How have views on Australia's current account deficit evolved over the past two decades? What factors have shaped and altered policy and market perceptions of the current account? This paper examines these questions within the framework of the intellectual underpinnings of the debate on the...

The present paper estimates upper-level substitution and new-goods bias in the Korean Consumer Price Index (CPI). It has been estimated that the upper-level substitution bias in the CPI alone increased the inflation rate by 0.51 percentage points per year over the thirteen-year period between...

This paper uses Australian micro data to test the insider-outsider model. As part of this, the paper also examines whether the distinction between insiders and outsiders has more relevance for males or females. The paper finds that males have more insider power than females. It is also argued...

In recent years a large theoretical and empirical literature has emerged on hysteresis in unemployment. This paper reviews the theoretical part of this literature, including the various insider-outsider models that have been advanced to explain hysteresis. The review finds that while the...

The relationship between energy futures trading volume and physical commodity usage is evaluated with the aim of demonstrating the correct method of calculation. This relationship has been incorrectly calculated and the misleading results have been offered up as evidence of excessive speculator...

In the history of Burma's political economy, few groups have been so roundly vilified as the Chettiars. A community of moneylenders indigenous to Chettinad, Tamil Nadu, the Chettiars operated throughout the Southeast Asian territories of the British Empire. They played a particularly prominent...

The use of principal component techniques to estimate approximate factor models with large cross-sectional dimension is now well established. However, recent work by Inklaar, Jacobs and Romp (2003) and Boivin and Ng (2005) has cast some doubt on the importance of a large cross-sectional...

A portfolio of small capitalization stocks formed from securities listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) fails to adjust to market-wide news instantaneously and displays a significant amount of predictability from lagged returns on large and medium size firms. Despite apparently large...

In late 2003 and early 2004 the Economic Society of Australia surveyed the Heads of Economics Departments in Australia to determine their views on three main issues: student standards, major factors affecting these standards, and policy implications. This paper describes the main results of the...

Market failure exists in the provision of residential aged care services in Australia due to imperfection of competition that arises out of government actions. The Commonwealth Government has the exclusive right to grant provider rights and control over the number of beds that will be funded to...