The purpose of this paper is to use a large data set comprising individual’s responses to survey questions about future economic conditions, unemployment and prices to explore lay people’s models of the economy and specifically their understanding of the relationship between unemployment and...

In this paper we look at the way in which the ABS derives gross flows data from successive Labour Force Surveys. The procedure used by the ABS is described and a measure of the 'matching rate' obtained. We develop a simple theoretical model designed to explore the relationship between the Labour...

This paper investigates two related matters. First, what proportion of the population is represent by the matched sample (i.e. by the gross flows data) in the Labour Force Survey, why is this proportion what it is and why does it vary over time? Second, given that slightly over 20% of the...

This article explains how movements in the unemployment rate reflect the relative rates of growth of employment and the labour force and are related to the participation rate, labour productivity growth and output growth. A framework is provided in which to analyse the determinants of movements...

In this paper we examine the nature of disparities in regional (State) unemployment rates in Australia over the period 1978-1999 and their relationship to the national unemployment rate. As a measure of dispersion we use the sum of the (weighted) deviations of regional unemployment rates from...

It is common practice to examine empirical models in which one of the regressors is constructed as the weighted average or sum of a set of series that includes the dependent variable. Examples include models relating money and wealth, consumption and income and regional and national...

This paper has as its subject matter the behaviour of state unemployment rates over time. Arguments are presented which suggest that the common approach which entails regressing state or regional rate of unemployment on the national rate is not likely to yield much useful knowledge. As a...

Generations of students and the reading public have been taught: (a) that it was Thomas Carlyle who called economics (political economy as it was known) "the dismal science" and (b) that he did so as a reaction to the pessimistic predictions of Malthus in relation to population growth and its...

A time-varying Phillips curve was estimated as a means to examine the changing nature of the relationship between wage inflation and the unemployment rate in Australia. The implied time-varying equilibrium unemployment rate was generated and the analysis showed the important role played by...