There is a need for wide-ranging reforms to remove unnecessary burdens and costs faced by the not-for-profit sector and improve its accountability. This is the key message of a research report released today by the Productivity Commission. Better regulation, improved funding arrangements and...

This Productivity Commission report - Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Business and Consumer Services Sector - identifies ways to reduce the regulatory burdens on businesses in the finance and insurance, accommodation and food services, professional, scientific and technical...

A report released by the Productivity Commission — Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Occupational Health and Safety — has identified significant differences in regulation and in the actions of regulators across the jurisdictions that are hard to justify. <p> While OHS...</p>

The Productivity Commission was asked to examine the effects of bilateral and regional trade agreements, including on trade and investment barriers, regional integration and Australia's economy generally. The Commission concluded the benefits of these agreements have been oversold and the...

This Productivity Commission inquiry report was released on 12 October 2012. Default superannuation arrangements for those employees who derive their default superannuation product in accordance with modern awards have provided market stability, and net returns of default funds have generally...

There are almost 140 000 retail businesses in Australia, accounting for 4.1 per cent of GDP and 10.7 per cent of employment. Both current trading conditions and longer term trends are challenging. Retail sales growth has trended down over the past half-decade as consumers save more of their...

This staff working paper (by Savvas, Boulton, and Jepson) examines factors that potentially influence Indigenous labour market outcomes (LMOs). It uses regression analysis, and builds on the simple model that was presented in the ‘Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators (OID)...

This staff working paper examines productivity trends in the Australian utilities industry and highlights some significant issues relating to the measurement and interpretation of changes in measured productivity over time. Multifactor productivity (MFP) growth in Australia's market sector has...

The Australian Government now has institutions and arrangements in place to identify areas of regulation that are unduly burdensome or ineffective and to develop appropriate reforms. However, the Productivity Commission research report, released 15 December 2011, indicated there was a need to...

The Productivity Commission’s third phase of the Education and Training Workforce study examined the workforce of the schools sector, this research report – Schools Workforce – was released on 4 May 2012. A well-performing school system is fundamental to building Australia’s ‘human...