Economic Papers最新文献

This paper investigates the transmission mechanisms through which geopolitical risk (GPR) shocks affect Federal Reserve (Fed) monetary policy, incorporating both conventional and unconventional policy tools. It introduces a structural model – the Macro-Monetary Geopolitical Risk (MM-GPR) model – that integrates New Keynesian features, such as nominal frictions and rational expectations. The findings indicate that GPR significantly impacts the economy, prompting corresponding responses from the Fed. Heightened geopolitical uncertainty leads to rising inflation, suppressing real economic activity by reducing consumption and investment, while increasing unemployment. Two monetary policy experiments simulate the Fed's expansionary and contractionary responses under GPR surges and reliefs. The results reveal that, whether GPR rises or subsides, the optimal monetary policy for the Fed remains expansionary. These findings offer crucial guidance for policy-makers in navigating monetary policy amid geopolitical uncertainty. This paper contributes to both theoretical and empirical macroeconomic and monetary policy modelling by incorporating GPR shocks into the monetary policy framework, addressing a key gap in existing structural models by including unconventional policy tools.

This article summarises the state of the economics discipline in Australia. It looks at who studies economics, the nature of the pipeline of economics graduates, the extent to which economic skills are rewarded by the labour market and indicators of economic literacy in society. It highlights the falling size and diversity of the economics student population and discusses its implications. In contrast to the current state of economics, it notes that a robust and inclusive discipline can raise economic literacy, shape the future of economic thought and practice, and improve the quality of both public discourse and public policy.

To reduce the rate of inflation, Margaret Thatcher followed a policy of tight money. Milton Friedman in reviewing this policy predicted that it would lead to a modest reduction in output and employment (that) will be a side effect of reducing inflation to single figures by 1982, Friedman (1980, p. 14, my emphasis). I call this prediction Friedman's flaw. Evidence available when Thatcher introduced this policy would have revealed Friedman's flaw-the cost could have been expected to be immodest. From various biographical and other accounts, I put forward several reasons to explain how Thatcher's ideology made her susceptible to Friedman's flaw. I propose a theory based on loss aversion to explain the costly nature of disinflation.

This study examines the impact of chief executive officer (CEO) gender on environmental, social and governance (ESG) controversies among publicly listed non-financial firms in the USA from 2018 to 2023. The results show that firms led by female CEOs experience significantly fewer ESG controversies. In addition, the findings reveal that the mitigating impact of female CEOs on ESG controversies is more pronounced in firms with a critical mass of women directors and a female voice in corporate boards, creating an optimal environment for ethical and socially responsible practices, thereby reducing ESG controversies.

While research has explored the connection between oil prices and macroeconomic performance, there is limited understanding of the interaction between overseas energy imports dependency and macroeconomic fluctuations. This work addresses the foregoing study using the augmented mean group (AMG) econometrics technique on panel data of 29 OECD net energy-importing countries from 2001 to 2021. The long-run finding unearthed that energy dependency intensifies macroeconomic instability, confirming that relying on overseas energy imports will hamper the smooth functioning of domestic economic machinery in the form of energy supply interruption. Besides energy dependency, this study uses government consumption spending, regulatory quality, and globalisation as control variables in macroeconomic instability function. The long-run outcomes further depict that government consumption spending and globalisation aggravate macroeconomic instability while regulatory quality reduces it. These findings are further checked by applying the pooled mean group-autoregressive distributed lag (PMG-ARDL) method. In conclusion, this study provides policy implications to prioritise domestically produced energy use and diversify energy sources by increasing the share of clean energy in the total energy mix.

Costs associated with running local airports are spurring some local governments to pursue alternative governance arrangements. Some regional councils are considering privatisation, with four having already gone down this path. Although some of these arrangements broadly follow those specified by the Airports Act 1996, other arrangements have led to fragmented processes and reduced public engagement in local communities. The study reveals that, while long-term leasing aims to alleviate the council's financial burden, it can negatively impact the broader public interest. The findings suggest the need for more transparent and adaptable governance models to ensure that regional airports serve both commercial interests and public needs.

This paper explores “price gouging” in oligopolistic industries. Drawing from Australian examples, it illustrates how determining who is responsible for market power-related inefficiencies—whether from consumer or producer behaviour—is fundamental to defining and identifying price gouging. I then discuss how recent competition policy reforms in Australia and global changes in data availability and artificial intelligence shape firms' willingness and ability to price gouge. I close by discussing the future role of government in enabling pro-competitive pricing in our increasingly digital economy through information aggregation and market design.

The central idea behind the attainment of green growth is to attain sustained long-run economic growth without producing any harm to the environment. Green patents and renewable energy consumption are crucial to attaining green growth. As a result, this paper investigates the role of green patents and renewable energy consumption in promoting green growth in forty African countries. Keeping the cross-sectional dependence and heteroscedasticity among the panel in mind, the study employs the Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) model to examine its empirical exercise. The results based on the PCSE model find that both variables positively affect green growth in Africa. Consequently, our findings emphasise the significance of promoting green patents and renewable energy consumption as key policy measures to drive sustainable, long-term growth and elevate green growth within the African region.

Western economies, including Australia, have benefited from several decades of extraordinary Chinese expansion. Yet, in recent years, slowing growth and demographic decline has diminished these gains, while geopolitical developments have further restricted growth-driving commerce. Our purpose is to review key sources of recent contractionary changes within China and to assess their likely consequences for the West. Modelling scenarios emerge that see future economic losses in China and abroad, with the worst affected group being China's own low-skill workers. Long-term losses in the West are smaller but pervasive, with Australia's economic welfare per capita impaired most. Short-term effects depend on China's monetary policy response, with a freeing up of China's exchange rate likely to minimise harm both in China and abroad.

This study aims to analyse the tax efforts of 17 non-special category states of India over the period of 2000–01 to 2020–21. The stochastic estimation of the tax frontier identified per capita income and urbanisation as dominating factors determining tax revenue across Indian states. The implementation of a Goods and Services Tax is estimated to increase tax revenue significantly, whereas the pandemic shock resulted in a deterioration of the tax revenue. In addition, the sampled states have collectively secured a tax effort score of 0.832, ranging from 0.62 (Goa) to 0.92 (Karnataka). The empirics showed that Goa and West Bengal were the laggard states in terms of tax effort. Among the determinants of tax efficiency (effort), the variates ‘outstanding liabilities’ and ‘fiscal devolution from central government’ are found to be adversely affecting, while ‘social expenditure’ is predicted to have a stimulating impact on tax effort.