A Productivity Commission staff working paper on 'Workforce Participation Rates: How Does Australia Compare?' (by Joanna Abhayaratna and Ralph Lattimore) was released January 2007. With the population ageing and the associated shift in the age structure of the population towards older groups...

The Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper, ‘Men not at Work - An Analysis of Men Outside the Workforce’ (by Ralph Lattimore), was released in January 2007. This paper analyses the characteristics of adult men outside the labour force in Australia. The paper finds that, in contrast to...

Births in Australia are at an historical high - with around 285 000 babies born in 2007. This corresponds to an estimated total fertility rate of 1.93 babies per woman, the highest since the early 1980s. This is not a one-off event as fertility rates have been generally rising for the last 6...

As we emerge from a deep and long recession, the debate must shift again to how New Zealand can lift its productivity growth rate. New Zealand has already done much work in getting the economic environment right for business growth. The reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s removed many of the...

International trade protectionism is frequently supported on the assumption that importables provide more jobs for unskilled labour than does the exportable sector. This contention is questioned here by reference to the factor intensity of New Zealand trade. Exportables are found to be more...

Rapidly rising house prices over the last few years has drawn the attention of researchers to the drivers lying behind both supply and demand side influences in the housing market. This study complements much of that work by attempting to uncover the price and income parameters for rental and...