Australian Economic Review最新文献

This article explores enhancement opportunities for Australian Government co-contributions to superannuation accounts. The article's empirical foundation includes the distributions for variables related to saving, investment and risk perceptions in the 2022 wave of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. As income or wealth increase, there are increases in the probabilities of individuals making additional superannuation contributions, having a saving horizon of at least five years, and being prepared to take more than average investment risks. Four policy changes are suggested in the article, with the potential for superannuation funds to independently implement some of these changes.

Using Bayesian Structural Time Series analysis, this study examines the causal impact of loan-to-value (LTV) restrictions imposed by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in October 2013. By incorporating state-space components, such as local linear trend, seasonality and regression, counterfactual values of house price indices are predicted. Surprisingly, the study reveals that the implementation of LTV restrictions had no significant effect on national house price indices, contradicting prior Central Bank studies that reported a nearly 3 percentage-point decrease in housing cost inflation. This contradictory evidence challenges existing perceptions of the effectiveness of LTV restrictions in curbing house price inflation.

Recognising the increasing accessibility and importance of patent data, the article underscores the need for standardised and transparent data analysis methods. We illustrate the construction and relevance of commonly used patent indicators derived from Google Patents Public Datasets. The indicators range from citation counts to more advanced metrics like patent text similarity. The BigQuery code is available in an open Kaggle notebook, explaining operational intricacies and potential data issues. By providing clear, adaptable queries and emphasising transparent methods, this article hopes to contribute to the standardisation and accessibility of patent analysis, offering a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners alike.

This article examines a new era of models predicting fertility decline reversal as female-to-male wages rise. Standard microeconomic frameworks and diagrams simplify theoretical concepts for students and policymakers. The analysis reveals how demand for children may increase when households substitute childcare for women's time. An income effect dominates when responsiveness of the input mix and preference for children are high. Challenging conventional assumptions unveils the importance of gender inequality at home, economies of scale in raising children, and market-determined childcare prices. The findings suggest that household taxation and preferences influence how childcare subsidies and paid maternity leave shape fertility upturn.

As the population increases, spending on publicly provided goods must also increase if there is congestion and governments want to maintain provision of the same level of benefit to everyone. This article estimates a parameter capturing this impact of congestion for the state and local component of the general government sector in Australia. It shows the congestion parameter is likely to be between 0.51 and 0.84 implying super congestion and/or decreasing returns to scale have dominated the supply of these goods. The per person cost of congestion has been rising and differs across states. Larger jurisdictions also have relatively higher per person congestion costs.

The economy grew at a moderate pace in 2022–23 as Australians adjusted to rising costs of living. The aggressive tightening of monetary policy has eased inflationary pressure, but inflation remains high. Strong labour market performance has been the brightest note in the current Australian macroeconomic landscape, although labour productivity growth was disappointing. The ongoing geopolitical conflict in Europe with its ensuing geoeconomic fragmentation, and the recent conflict in the Middle East increased global uncertainty and volatility in food and energy prices. This, together with the slowdown in China, added further downside risks to the outlook for the economy in 2023–24.

This article argues the importance of animal spirits throughout the economy in improving productivity performance. It overviews the idea of animal spirits and people's level of confidence in undertaking economic activity. It then notes a gap, a missing residual, in economists' efforts to understand productivity growth. Two well-documented measures indicating animal spirits are the levels of social trust and of corruption. Surveying the literature, the article shows both of these correlate with economic performance, and demonstrates they are correlated with each other. A case study of the impact of changes in corruption levels shows animal spirits can have significant effects.

Studies of the association between unpaid housework and wellbeing, especially for parents, has produced either negative or inconclusive results in previous studies. One potential oversight is that ‘housework’ often includes activities with a counteracting effect on mental health. By employing the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data set that differentiates ‘housework’ from more routine tasks included in the ‘errands’ variable I illustrate the difference in the pattern of how these variables are linked to parents' mental health. By identifying specific groups of unpaid tasks that are most detrimental to mental health, policymakers can prioritise these areas, ensuring that negative associations are not wrongly attributed to all housework activities.

The Australian economy has benefited from several decades of extraordinary Chinese expansion. Slowing growth has diminished these gains and geopolitics between China and western democracies has seen restricted commerce between China and Australia. We use a global economic model to assess the consequences were these tensions to restrict all associated commerce, yielding an Australian real GDP contraction of 6 per cent. A ‘bamboo curtain’, restricting all commerce between western democracies and all other regions, would see massive global losses, with Australia's economic welfare impaired most, while some short-run relief could stem from small-country monetary ‘free riding’.

Legislation designed for one purpose may have unrelated side effects. In this article we examine the impact of recent changes in the application of the sole purpose test for artworks to be used as assets in retirement funds on the Australian Aboriginal art market. This is important since art sales represent a significant source of non-government income for remote Australian Aboriginal communities. In this article we estimate the impact of this change and others on the price index based on the hammer prices paid for 13,555 works by 187 artists at art auctions from 1994 to 2019.