Strong growth in Asia, particularly in China, has had a profound impact on the Australian economy over the past decade. Most notable so far has been the boom in the resource sector, with commodity prices and hence Australia's terms of trade rising to historically high levels over a number of...

The 2000s was a particularly eventful decade for both the international and Australian economies. There were: two recessions in many countries; the largest international financial crisis since the Great Depression; the ongoing rapid development of Asia; asset booms and busts; and, Australia...

This paper describes and quantifies the macroeconomic effects of different types of terms of trade shocks and their propagation in the Australian economy. Three types of shocks are identified based on their impact on commodity prices, global manufactured prices, and global economic activity. The...

The terms of trade are subject to both permanent and transitory shocks. Particularly for commodity-producing small open economies, it is sometimes argued that the inability of agents to determine which of these shocks are permanent and which are transitory leads to more macroeconomic volatility...

The early 21st century saw Australia experience its largest and longest terms of trade boom. This paper places this recent boom in a long-run historical context by comparing the current episode with earlier cycles. While similarities exist across most episodes, current macroeconomic policy...

We examine two important aspects of Australia’s terms of trade using 135 years of annual data up to 2003/04. Since Australia predominantly exports commodities and imports manufactures, the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis suggests that there should be a negative trend in the terms of trade. But the...