The evolution by sexual selection of the male propensity to engage in conspicuous consumption contributed to the emergence of modern rates of economic growth. We develop a model in which males engage in conspicuous consumption to send an honest signal of their quality to females. Males who...

The 2012-13 Budget, which provides for an increase in taxes of $ 39 billion and a reduction in expenditures of $ 7 billion, is strongly contractionary, reducing aggregate demand by about 2 per cent. The government deserves praise for starting the process of fiscal consolidation in a possible...

As human traits and preferences were shaped by natural selection, there is substantial potential for the use of evolutionary biology in economic analysis. In this paper, we review the extent to which evolutionary theory has been incorporated into economic research. We examine work in four areas:...

During his honours research on an index of industrial production at the University of Western Australia, Salter gained an understanding of the composite commodity theorem. The applied work on the index of industrial production provided him with the analytic foundations for his two famous...

In early monetary systems the unit of account was separate from the medium of exchange. Commodity prices and prices of coins were quoted in terms of a fixed quantity of metal that was embodied by an 'index coin'. Coins circulated at their metal value because coinage was imperfect and fixed...

Contracts for future delivery of commodities spread from Mesopotamia to Hellenistic Egypt and the Roman world. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, contracts for future delivery continued to be used in the Byzantine Empire in the eastern Mediterranean and they survived in canon law in western...

From the early 1960s onwards, Arnold Zellner has been publishing influential papers in the areas of statistical theory, econometric applications and macroeconomic modelling. This conversation canvasses Zellner’s transition from physics to economics, the reason for the renewal of interest in...

Farm survey data show that the risk aversion of West Australian farmers is comparable to that of other asset holders. An increase in the variability of crop yield by 20%, which may be caused by future climate change, would raise their willingness to pay for crop insurance almost one-to-one by...

The vintage model of capital accumulation predicts that technical progress depends on the installation of new capital equipment. In this paper it is found that investment raises labor productivity in the G7 countries and Australia. This finding implies that the decline in investment during the...