Skill and Australia’s Productivity Surge examines the changing demand for skills and the effect of increased skill on productivity growth. It finds that Australia’s productivity surge post 1993-94 was mainly due to factors other than the increase in the skill of the workforce.

Five waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), 1985-1989 including both wealth supplements, are used to construct an intertemporal budget constraint for selected single headed households. A new functional form of the dual consumer profit function rationalizing consumption, labor supply...