Changes in standard hours of work, as occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, alter the budget constraint facing employers and their employment decisions. Using quarterly data for the period 1969:1-2004:1, an employment equation for Australia that includes standard hours as well as the usual output,...

It is important to understand how labour markets in different regions are affected by ‘common’ or ‘national’ shocks including national macroeconomic, monetary and fiscal policies. This paper applies a new econometric approach - involving an unobserved components model - to identify the...

A time-varying Phillips Curve was estimated as a means to examine the changing nature of the relationship between wage inflation and the unemployment rate in Australia. The implied time-varying equilibrium unemployment rate was generated and the analysis showed the important role played by...

A number of measures of the underlying rate of inflation are reported for Australia. We formulate criteria that an acceptable underlying rate must satisfy and then test to see whether any of the current measures satisfy these criteria. We find that for the period since inflation targeting began,...

This paper explores the following question - Has there been any long-run increase (or decrease) in the ‘incidence’ of long-term unemployment once we have corrected for cyclical factors? Our research leads us to conclude: (i) that the incidence of male long-term unemployment has been neither...

This paper explores the following question - Has there been any long-run increase (or decrease) in the ‘incidence’ of long-term unemployment once we have corrected for cyclical factors? Our research leads us to conclude that: (i) the incidence of male long-term unemployment has been neither...

In this paper we look at the way in which the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) derives gross flows data from successive Labour Force Surveys. The procedure used by the ABS is described and a measure of the ‘matching rate’ obtained. We develop a simple theoretical model designed to...