In 'Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia', Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle: they claim that Australia ranks highly in the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively poorly in happiness. However, when we compare their happiness data with...

To estimate the impact of raising the minimum wage on employment, this article uses a natural experiment, arising from six increases in the Western Australian statutory minimum wage during the period 1994-2001. Relative to the rest of Australia, the employment to population ratio in Western...

The results of my study (Leigh 2003, 2004) on the effect of minimum wages on employment have been brought into question by Watson (2004), which raises some potential methodological concerns. Careful reanalysis of the Western Australian minimum wage experiment demonstrates that this critique is...

"International research suggests that differences in teacher performance can explain a large portion of student achievement. Yet little is known about how the quality of the Australian teaching profession has changed over time. Using consistent data on the academic aptitude of new teachers, we...

"We estimate the relationship between maternal age and child outcomes, using indices aimed at measuring overall outcomes, learning outcomes and social outcomes. In all cases, we find evidence that children of older mothers have better outcomes. Not only do children born to mothers in their...