In this paper we develop a small open economy, overlapping generations (OLG) model that incorporates non-stationary demographic transition paths to study the dynamic fiscal effects of demographic shift in Australia. Our main results are summarised as follows. First, the demographic shifts...

In a number of high-income countries over the past few decades there has been a large growth in income inequality and at the same time a shift in the burden of taxation from the top to the middle of the income distribution. This paper applies the theory of optimal piecewise linear taxation to...

Discussion around total factor productivity gains for the Australian Economy often focuses on infrastructure bottlenecks, technology adoption, competition and labour market flexibility. Although a potential area for gains, management is typically omitted from the public policy debate because it...

Has access to selective post-secondary schools expanded or contracted? Evaluating this question has proven a difficult task due to limited data and biased measures of family income. We complement previous work and provide a replicable model of institutional analysis. This paper presents a...

Should special pension provisions be offered to workers in harsh occupations? We address this question in an optimal tax setting where individuals differ in longevity and occupation. Longevity is private information but workers in harsh occupations have on average shorter lifes than workers in...

We discuss selected research contributions of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research, to fifty years of welfare policy for those of work force age and focus particularly on the policy focus of R. F. Henderson, the inaugural director. Following the spirit of his 1960s...

We examine the effect of single-sex classes on the pass rates, grades, and course choices of students in a coeducational university. We randomly assign students to all-female, all-male, and coed classes and, therefore, get around the selection issues present in other studies on single-sex...

Most developed countries have experienced rising wage inequality and falling wage shares, which are often blamed on the same forces - globalisation, technical change, and weakening labour market institutions. This paper shows, however, that wage inequality has risen the most in those countries...

In 2009 the Australian government delivered approximately $8 billion in direct payments to households. These payments were preannounced and randomly allocated to households based on postal codes over a 5-week period. We exploit this random allocation to estimate the causal response of...

The Fukushima disaster has lead the French government to release novel cost information relative to its nuclear electricity program allowing us to compute a levelized cost. We identify a modest escalation of capital cost and a larger than expected operational cost. Under the best scenario, the...