Universal social benefits seem to contradict important notions in economics. They are poorly targeted and must be paid for by what seem to be high taxes. This paper describes the costs of universality and then proposes two competing explanations for why an electorate might wish to pay these...

This paper looks at the impact on Australia’s trade in crops (non-wheat grains and oilseeds) where GM technology has been introduced. The model includes assumptions about the productivity gains of GM crops, possible consumer responses and regulatory costs for Australia and its major trading...

The paper argues that measuring revealed comparative advantages (RCA) in international trade in services cannot be straightforwardly compared to RCA in trade in goods. The essential difference is that services are internationally exchanged not only by cross-border trade mainly subject to...

We try to identify which economic factors might be responsible for the large international differences in student performance. We present time series evidence for a number of European countries which suggests that rising educational expenditures obviously did not improve student performance....