Over the past few decades the brisk development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has had a phenomenal impact on the economic stability and development of many countries. Empirical studies show that most developed economies have gained significant payoffs (in terms of economic...

Trade in services has outpaced trade in merchandise over the last two decades. The services sector has increased steadily in importance both in terms of it shares in GDP and employment over the lat 30 years in Australia and its contribution to trade will continue to increase. The significance of...

There has been a significant shift in trade policy orientation in Bangladesh over the last two decades. A dirigiste policy orientation has gradually been replaced by a more outward oriented economic policy. In line with such policy orientation, a series of trade liberalisation measures has been...

Background: Private psychiatric services are produced and consumed on a fee-for-service (FFS) basis in Australia. The Commonwealth Government subsidises these (and all) medical services via Medicare, a universal, comprehensive, tax-financed medical and hospital financing mechanism. A key purpose...

A letter of credit (L/C), in international trade may be described as an instrument of finance carrying a conditional guarantee of payment from the overseas (buyer?s) bank to the seller. Consequently, a L/C is desirable in high value and/or high risk transactions. The guarantee is conditional...

Australia may present a special case in the analysis of strikes because, for most of the Twentieth Century, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has acted as an industrial "umpire" charged with keeping the industrial peace. We begin with a review of major contributions to the theory of...

There is a vast empirical literature investigating the relationship between government size and economic growth. But the empirical evidence of growth effects of public expenditure using cross-country regressions is still inconclusive. According to a number of authors this is not surprising since...

Australia’s share of intra-industry trade (IIT) in its total trade of textiles and clothing (TAC) is one of the lowest among the OECD countries. However, over the recent years there has been a rising trend in Australia’s IIT in some categories of TAC products. The purpose of this paper is to...

In an open economy like Australia, SMEs ability to export has become very crucial for their long-term servival and growth. This depends on SMEs capacity to remain internationally competitive. Productivity growth is the key which will enable SMEs to deliver products at lower costs. The results...

Letters of Credit continue to be the most popular method of international payments in the trading community, but there is a push to convert traditional processes to the electronic age of paperless transactions. This paper discusses the new eUCP regulations (version 1.0), which became effective...