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This paper examines the short-run and long-run relationships between an ageing population and economic growth in Bangladesh using time series data for the period between 1972–2015. We employed a bivariate endogenous growth model to investigate the relationship between the population aged 65 years and above and per capita gross domestic product (GDP). The study found that there is a long-run positive relationship between the ageing population and per capita real GDP. The relationship runs from an ageing population to per capita real GDP, given that there is an increasing capital formation process in the economy. Therefore, the elderly population is not a matter of concern for Bangladesh as long as per capita capital formation has been greater than that of per capita ageing population.

This study estimates the private average rate of return (ARR) and internal rate of return (IRR) to education in rural Bangladesh. Using data from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2015, we estimate average returns using the Mincerian method and IRR using the full method, accounting for both the direct and indirect costs of schooling. To account for endogeneity and selection bias, we use parental education as an instrumental variable and apply the Heckman correction method. We find an average return of 18 %, an IRR of 12 % for tertiary education, 4.86 % for secondary, and 5.24 % for primary. In the agricultural sector specifically, however, returns to tertiary education are more in line with primary and secondary education.

This study presents an estimate of the joint determination of labour market status and educational attainment in Australia using cross-sectional data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This paper is based on the premise that achieving an increasing level of educational attainment and labour supply does not happen in isolation, rather they are determined jointly. Applying a simultaneous system of two-equations model, the study finds that there is a feedback effect between educational attainment and labour market status. In the labour market equation the effects of achieving a higher educational attainment on the probability of being employed has been statistically significant and the effect is negative. Thus, previous studies that ignored the feedback effects and used a single equation model have produced biased and inaccurate estimates of the effects of educational attainment on labour market outcome.

This study investigates the existence of either energy-led growth hypothesis or trade-led growth in Australia for a 53-year period (1960–2012) using a multivariate extended growth model. The econometric techniques used in this study are Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach of cointegration, the Granger Causality Test and Impulse Response Functions. The study finds the evidence of no long-run cointegration between the variables of interest. Granger causality test confirms bidirectional causal relationship between international trade and per capita GDP growth, but does not find any Granger causal relationship between energy use and per capita GDP growth. Thus, this study provides an evidence of the trade-led growth hypothesis over the energy-led growth hypothesis for the Australian macroeconomy.

The Government of Bangladesh has a National Healthcare Strategy 2012–2032 that reiterates a goal to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by the year 2032. To achieve the goal, the government has set up a strategy to reduce the share of out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure from the current 64% of the total household healthcare costs to 32% at the national level. As the majority of the people live in the rural areas, and the rural people are generally poor, the success of the strategy relies predominantly on any type of pro-poor healthcare policy and strategy. To estimate if there is any feedback effect in the healthcare costs model and to estimate relative contributions of various determinants to OOP medical expenditure in rural Bangladesh. This study used an econometric approach and a system of simultaneous equations models. The OOP expenditure was measured by household medical expenditure, which is a sum of expenditures for medicine, ayurvedic, various kinds of tests, hospitalization, and dental-related, incidental and other health-related costs. The feedback effect hypothesis is tested by the level of statistically significant dependent variables of the three equations used in the system of simultaneous equations model. The relative importance of the determinants of OOP expenditures was measured by the size of standardised coefficients of the determinants. There is a feedback effect between the three dependent variables—medical expenditure, sickness of the household members and the selection of healthcare provider. We also find that although the selection of private healthcare facilities is relatively the most important determinant of OOP expenditures in the rural areas, the sickness of the members of a household and the selection of healthcare provider together have a real effect on the OOP expenditure in rural Bangladesh. Bangladesh needs a holistic approach to undertake any strategy; private healthcare facilities are relatively the most important source of high medicine costs; hence, the supply of medicine and its price should be given attention on a priority basis for pro-poor policy framing in conjunction with healthcare insurance and motivation to consult doctors rather than pharmacists in case of sickness.

This study examines the relationship between academics’ use of the Internet for academic purposes and their research performance using cross-sectional data collected from academics of the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Australia, during the period February–March 2014. In this study, a system of simultaneous equation models is used to control the potential bias associated with simultaneity between the use of the Internet and academics’ research performances. The simultaneity, a potential econometric problem, was overlooked in past studies. A finding of this study is that academics’ use of the Internet is a statistically significant contributor to research output in an Australian university. The estimated elasticity of research output is 0.16 with respect to changes in Internet use. JEL Classifications: C3, D8, I2

In 2013 and 2014, the Australian Federal Government introduced the Gonski reforms and fee deregulation measures to reform the prevailing financing provisions for education sectors in Australia. The central proposition of the proposed new measures was to reduce the funding of public universities by the Federal Government. One likely consequence of the proposed measures was thus decreased government funding. In the given context, public universities were pressured into designing new strategies to cope with decreasing government funding. This paper examines the productive efficiency of public universities as a potential strategy. Using a concept of cost efficiency in production economics, cross-sectional data, correlation analysis, and regression analysis, this study explores the scope of allocative efficiency for public universities. Finally, this study recommends the intensive use of non-teaching staff in order to cope with any budgetary challenges.

