In this paper I address the following questions. - Has the business cycle become longer and shallower? And why? - How stabilizing is monetary policy. In answering these questions I summarize recent research undertaken by Adrian Pagan and myself that formalizes the procedures developed by Burns...

This paper is concerned with the issues that arise in building a small Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model of the Australian economy. Our ultimate objective is to build a model that can be used to study long run economic growth and the business cycle. We agree with Cooley and...

The R word has begun to appear in the media again bringing with it three technical questions viz, How will we know we are in recession? How will we know when it has ended? And How can we forecast its onset and ending? This paper does not provide answers to these questions rather it focuses on...

The ultimate objective of this paper is to discuss the duration of business cycles and the related issue of the probability of recession. To reach that objective it is necessary to first agree on a definition of business cycles. It is also necessary to agree on how to define the key features of...

Recent events suggest that the death of the business cycle has been exaggerated; the issue of how one learns about and monitors the business cycle remains centre stage. Advent of the Euro and the potential for tensions when sovereign nations subsume their monetary policy into a single response...

Australia has experienced a varied track record on unemployment. For the third quarter of the 20th century unemployment averaged 2.0 per cent. This is bracketed by average unemployment rates of 8.6 and 7.4 per cent in the second and fourth quarter centuries. Explanations of this phenomenon vary....

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the Australian Industry Group / PricewaterhouseCoopers Performance of Manufacturing Index (Ai-PMI) as a tool for analysis. Particular interest focuses on the issue of how useful it is as an early signal of Australian business cycle turning points.

This note provides evidence of neglected seasonality in the "seasonally adjusted" Australian national accounts

This paper examines the prospects for Australia meeting the Governments target to bring unemployment down to 5 per cent by the year 2000. Particular attention is paid to the effect of the business cycle on unemployment.