This paper examines the effects of the Victorian Factory and Shops Act, the first minimum wage law in Australia. The Act differed from modern minimum wage laws in that it established Special Boards, which set trade-specific minimum wage schedules. We use trade-level data on average wages,...

This report, commissioned by the Treasury, reviews the international and New Zealand evidence on trends in the distribution of earnings over the past 20 years. It assesses the international evidence on the strength of the various explanations for changes in the earnings distribution. It...

This paper discusses the recent history of the rate of unemployment in New Zealand. The rate of unemployment in New Zealand increased by about 3.5 percentage points between late 2007 and late 2009, and then has remained relatively steady to early 2013. Compared to the most recent previous...

We analyze the JobKeeper lump-sum wage subsidy introduced by the Australian government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, paying particular attention to the role of temporary layoffs in saving jobs. Although temporary layoffs were widely used, we find that recalls of workers on temporary...