When attempting to identify empirical regularities in consumption patterns, their tremendous diversity across countries represents both a major opportunity and challenge. For example, consumers in rich countries devote less than 20 percent of their budget to food, while this rises to more than...

Interpreting the own-price elasticity of demand for alcohol literature is difficult. While numerous studies have been conducted, the point estimates reported vary dramatically. Some studies suggest the demand for alcohol is price inelastic, others suggest it is price elastic. This paper presents...

This paper analyses differences in the wealth of nations by comparing PPP-based cross-country incomes from the Penn Table with those derived from prevailing exchange rates. Using the Balassa (1964)-Samuelson (1964) productivity bias framework, we introduce the “international poverty line”...

This paper presents an overview of the current situations and reforms in China's telecommunications sector. It particularly focuses on the service areas. The main issues addressed in clude recent growth, organisational structure and reforms, key players and competition, ownership and growth...

Many factors influence students’ academic performance at university, including their prior academic ability, level of wealth and demographic traits. The characteristics of the secondary school attended by students also play an important role in influencing their university outcomes. This paper...

This paper presents the theoretical and empirical structure of WOOLMOD – a model of the world wool market which treats raw wool and wool products as heterogeneous commodities. The model divides the world wool market into ten geographical regions and production in each region amongst eight...

The conference series is a joint venture between the Economic Research Centre at the University of Western Australia and the Centre for Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University. The 2003 Conference, the sixteenth in this series, was held at UWA in Perth from 5-7 November.

Regret Theory postulates that choices may be influenced by the chooser's expectation that certain outcomes will be associated with an experience of regret (or, for positive outcomes, rejoicing), and a desire to avoid or experience these emotions. In a laboratory study (N = 50) of student...

A negative real interest rate has guaranteed macroeconomic equilibrium during every national emergency in the United States since the early 19th century, except the Great Depression in the 1930s when deflation interfered with the interest rate mechanism. During the Great Depression, the interest...

In the political economy model of Grossman and Helpman (1995), two incumbent governments attempt to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA), while special interest groups in each country influence negotiations by offering financial contributions to their governments. As a consequence, a set of...