Australian Economic Papers最新文献

We examine the impact of neighbourhood ethnic diversity on homeownership using 19 waves of household panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. We find that ethnic diversity is associated with a lower probability of homeownership. Specifically, a movement from complete ethnic homogeneity to complete heterogeneity is associated with up to a 31.3 percentage point decrease in the probability of homeownership. Our results also show that trust, neighbourhood satisfaction and belongingness, which are lower in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, are important channels through which ethnic diversity operates to reduce the probability of homeownership. We suggest policies to promote trust in multicultural societies with high levels of ethnic diversity with a view to addressing the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and homeownership.

Do rising oil prices affect agricultural trade differently from falling oil prices? We answer this question using data on New Zealand, a net importer of oil and a net exporter of agricultural commodities. We consider a disaggregated approach, analysing exports and imports of five key commodity classes; nonlinear autoregressive lag models are employed to conduct the analysis. We find considerable evidence suggesting asymmetries in the effects of oil price shocks on agricultural trade in the long and the short run. Furthermore, in the long run, agricultural exports and imports appear to be largely insensitive to foreign and domestic real income, respectively; there is limited evidence for imports and exports being associated with the real effective exchange rate. In the short run, however, income and exchange rates are associated with imports and exports.

The article investigates the home ownership effects of abolishing deductions for negative gearing losses and halving the capital gains tax discount under Australian income tax laws. Home ownership evolves according to the balance of annual purchases and sales by owner-occupiers and investors. This transaction-based perspective on home ownership implies an important role for average holding periods, which determine the share of established homes sold each year. The tax change is estimated to increase the owner-occupied share of the private dwelling stock by 4.7%, of which 2.1 percentage points are attributable to shorter investor holding periods.

Australian exports of important goods have been hit by sanctions imposed by the Chinese Government in recent years. This paper seeks to estimate the losses to Australian exports from these sanctions. Commodities affected include coal, copper ores and concentrates, frozen beef, wine, cotton, barley, rough wood, rock lobster and hay. Based on declines in Australia's share of the import market for the sanctioned commodities, the paper finds that gross export losses to Australia in the China market rose from AU $3 billion in 2020 to AU $31 billion in 2022 at current prices. This differs appreciably from previous estimates. Net losses, which take into account the diversion of sanctioned trade to third country markets, are estimated, very approximately, at AU $11 billion in 2022 and at AU $20 billion over 2020–2022, at 2019 prices. Future losses in the China market will depend heavily on whether the recent improvement in relations between the Australian and Chinese Governments can be maintained. It will also depend on the intensity of US–China tensions since they will tend to shape Australian responses to issues of interest to China. Business commitments to new customers in third country markets, and assessments of the risk that the Chinese market will close again are likely to be among other factors.

This study investigates the interaction of environmental policies with the shadow cost of public funds and the efficiency of green research and development (R&D), while considering the presence of a public firm. In the policy combination of emission taxes and green R&D subsidies, we find that it has an implementable region where the shadow cost is neither high nor low, but the green R&D efficiency is high. We also demonstrate that the privatisation of public firms decreases the rates of both emission taxes and green R&D subsidies under a single policy regime. This increases (decreases) the implementable region of the policy combination of the emission tax (green subsidy) and is only implementable in the presence of a public firm. Finally, privatisation is shown to increase welfare when the shadow cost is lowest and green R&D is less efficient. These findings highlight that public ownership substitutes for environmental policies, while the shadow cost of public funds and the green R&D efficiency are critical when privatising public firms.

We design a ‘cascade model’ that integrates projections for Australian housing with inflation, incomes and asset markets over long horizons. The model allows simulating joint ‘paths’ for inflation, wages, cash rates, mortgage rates, rents, rental yields, house prices and fund returns. The cascade model structure ensures that equilibrium relationships are maintained between the variables when projecting over very long time periods. It achieves this through linking either growth rates or levels for variables in a manner that ensures consistent trends emerge within each simulated path over the very long-term, thus avoiding excessively divergent behaviour between variables with common underlying fundamentals.

Using a spatial econometric model, this study investigates the impact of international friendship cities on urban exports in China at the city level. The results demonstrate a significant spatial spillover effect of international friendship cities on China's urban exports, benefiting not only the local area but also the neighbouring cities. Mechanism tests indicate that international friendship cities foster export growth in both local and adjacent cities by accumulating international social capital. Additionally, we identify a spatial spillover interval (within 700 km) and a siphonic interval (beyond 800 km) in the effect of international friendship cities on the urban exports of surrounding cities. This study sheds light on the role of international friendship cities in driving urban export growth in China.

Achieving sustainable development targets requires major changes in the existing economic structure and a transition from a pollution-intensive energy system to a clean one. The role of the digital economy (DE) in this regard has received much attention in recent eras. However, there is little literature investigating the relationship between the DE and the energy transition in the presence of technological innovation. This study's aim, grounded in the sustainability agenda, is to explore the possible impact of DE and technological innovation on the energy transition for the BRICS nations from 2003 to 2021. Using the most recent Moments Quantile Regression method, the results reveal that the DE can contribute significantly to achieving SDG-7 by promoting energy transition. While technological innovation does not significantly influence the energy transition. Moreover, economic development is hindering the energy transition in the BRICS countries. Several alternative estimation methods have been applied to confirm the robustness of the results. The empirical results conclude that governments should build digital infrastructure and encourage innovation in the energy sector by supporting energy-related patents. The detailed policy implications are presented in the study.

Approaching by spatial regression method, this study examines the impact of fiscal decentralisation on economic growth in 63 provinces/cities of Vietnam in the period 2010–2020. Findings suggest that, in general, revenue decentralisation and expenditure decentralisation not only have a positive impact on the economic growth of provinces/cities but also have spillover effects on other locations in improving GRDP per capita. The above findings provide some important policy implications for improving fiscal decentralisation to promote economic growth in Vietnam.

This paper investigates whether and how fintech development is associated with environmental quality. A machine learning technique—the principal component analysis (PCA), is adopted to construct an index that measures fintech development. The two-step system generalised method of moments (GMM) addresses the potential endogeneity in the established nexus. Analysing a panel of 42 countries from 2012 to 2021, we found that fintech development can improve environmental quality by encouraging low-carbon energy consumption and mitigating anthropogenic polluting emissions. Our analysis further reveals that high-income inequality, a socioeconomic issue, counteracts the favourable features of fintech development on the environment. Our findings are robust across various additional analyses and environmental quality indicators. This study, therefore, contributes to the scarce but growing literature on the fintech-environment nexus.