In a pioneering paper on the revenue-complexity hypothesis, Heyndels and Smolders (1995) demonstrate that the conventional employment of the Hirschman-Herfindal index (HHC) in the empirical analysis of fiscal illusion introduces an arbitrary restriction without theoretical foundation. They...

In this study the nature and extent of efficiency and productivity growth in Australian local government is investigated using nonparametric frontier techniques. Employing Malmquist indices, productivity growth is decomposed into technical efficiency change and technological change for two...

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to measure the technical and scale efficiency of the domestic waste management function in 103 New South Wales’ local governments. After allowance is made for nondiscretionary environmental factors which may affect the provision of these local public...

Despite the federal structure of its constitution, no empirical study of fiscal illusion at the level of state expenditure has yet been undertaken in Australia. This paper seeks to go at least some way towards remedying the omission by subjecting the revenue-complexity, revenue-elasticity and...

Various state-based and national reports into Australian local government have conclusively demonstrated that the problem of financial sustainability is widespread amongst local councils, especially in non-metropolitan areas. The main impact of this financial distress has fallen on local...

A series of national and state public inquiries have established that the great majority of Australian local councils find themselves in straitened financial circumstances, with the problem of financial distress most acute in small regional, rural and remote local authorities. Given the spatial...

The Australian grape-growing and wine producing industry enjoyed meteoric growth from the early 1990s onwards, with wine sales forming an increasingly important element of both national export earnings and farm-sector income. Despite this success, a recent downward slump in industry...