This paper examines the role of communication technologies (CTs) in Australian broadacre agricultural production using data over the period of 1990–2013. Allowing for cross-sectional independence in the data, the pooled mean group and augmented mean group techniques are applied to estimate dynamic relationships among variables. The empirical results demonstrate that CTs affect agricultural output positively in the long run. The estimated elasticity is 0.237. This result suggests that government policies that lift investment in telecommunication facilities are shown to contribute to an increase of output in Australia's broadacre agriculture in the long run.

Whilst educational managers and entrepreneurs are expanding online education opportunities, at least some academics are becoming less enthusiastic about the initiative. As a result, a complex and in many ways contested working environment for academics is emerging in tertiary institutions. Some academics are showing dissatisfaction with their workload. Scholars argue that academics’ job satisfaction is highly correlated with students’ learning outcomes. While economists advocate the expansion of online education in the context of rising costs of university education in economics literature, the psychological states of teaching academics are overlooked in economics literature. Attitudes to academic (over-)workload are a psychological issue in tertiary education, particularly in universities globally where online education has a strong presence. This paper deals with teachers’ attitude at an Australia university. This study explains the variations in academics’ attitudes to (over-)workload at an Australian university. For this study we have used primary data collected from a single Australian university - University of Southern Queensland (USQ) - during the period of February-March 2014. The total population size for this study is approximately 400 (four hundred), who are distributed across the then five faculties of the university. The data are collected online. In response to our online survey invitation, 83 (eighty-three) participating academics has taken part in the survey. We have used Likert-type data, where the scale of measurement is represented by ordinal numbers. Research methods used in this study are descriptive analysis of data and inferential statistics based on probit regression. The estimated coefficients of the regression analysis show that three variables are statistically significant at the 5 per cent level. These variables are: the use of the Internet per week, the native language (English) status and the academic qualification status. However, the estimates of the marginal effect show that because of a change of native English status from zero to one, an academic is 23 per cent more likely to be strongly agreed with the statement – online teaching increases academic workload. This implies that attitudes to academic (over-)workload vary among the academics. The policy implication is that education administrators will have to give attention to the working conditions of the academics in order to expand online education successfully.

This chapter focuses on teacher-student interactions in the context of the use of digital technologies for online teaching and learning in an Australian university using thematic analysis and focus group discussion data. Cotemporary scholars agree that the factors influencing teacher–student interactions in online environments are diverse and multiple and are framed by a complex set of historically grounded and socially mediated forces. One potentially fruitful way to interrogate these factors and forces is to draw on aspects of affordance theory, by examining the kinds of relationships that are (and are not) afforded by particular digital technologies in those online environments. More broadly, affordance theory emerges as a useful conceptual lens for understanding the influences on and the impacts of teacher–student interactions using digital technologies in online environments. Those influences and impacts in turn are crucial to (re-)visioning digital futures in the context of students' learning outcomes in tertiary education, and to advancing critical thinking in higher education.

In the literature of higher education cost function study, enough knowledge is created in the area of economy scale in the context of developed countries but the knowledge of input demand is lacking. On the other hand, empirical knowledge in the context of developing countries is very meagre. The paper fills up the knowledge gap, estimating a quadratic cost frontier for the public universities in Bangladesh and thereby analysing economies of scale, economies of scope and input demand choice. The study is based on the panel data for Year 2002–2007. Findings show that there are economies of scale up to 350% of the mean output level in the public university, and the critical value of cost-minimizing demand for factor input labour is 48%. The paper shows that an economy of scale has relative advantage over cost-minimizing input choice in minimizing average production cost in the public university.

This article empirically estimates a stochastic cost function and thereby estimates local economies of scale and cost-efficiency measures of the public universities in Bangladesh. A flexible quadratic cost function, an unbalanced panel dataset and the maximum likelihood estimation technique have been used in the study. The empirical results show that though the public universities have very high relative efficiency measures, they are scale inefficient.