We use longitudinal data describing couples in Australia from 2001-12 and Germany from 2002-12 to examine how demographic events affect perceived time and financial stress. Consistent with the view of measures of stress as proxies for the Lagrangean multipliers in models of household production,...

It is widely assumed that contingent forms of employment, such as fixed-term contracts, labour-hire and casual employment, are associated with low quality jobs. This hypothesis is tested using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, a nationally...

We investigate whether the intensity of emotional pain following a negative shock is different across the distribution of a person's locus of control – the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influence future outcomes. Using panel data from Australia, we show that...

Relatively low rates of school completion among students from low socio-economic (SES) backgrounds is a key transmission mechanism for the persistence of intergenerational inequality. Using a rich dataset that links data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) with data from...

High neo-natal mortality is one of the most salient 'facts' about firm performance in the industrial organization literature. We model firm survival and examine the relative influence of firm, industry and macroeconomic factors on survival for new vis-à-vis incumbent firms. In particular, we...

Although many countries are now using skilled migration to offset declining fertility and increased longevity, there is thin empirical evidence concerning the effects of alternative approaches to managing the skilled migrant intake. This study focuses on the effects on migrant labour market...

In December 2008 and March-April 2009 the Australian Government used fiscal stimulus as a short-run economic stabilization tool for the first time since the 1990s. In May-June 2012, households received lump sum cheques as compensation for the introduction of the Carbon Tax scheduled for 1 July...

We develop and analyze comprehensive, multi-item scales of the quality of Australian jobs, using the rich measures of job characteristics from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. Through exploratory methods and multidimensional Item Response Theory modeling, we uncover...

While it is often believed that temporary forms of employment, such as fixed-term contracts, casual work and temporary agency work, provide workers with more flexibility to balance work and private commitments, convincing empirical evidence on this issue is still scarce. This paper investigates...

This study uses panel data for Australia from the HILDA Survey to estimate the wage differential between workers in temporary jobs and workers in permanent jobs. Specifically, unconditional quantile regression methods with fixed effects are used to examine how this gap varies over the entire...