Using a four-state model, we show that Australian labour markets exhibited more mobility after 1980, but most gains occurred before 1993. We find large and significant procyclical effects in the transition probabilities from unemployment to jobs, which contribute significantly to the variations...

We find evidence for asymmetric behaviour in Australian monetary policy. During 1984-1990, the Reserve Bank of Australia acted with considerable discretion yielding poor performance of an interest rate rule. However, it behaved asymmetrically to inflation and the output gap in downturns and...

We quantify how output risks are smoothed within Australia, and between Australia and New Zealand. About 90 per cent of shocks were smoothed within Australia through credit and capital markets, with fiscal policy a source of dis-smoothing after 1992. Risk-sharing between Australia and New...

Panel unit root tests show that intranational purchasing power parity cannot be rejected across major Australian cities from 1972:3 to 1999:1. The persistence of deviations in response to shocks is low, as measured by the estimated exact half-life of between five and ten quarters. This is much...