The world has lived through an accelerated globalization process over the last 15 years. Global trade relative to world GDP has grown from 39% in 1992 to 52% in 2005. At the same time, the share of world trade of OECD countries has gone down from 73% in 1992 to 64% in 2005. These shifts have led...

A new Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper finds that there is no current or impending fertility crisis in Australia. Births in Australia are at an historical high – with around 285 000 babies born in 2007. This corresponds to an estimated total fertility rate1 of 1.93 babies per woman,...

The Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper, 'Men not at Work: An Analysis of Men Outside the Workforce' (by Ralph Lattimore), was released in January 2007. This paper analyses the characteristics of adult men outside the labour force in Australia. The paper finds that, in contrast to women,...

A Productivity Commission staff working paper on 'Workforce Participation Rates: How Does Australia Compare?' (by Joanna Abhayaratna and Ralph Lattimore) was released January 2007. With the population ageing and the associated shift in the age structure of the population towards older groups...

This paper uses statistical evidence from a unique longitudinal data set for Australian firms to examine the use and impact of some major R&D and export facilitation programs from 1994-98. The programs examined included the EMDG (Export Market Development Grants) scheme, Export Access, Austrade...

New Zealand has had a complex process of adjusting commercial policy since the economic reforms began in 1984. This paper reports on the results of a research project to estimate the trends in industry assistance over this period and the variance of assistance within 2-digit industry groupings