Australian Economic Review最新文献

Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, this article considers the longer-lasting economic impacts on the Australian workforce through a gender lens. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics data, it analyses changes in employment, earnings and educational participation relative to the pre-pandemic trends that were predicted to have otherwise occurred. Despite women's employment moving back towards pre-pandemic levels more rapidly than men's, the pandemic also saw a widening of the gender gap in earnings and a larger fall in women's educational participation. This paper highlights the need for ongoing monitoring of labour market indicators through a gender lens to inform more responsive policy design.

We present details of the design and implementation of the 2020–2021 JobKeeper program and review the literature on its impacts. JobKeeper stimulated the macroeconomy and restrained job loss in the downturn. But because the program was not narrowly targeted, the cost per job saved was high and the impact most likely regressive. However, it would not have been possible to devise and implement a more targeted program in the available time, and as it was, JobKeeper was arguably implemented later than needed for maximum effectiveness. We therefore recommend that Australia consider establishing a short-time work program for use in future recessions.

This article is aimed at undergraduate and graduate economics students, and public sector economists, who are interested in inequality measurement. It examines the use of the Atkinson inequality measure to compare income distributions. A major feature of this measure is that distributional value judgements are made explicit, via the use of a particular form of social welfare function. Emphasis is given to the interpretation of changes in inequality and the role of the relative inequality aversion parameter, which reflects an important feature of those value judgements.

Record levels of domestic and global stimulus during the COVID-19 pandemic years helped to mitigate largely unparalleled downside risks. Post-COVID-19, inflation surged in Australia due to overseas factors such as the war in Ukraine, and domestic factors such as COVID-related backlogs in the construction sector. To constrain inflation, the Reserve Bank shifted to a phase of aggressive monetary policy tightening in 2022. There are, however, cost of living ramifications associated with tighter monetary policy. Looking forward, there is significant uncertainty about the rate at which inflation will normalise, and the spending response of consumers to higher interest rates.

Many countries have initiated structural reforms in corporate income tax (CIT) to attract investment and promote growth. There has been a continuous decline in CIT rates worldwide. It is expected that cuts in CIT rates may increase after-tax profits and encourage investment. A change in the CIT rate may also be shifted backward (by changing salaries and wages) and/or forward (by changing product prices). These are theoretical possibilities and may not have support from empirical evidence. In this paper we review empirical studies to assess the impact of CIT rate changes on the economy.

We review a body of literature that addresses the incomes of visual artists and their participation in the labour market. It is clear that the level and composition of visual artists’ incomes varies widely, as does their engagement in different forms of employment. The lack of a consistent definition of an artist and a lack of consistency in income sources included in current data collection presents challenges for researchers. The focus of our research is on the economic status of visual artists in Australia, and we identify a number of considerations that might inform policy responses to their financial position.

We construct a provincial financial stability index, and use panel vector autoregression to construct a model for empirical testing. We find that local governments' reliance on land grant premiums amplifies the impact on financial stability. In addition, the relationship between the real estate market and the financial system allows real estate price fluctuations to significantly affect market participants, further impacting financial system stability. Finally, in the eastern region, land price fluctuations have a less adverse impact on financial stability, while in other regions, rising commodity real estate prices are the biggest threat to financial stability.

The relationship between housing quality and energy disadvantage over the long run is a complex interaction of growing interest. This work navigates through conceptual definitions and datasets to highlight gaps in monitoring and evaluating energy disadvantage, particularly the role of housing in perpetuating or mitigating energy disadvantage. We find that in Australia there is no agreed-upon definition or metrics for energy poverty or energy hardship, nor a panel or longitudinal housing stock energy efficiency dataset and discuss options for remediating this.

The Ukraine war has increased coal and gas prices during 2022. Consequently, spot prices in Australia's National Electricity Market rose from $75 to $225/MWh, year-on-year. Households are shielded from spot prices, but as energy retailer hedge contracts mature, they are replaced by higher cost contracts, and end-use retail tariffs will then rise. In this article, fuel poverty levels in Queensland are analysed. Model results forecast that fuel poverty rises from 6.8 per cent to 10.5 per cent of households. However, changes to energy concessions policy in 2016‒2017 materially enhanced horizontal and vertical efficiency, with successful targeting rising from 51 per cent to 69 per cent of vulnerable households.

In Australia there is limited understanding of the scale and nature of energy hardship or poverty. Energy poverty remains a concept with no clear definition and therefore no clear objectives, targets, metrics for data collection nor institutions to monitor and report on. Europe, in the last decade, has gone from limited public recognition of, and policy action on, energy poverty, to now having sophisticated quantitative measurement and monitoring tools, and institutional governance arrangements that promote transparency and accountability. In this paper, drawing on the European experience, we focus attention upon the measures and indicators of energy poverty and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. We propose institutional options for understanding and tackling these problems in the context of Australia's energy transition.