Australian Economic Papers最新文献

{"title":"Hiding the elephant: The tragedy of COVID policy and its economist apologists","authors":"Gigi Foster,&nbsp;Paul Frijters","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8454.12293","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 1","pages":"106-144"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8454.12293","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140053146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introduction to special issue: The economics of catastrophes","authors":"Markus Brueckner","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8454.12333","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word &lt;i&gt;catastrophe&lt;/i&gt; can be traced back to the 1530s when its meaning was ‘reversal of what is expected’ (especially a fatal turning point in a drama, the winding up of the plot)—from Latin &lt;i&gt;catastropha&lt;/i&gt;, from Greek &lt;i&gt;katastrophē&lt;/i&gt; ‘an overturning; a sudden end’. In contemporary macroeconomic textbooks, the reader will be familiar with the term ‘adverse (or negative) shocks’. Adverse shocks are those events that are unpredictable, that is, cannot be forecasted, and that negatively affect GDP, or its components. Adverse shocks are probably what is most closely related to the etymological meaning of the word &lt;i&gt;catastrophe&lt;/i&gt;. This special issue, titled, ‘The Economics of Catastrophes’ brings together the work of leading scholars on the topic. It contains eight papers, five of which are specifically on the Australian economy. The following paragraphs provide a brief summary of each of the papers contained in the special issue.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;John Freebairn's paper, titled ‘Natural disasters and economic policy challenges’, evaluates the impacts of natural disasters on economic and policy decisions. Freebairn (&lt;span&gt;2024&lt;/span&gt;) proposes that while governmental subsidies for flood-affected households aim to provide immediate relief, such subsidies may inadvertently incentivise lower-income individuals to continue living in more disaster-prone regions—causing long-term negative societal impacts. Freebairn critically evaluates the role governments play in shaping the decisions of households and businesses when opting for locations prone to natural disasters. He deliberates on the provision of special financial subsidies to disaster-affected households and businesses, a decision often influenced by media and political pressures. Freebairn argues that subsidies for flood-affected households can unintentionally discourage individuals from relocating to safer areas while also reducing incentives for implementing disaster mitigation strategies. As a result of subsidies, the costs of future disaster events to society may increase while contributing to inequity over the long term. It is important to note that Freebairn's argument applies to subsidies that are granted in case of expected natural disasters: that is, to people living in areas which are well-known to have a non-zero probability of being struck by major floods.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;‘Catastrophe theory and economic modelling at the back of an envelope’ by Eduardo Pol (&lt;span&gt;2024&lt;/span&gt;) provides a detailed examination of the application of catastrophe theory (CT) in economic modelling. Pol outlines a step-by-step process of how to use CT in economic modelling. Pol addresses prior critiques of CT's limited relevance in economic modelling. He discusses how CT combines optimisation, comparative statics, and dynamics into a single mathematical tool and gives a systematic procedure for its application in economics.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The paper ‘How Australia's economy gained","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 1","pages":"1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8454.12333","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140053148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Income diversification patterns and their impact on bank risk","authors":"Parneet Kaur,&nbsp;Aanchal Bansal","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12339","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12339","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 4","pages":"570-593"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139950859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Housing affordability stress and mental health: The role of financial wellbeing","authors":"Ferdi Botha,&nbsp;Rebecca Bentley,&nbsp;Ang Li,&nbsp;Ilan Wiesel","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12340","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12340","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 3","pages":"473-492"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8454.12340","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139765324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ethnic diversity and homeownership","authors":"Sefa Awaworyi Churchill,&nbsp;Russell Smyth","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12336","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12336","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 3","pages":"449-472"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8454.12336","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139765228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does agricultural trade respond asymmetrically to oil price shocks? Evidence from New Zealand","authors":"Puneet Vatsa,&nbsp;Jungho Baek","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12338","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12338","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 4","pages":"553-569"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8454.12338","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139679417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effect of negative gearing and capital gains tax reform on home ownership","authors":"Michael Warlters","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12335","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12335","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 3","pages":"427-448"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Chinese trade sanctions against Australia: Quantifying the impact","authors":"Ron Wickes","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12332","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12332","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 2","pages":"220-236"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139599995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Environmental policies with the excess burden of public funds and privatisation","authors":"Doori Kim,&nbsp;Sang-Ho Lee","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12334","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12334","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study investigates the interaction of environmental policies with the shadow cost of public funds and the efficiency of green research and development (R&amp;D), while considering the presence of a public firm. In the policy combination of emission taxes and green R&amp;D subsidies, we find that it has an implementable region where the shadow cost is neither high nor low, but the green R&amp;D efficiency is high. We also demonstrate that the privatisation of public firms decreases the rates of both emission taxes and green R&amp;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&amp;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&amp;D efficiency are critical when privatising public firms.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 2","pages":"329-349"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139551786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cascade model for Australian housing","authors":"Gaurav Khemka,&nbsp;Yifu Tang,&nbsp;Geoffrey J. Warren","doi":"10.1111/1467-8454.12337","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8454.12337","url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":46169,"journal":{"name":"Australian Economic Papers","volume":"63 3","pages":"406-426"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8454.12337","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139552178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}