Once again in 2002 Australian taxpayers are being called on to provide relief to drought-affected farmers. Under the National Drought Policy which has been in place since 1992, support is provided by the Commonwealth Government predominantly in two forms: interest rate subsidies to assist farm...

There is a significant and on-going unease with, and debate concerning, the state of US college loans. One of the most important questions relates to so-called “repayment burdens”, the financial difficulties associated with repayments. This paper examines the issue from both theoretical and...

Due to the unknown future economic situation of students, private banks are unwilling to provide student loans in the absence of collateral. This market failure requires government intervention to prevent socially sub-optimal and regressive outcomes. Income contingent loans, whose repayment...

The determinants of marital instability is an important area of research for demography, sociology and economics, with a host of public policy outcomes being significantly affected by family breakdown. This paper improves our understanding of the issue through the use of rich longitudinal data...

This paper provides estimates of the effects of divorce on the lifetime incomes of mothers. This is an issue that is not well explored in most countries, and has been essentially untouched empirically in the Australian context. The paper extends the existingliterature, which has generally...