research, an immediate challenge is the training of the next generation of economic historians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]