This article uses household-level data to examine the distribution of spending and saving in Australia and how that has changed over time. The distribution of spending and saving is important as, among other things, it can affect the way that the household sector responds to economic shocks. The...

We document some new stylised facts about how Australian homeowners value their homes using household panel data and unit-record data on home sale prices. We find that homeowners' price beliefs are unbiased at the postcode level, on average, although there is considerable dispersion in the...

There is extensive anecdotal evidence to suggest that a significant tightening in credit conditions, or a 'credit crunch', occurred in the United States following the collapse of the loan securitisation market in 2007. However, there has been surprisingly little formal testing for the existence...

A sharp decline in inventory investment was an important contributor to the economic slowdown in Australia in 2008/09. I identify the extent to which this was due to a tightening in short-term credit constraints. In an experimental design setting, I identify the causal effect of short-term...

Australia's trade linkages have been affected by the expansion of global production networks, with Australia typically exporting commodities that are used to produce goods and services that are, in turn, exported to other markets. In this article, estimates of value-added trade are presented for...

We examine how the structure of Australian production and trade has been affected by the expansion of global production networks. As conventional measures of international trade do not fully capture the impact of global supply chains, we present complementary estimates of value-added trade for...

We investigate the factors associated with the incidence of mortgage-related financial difficulties in Australia. We use two complementary micro-level datasets: loan-level data on residential mortgages from two Australian banks, which we use to analyse the factors associated with entering 90+...

This paper examines the factors that drive corporate investment in Australia using a panel of listed companies covering the period from 1990 to 2004. Real sales growth is found to be a significant determinant of corporate investment. The user cost of capital, which incorporates both debt and...

Over the past decade, household debt (as a share of household income) has reached historically high levels. This has raised concerns about whether, as a result of the rise in debt, households are now more financially ‘fragile’. Using data from the 1998/99 Household Expenditure Survey (HES),...

Over the past decade, household debt (as a share of household income) has reached historically high levels. This has raised concerns about whether, as a result of the rise in debt, households are now more financially 'fragile'. Copyright 2005 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of...