Australian Economic Papers最新文献

This study aims to investigate the repercussions of urban industrial land misallocation on green total factor productivity (GTFP) within the context of China's Yellow River Basin regions. Utilising data from 99 prefecture-level cities over the period from 2007 to 2020, the analysis reveals that the misallocation of urban industrial land exhibits regional variations and exerts a significant and persistent negative influence on GTFP, with notable regional disparities. Further analysis shows the mechanism of this effect is the obstacle to urban innovation due to industrial land misallocation. In addition, education expenditure plays a moderating role both directly and indirectly. These findings imply the need to continuously improve the performance evaluation and financial system of local governments, reduce government intervention, and make use of the market mechanism in the allocation of urban industrial land.

While international accreditations for tourist attractions have been extensively examined, the impact of nationally developed accreditations has been less systematically investigated. Employing the system generalised method of moments approach, this study investigates the relationship between 5A tourist attractions, based on China's accreditation system, and international tourist arrivals in China, using annual city-level panel data spanning from 2002 to 2017. The empirical results suggest that the 5A accreditation has a significantly positive effect on international tourists' arrivals. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the 5A accreditation has a substantial impact on the number of international tourists visiting lesser-known cities. Moreover, the study reveals that international tourists from different countries respond differently to cultural and natural sites. This research provides valuable insights into tourism development strategies for local governments and tourist attractions.

Housing mobility can provide welfare benefits to households who move to more suitable housing, while also enabling productivity gains through better matching of skills to jobs. Compared with other developed countries, Australians regularly move home, but rarely do so for work. Tenure security for private renters is low and in stark contrast to the United States, Australian renters are more likely to be forced to move by their landlord than choose to move for work. Reforms are recommended to level the playing field, by removing landlords' capacity to evict tenants without due cause and enabling greater entry of institutional investors into the housing market. Opportunities to reduce barriers to moving for owner–occupiers are identified: stamp duties could be replaced with less distortionary forms of taxation and exclusion of the family home in pension asset testing should be reviewed, as this exclusion discourages downsizing where doing so would reduce pension income.

Australia, like most developed countries, has promoted homeownership as an express housing policy goal for many decades. Domestically and internationally, recent years have seen growing efforts to enhance access to owner-occupation for prospective first home buyers (FHBs). FHB assistance takes many forms. Presenting a new typology of such measures, our multi-method study investigates current approaches in Australia and in seven high-income comparator countries. Australia stands out for its modern emphasis on demand-side assistance (e.g., grants and tax concessions), rather than supply-side measures (e.g., government-developed housing for low-cost sale). Lately, several Australian governments (federal and state) have diversified approaches to FHB assistance, particularly via shared equity and low-deposit mortgage schemes, taking cues from international practice. While more administratively demanding, these types of assistance are considered attractive because they require little outlay or operate on a ‘revolving fund’ basis, with government potentially sharing capital gains. However, they potentially place governments even more among housing's ‘insiders’, with a material interest in continually rising prices.

Upzoning and land-use reform are widely discussed as a way to improve housing supply and affordability. However, some literature contests this view and leads to apparent contradictions. We consider the theoretical frameworks and literature underpinning these divergent views in the hopes to establish mutual coherence, as well as questions for further research and the nascent but growing literature of empirical studies that could evaluate them.

This paper explores how state capacity in the sense of controlling tax evasion affects wage inequality through constructing several general equilibrium models. We analyse six types of redistribution in urban areas, and find that effect variations in urban wage inequality arise depending on the specific recipients of redistribution. Notably, under redistribution to urban unskilled labour, changes in wage inequality will depend on the capital intensity of the urban skilled sector when state capacity increases.

In 2020 and 2021, the world witnessed policies that caused enormous net damage to most countries. We demonstrate the usefulness of the new WELLBY currency in gauging the costs and benefits of COVID policies and review the contributions of Australian economists to the scholarly and public debates about these policies. Our analysis documents the value of what was destroyed, the weak resistance mounted by the Australian economics profession during this period, and the role played by many Australian economists as apologists for what we view as Australia's most catastrophic peacetime economic policy failure. We close with ideas for working towards a better future.

This study focuses on the crucial topic of income diversification and its implications for bank risk, using the context of India's public and private Sector banks. The research spans the years 2005–2021, investigating the influence of varying degrees of non-interest income on the risk profiles of Indian banks. Employing a program impact evaluation methodology, the study employs the generalised propensity score-fractional dose–response function technique to ascertain the impact of different levels of non-interest income on bank risk. The outcomes underscore the diverse effects of diversification contingent upon factors like bank size and ownership type, including large and small banks as well as public and private sector institutions. Notably, the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis introduced distinctive dynamics to income diversification's impact. By segmenting the study timeline into two periods—2005–2013 and 2014–2021—it emerges that income diversification lowered bank risk in the earlier period, while conversely amplifying risk in the latter phase. These insights bear significance as an early warning mechanism for bank executives, policymakers, and regulatory authorities, enabling them to navigate strategic transitions associated with non-interest income. Employing a novel approach, this research contributes to the literature by evaluating the interplay between income diversification and bank risk across diverse levels of non-interest income mix. In contrast to conventional econometric methods, the use of the generalised propensity score method stands out as a robust technique to mitigate confounding biases inherent in non-experimental inquiries.

Using data from wave 20 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, we provide a descriptive examination of the relationship between housing affordability stress (HAS) and a multi-item measure of financial wellbeing across tenure types and test whether good financial wellbeing is protective of the negative mental health effects of HAS. We find that HAS is associated with lower financial wellbeing and that this is differentially distributed by tenure, with renters who experience HAS reporting, on average, lower financial wellbeing than owners. This suggests that HAS, which focuses on income to define housing stress, is different to financial wellbeing. Being in control of finances and feeling financially secure are important components of the way in which financial hardship impacts mental health. Renters may be more likely to experience these issues than owners; hence, they fare worse in terms of their mental health when in HAS than owners do.