Welfare reform in Australia centres on the concept of both economic and social participation. The policy concern is that people who fail to participate in economic and social life may become entrenched in disadvantage. In 2000 - 2001, a randomized trial was conducted by the Department of Family...

We undertake an analysis of regulatory consistency using a database of publicly available regulatory decisions in Australia. We propose a simple exploratory model which allows us to test for regulatory consistency across jurisdictions and industries without detailed knowledge of the regulatory...

This paper develops an empirical strategy to measure maverick-like behaviour. It applies the strategy to a dataset that contains interest rates charged by mortgage providers in Australia from January 2003 to October 2006. The Reserve Bank of Australia raised its cash rate five times in this...

Australia’s productivity performance is characterized by important differences across continuing firms, frequent entry of new firms, and substantial exit of firms which, for one reason or another, decide to cease production. These basic facts call into question the appropriateness of measuring...

We use a semi-parametric method to decompose the difference in male and female wage densities into two parts-one explained by characteristics and one which is attributable to differences in returns to characteristics. We demonstrate that one learns substantially more about the gender wage gap in...