The notion of "convergence" of economic variables across countries is a useful concept and in the case of income per capita, a well studied area. If there is empirical evidence of convergence of some economic variables across countries, then our ability to prdict the future (or at least...

We study optimal capital income taxation with a Ramsey problem and relate this optimal taxation problem to the question that has been asked in the asset pricing literature, which is why the risk free interest rate is too low. We show that the Ramsey planner chooses the optimal level of capital...

The retreat from public ownership of service firms and industries has left behind numerous private monopolies and oligopolies supervised by regulatory agencies. Services industries in government and private ownership generate two-thirds of Australia's value added and employ three quarters of its...

International pressure to revalue China’s currency stems in part from the expectation that rapid economic growth should be associated with a real exchange rate appreciation. This hinges on the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis under which growth stems from improvements in traded sector productivity...

China’s industrial reforms have left many key industries dominated by single or small numbers of firms, most of which remain state owned. Until recently, these firms have not been required to pay dividends to the state and the recent surge in China’s growth has made them very profitable,...

Most industrial countries have traditionally subsidized the provision of higher education. Several alternative financing schemes, which rely on larger contributions from students, are being increasingly adopted. Schemes such as income contingent loans, like the Australian Higher Education...

We estimate underlying macroeconomic policy objectives of three of the earliest explicit inflation targeters - Australia, Canada and New Zealand - within the context of a small open economy DSGE model. We assume central banks set policy optimally, such that we can reverse engineer policy...

Are global temperatures on a warming trend? It is difficult to be certain about trends when there is so much variation in the data and very high correlation from year to year. We investigate the question using statistical time series methods. Our analysis shows that the upward movement over the...

Australia’s principal container ports, located in its state capitals, are owned and operated by state authorities that largely return profits from port operations to state governments. Since they govern the volumes of trade in most merchandise, they command immense influence over the openness...

We extend the deterministic growth model of Glomm and Ravikumar (1994) to a stochastic endogenous growth model which nests both exogenous and endogenous growth factors. By introducing simple shocks to production technology, private capital and public capital investment, we can derive testable...