We argue five main propositions. Firstly, the choice between royalties and profit-based taxation involves an efficiency trade-off, between diminished incentives to produce output on one hand, and diminished incentives to minimize costs on the other (as in Laffont and Tirole 1993). So the Brown...

The Australian Treasury contracted KPMG Econtech (2010) to estimate the efficiency cost of Australian taxes, using the MM900 Computable General Equilibrium model. The resultant report, endorsed by Treasury, was a major input into the Henry report into Australia's Future Tax System (AFTS) and...

Australia's National Preventative Health Taskforce baulks at the economic approach to public policy that weighs up costs and benefits, and instead adopts a ‘healthist' perspective, with an open-ended and unconditional commitment to maximising health and a jumbling of private and external...

In its 2011 NDIS report, the Productivity Commission rationalises its policy recommendation by means of a cost-benefit analysis, claiming that ‘the benefits of the [National Disability Insurance] scheme would significantly outweigh the costs’. But methodology the PC adopts departs from...