Social scientists have increasingly turned their attention to understanding the linkages between the economic position of parents and that of their children. At its core, these linkages lies behind fundamental questions regarding how our society and its economy works, and how society can alter...

The Mirrlees Review of the UK tax system, together with its companion volume of research papers, can be expected to influence future discussions of tax reform. Indeed, this can already be recognised in the Henry Review. As far as income taxation is concerned, the most substantive recommendation...

The existing literature suggests that when the saving decision of two-earner households under risk is analysed, standard results on the existence of precautionary saving no longer apply: precautionary saving is obtained if and only if very stringent conditions hold. This paper shows that when...

We develop a general theoretical model of the effect of wage dispersion on team performance which nests two possibilities: wage inequality may have either negative or positive effects on team performance. A parameter which captures the marginal cost of effort, which we estimate using game-level...

A trade union is an organized association of workers formed for the protection and promotion of their common interests. The standard view of unions is that they are monopoly organizations that improve the welfare of members, principally by raising wages above the competitive level. For a union...

The key problem of economics in Australia and New Zealand is its marginality. The history of its economics will, then, be at bottom an account of the confrontation of that marginality. Thus any story of economic thought in Australia and New Zealand will necessarily tell of the attempt to plant...

We study the optimal design of a social security system when individuals differ in health status and occupation. The health status is private information but is imperfectly correlated with occupation: individuals in harsh occupations have a higher probability of being in poor health. We explore...

Retirement years are a precarious time for many older Americans. Even if successful in accumulating resources expected to be sufficient to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living, many retirees face unexpected adverse health shocks after retirement. Because of the uncertainty of shocks...

Discussion around total factor productivity gains for the Australian Economy often focuses on infrastructure bottlenecks, technology adoption, competition and labour market flexibility. Although a potential area for gains, management is typically omitted from the public policy debate because it...

This paper argues that increasing the GST, by raising the rate above 10 per cent while retaining the current tax base, or by broadening the base to include all forms of consumption expenditure, does not offer a solution to the widely perceived problems of the Australian tax system. The direct,...