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The Australian economy has been significantly affected by the Covid-19 virus and the associated health policy actions. This has warranted a comprehensive policy response from both fiscal and monetary policy. The monetary policy response has been directed at supporting households and businesses by keeping funding costs low and ensuring credit is available. The monetary policy actions have worked as expected by lowering the key interest rate benchmarks in the economy to historically low levels, which has been transmitted through to historically low borrowing rates for households and businesses, as well as governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the text of an address by Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Guy Debelle to the 50th Anniversary Conference of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne in Victoria on December 6, 2012. Debelle recognizes the role of the institute in the economic research and policy advice. He explores the institute's contributions to three areas: business cycle analysis; modeling and forecasting; and surveys.

After the end of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, exchange rate policy in Australia moved through several regimes over an extended period. The overarching theme was to increase flexibility and efficiency in the Australian currency market and the financial system more generally. This paper documents Australia's gradual move from a fixed to a floating exchange rate and the abolition of capital controls, with an emphasis on the thinking behind various reforms and the practical difficulties encountered during the reform process. Policy reform was often in response to external forces exposing deficiencies in the prevailing system, rather than through a carefully planned path to greater flexibility. Ultimately, a combination of domestic and international factors rendered the move to a flexible exchange rate largely inevitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the behaviour of the Australian slate labour markets, focusing on the rote of geographic labour mobility. We find that interstate migration does play an important role in reducing differences in labour market conditions between states, although permanent (or very persistent) differences between state unemployment rates remain. We also find that out-migration from a state resulting front a relative downturn in its labour market occurs slowly and steadily. Most of the migration takes place, on average, within four years, and the process of adjustment is complete tier seven years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the impact of central bank independence by contrasting the economic performance of New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Provision of a natural experiment for central bank independence; Discussion on the theoretical implications of central bank independence literature; Details on framework for an analysis on these implications; Similarity in inflation experience.

Comments on the article `The Natural Unemployment Rate in Australia Since the Seventies,' by H. Groenewold and A.J. Hagger (GH). Role of natural rate of unemployment in understanding the process of inflation; Problems in estimating natural rate of unemployment by GH; Adoption of framework developed by Lilien; Factors influencing natural rate of unemployment.

Announces the writing of the biography of Victor Windeyer, A Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1958 to 1972.