The quantity theory of money remains a cornerstone of modern macroeconomics that provides a benchmark for the long-run behaviour of macroeconomic models. The direct empirical evidence for it is, however, less conclusive than suggested by scatterplots and the exaggerated correlations between...

We present an evolutionary theory of long-term economic growth in which technological progress and population growth are driven by the population size and the innovative potential of the people in the population. We expand on current theory proposing that population growth is proportional to...

As human traits and preferences were shaped by natural selection, there is substantial potential for the use of evolutionary biology in economic analysis. In this paper, we review the extent to which evolutionary theory has been incorporated into economic research. We examine work in four areas:...

In the 1970s, work hours in Europe were similar to work hours in America, but today Europeans work less than Americans. Prescott (2004) attributes the decline in European work hours to an increase in the effective marginal tax rate on labour income. The Australian labour market experience...

Dynamic optimization is widely used in financial economics, macroeconomics and resource economics. This is accounting for some friction between the undergraduate and graduate teaching of economics because most undergraduate programs still concentrate on static economic analysis. This paper shows...

Dynamic optimization is widely used in financial economics, macroeconomics and resource economics. This is accounting for some tension between the undergraduate and graduate teaching of economics because most undergraduate programs still concentrate on static economic analysis. This paper shows...

During his honours research on an index of industrial production at the University of Western Australia, Salter gained an understanding of the composite commodity theorem. The applied work on the index of industrial production provided him with the analytic foundations for his two famous...

In early monetary systems the unit of account was separate from the medium of exchange. Commodity prices and prices of coins were quoted in terms of a fixed quantity of metal that was embodied by an 'index coin'. Coins circulated at their metal value because coinage was imperfect and fixed...

Contracts for future delivery of commodities spread from Mesopotamia to Hellenistic Egypt and the Roman world. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, contracts for future delivery continued to be used in the Byzantine Empire in the eastern Mediterranean and they survived in canon law in western...