In this paper, we investigate the response of female lone parents to two reforms to the welfare system in Australia. We look at changes to both hours and participation and focus on the channels of adjustment, in particular the role of job changes for adjustment in hours. We highlight the...

Immigrants to Australia are selected on observable characteristics. They may also differ from natives on unobservable characteristics such as ambition or motivation. If we account for unobservable differences, we find a wage gap for immigrant men from English speaking backgrounds, in contrast...

We test whether young adults who co-reside with their parents derive influence over household-level expenditure by earning income. We propose a new variant of the Engel curve consistent with the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System but which allows a simpler test of income pooling. Using...

We examine whether there is any causal effect of article length on citation. Focusing on articles published between 2010 and 2014 in the top five journals in economics and their citation count in Google Scholar, we find that a one per cent increase in page length generates a 0.55 per cent...

Using data for the 2005-2017 period, we consider the effects of resource rents on the sub-components of Freedom House's measures of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Higher resource rents lead to a deterioration in Political Pluralism and Participation, but do not affect other...

We study the relationship between financing constraints and the workforce composition of firms that employ both casual and non-casual workers. We use data on Australian firms from 2009-2014 and a more direct measure of firm financial constraint than previous studies. We show that the proportion...

We review the literature on financial constraints and the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We consider the important role that SMEs play in the economies of Australia and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. We examine the role of financial constraints in...

We estimate a demand equation for petrol in Australia. We explore two methodological improvements to the standard dynamic demand model-an improved lagged adjustment process and the inclusion of unobservable habits. Both of these improvements imply that standard estimation techniques produce...

We investigate whether rising oil prices have resulted in over-rating of oil-producing countries by rating agencies, after controlling for fundamentals. Based on a large dataset of countries from Standard and Poor's and Moody's, we find strong statistical evidence of a large ratings...

This paper explores risk aversion among Australian households using panel data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Using households' share of risky assets, we test whether relative risk aversion is constant in wealth. After accounting for measurement error,...