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...

'Creating Markets for Ecosystem Services' by Greg Murtough, Barbara Aretino and Anna Matysek, was released on 19 June 2002. The paper investigates how well environmental problems related to salinity, biodiversity and climate change can be addressed by creating markets for ecosystem services. The...

On 28 August 1998 the Treasurer referred the impact of competition policy reforms on rural and regional Australia for inquiry and report within 12 months of receiving the reference. The Commission was to assess the impact (both transitional and ongoing) of the competition policy and related...

The Productivity Commission was asked to report on the Implementation of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) by Commonwealth Departments and Agencies. The inquiry was to cover all Commonwealth departments and agencies with major responsibility for implementing EDS, or whose activities...

The Productivity Commission convened a workshop, Microeconomic Reform and the Environment, in September 2000. Its purpose was to explore the links between economic and environmental policy objectives and outcomes. The workshop was structured around a series of contributed papers that considered...

The joint conference paper, 'Third-party effects of water trading and potential policy responses' by Anna Heaney (ABARE), Gavan Dwyer (PC), Stephen Beare (ABARE), Deborah Peterson (PC) and Lili Pechey (ABARE), was presented to the American Agricultural Economics Association conference,...

The objective of this study was to undertake a series of modelling exercises that took advantage of the additional available data to explore the effects of R&D on Australian productivity. However, despite the advances in data and methods, our research was unable to find a consistent robust...

The Productivity Commission’s inquiry report into the ‘Conservation of Australia’s Historic Heritage Places’, was tabled in Parliament on 21 July 2006. The Commission was asked to examine the policy framework and incentives for the conservation of Australia’s historic built heritage...

Many Australian farmers and rural communities have been experiencing hardship from the latest severe and prolonged drought. While this is not new to dryland farming, 'irrigation drought' is uncharted territory. Australia has always had a variable climate, with drought being a recurring feature....