Australian Economic Review最新文献

The slope of the Phillips curve has been shown to be flatter in recent years, including in Australia. How does this impact the optimal targeting window for a central bank conducting an average inflation targeting policy? This article shows that, in the face of the flattening of the Phillips curve, it is desirable to increase the targeting window. Doing so would lead to lower inflation fluctuations and to a non-trivial welfare gain. In a persistently higher-than-target inflation, high-interest-rate environment, this implies that the central bank should keep the nominal interest rate higher for longer.

Australia, like many other countries, experienced an unexpected surge in inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic. This has renewed interest in the Phillips curve because of its important implications for monetary policy. We estimate the price Phillips curve in the post-inflation targeting period using the most recent state-level data. Identification relies on variation in regional demand that policymakers do not aim to stabilize. After controlling for cost-push shocks and equilibrium unemployment, we obtain a modest slope of the Phillips curve and, more importantly, we do not find any steepening of the Phillips curve in the post-COVID period. Without correct identification, the post-COVID Phillips curve would be steeper as documented for other countries including the United States. We also find that the slope gradually decreases with the level of unemployment.

Recent decades have seen substantial increases in wealth inequality; this is particularly troubling given the high persistence of this inequality across generations. Yet, we have surprisingly little understanding of how and why wealth is transmitted across generations. Is this persistence driven by innate biological differences across families? Or is it driven by growing up in a different environment with access to different opportunities? In the 2024 Downing Public Lecture, Professor Sandra E. Black discusses the economics research that tries to answer this question, focusing on how one can disentangle the role of nature versus nurture.

In this article, I argue that shifts in the natural rate of interest provide important insights for the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC). The deviation of the real interest rate from the natural interest rate (interest rate gap) captures the monetary policy stance, which is important for the dynamics of inflation and the output gap in the wake of persistent and permanent variation in the natural rate of interest. I present the evolution of the estimates of the Taylor-rule consistent- natural interest rate, and thus the associated path of the expectations of future inflation via the Fisherian relationship. The path of these two variables has implications for estimation of the NKPC.

Since computer code has become elemental in current research it has become imperative that code should be written clearly and in good style. A program written in a clear, well-written style is easier to debug and is more useful to those who may want to replicate your work, extend it, speed it up or borrow from it. Clearly, written code is also a useful tool in the training of future researchers. In this paper, we suggest a set of style guidelines and we provide examples of how particular elements of code can be done using the statistical packages Stata, SAS and R. We also present recommendations for how to write code.

The past 40 years of Medicare have seen effective policy for reducing income-related inequities in healthcare use. In this article, we describe how past and current Medicare policies have shaped, and continue to shape, healthcare access for other priority populations—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and LGBTIQ+ populations. Drawing on empirical evidence, we also document the importance of structural-, place- and demographic-specific nuance when designing and implementing such policies. We conclude by offering recommendations on how Medicare can strive for better and more equitable access for these priority populations over the next 40 years and beyond.

With population ageing and increased longevity, Australia faces pressing policy issues on caring for older people. As Medicare turns 40, it is timely to assess how the system has been performing, and what changes are needed to modernise Medicare. This article examines the quality and efficiency of care using hospital administrative data. We find that the current system provides good quality and efficient care for older patients, except for those living in residential aged care homes. These patients receive lower quality care yet stay longer in hospitals. We suggest alternative approaches designed around bundled payments and a single budget holder to provide incentives for integrated team-based care.