The study compares manufacturer prices in Australia and seven other countries for 150 pharmaceuticals listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), as at 30 June 2000. The comprehensive study found that prices in the USA are between 80 to 160 per cent higher than in Australia, and prices...

This paper examines the impact of population distribution on the costs of providing local telephone service. The study was undertaken to examine the extent to which price differences in international comparisons of telecommunications costs can be attributed to differences in the distribution of...

This paper looks at the extent of differences in the accessibility, quality and price of telecommunications services between remote, rural and urban areas in Australia and other comparable countries. It finds that users experience some disadvantages compared with urban users, but generally no...

In economics, where the long resistance to reflecting on the effects of social interaction on economic behaviour is slowly waning, the concept of social capital may turn out to be a useful analytical tool. However, initial interest in social capital has produced a large variety of definitions,...

This paper casts doubt on empirical results based on panel estimations of an “inverted-U” relationship between per capita GDP and pollution. Using a new data set for OECD countries on carbon dioxide emissions for the period 1960-1997, we find that the crucial assumption of homogeneity across...

We present a three-sector general equilibrium model with an informal sector, which produces an intermediary for the formal sector, and analyze the effects of different policies on the environmental standard and welfare of the economy. Since the informal manufacturing sector creates pollution,...

Regional integration for at least the last sixty years has focused on trade integration. Balassa’s canonical taxonomy of regional trading arrangements is often interpreted as a sequence from free trade area through customs union and common market to economic union. In the 1980s the concept of...