We examine two important aspects of Australia’s terms of trade using 135 years of annual data up to 2003/04. Since Australia predominantly exports commodities and imports manufactures, the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis suggests that there should be a negative trend in the terms of trade. But the...

The early 21st century saw Australia experience its largest and longest terms of trade boom. This paper places this recent boom in a long-run historical context by comparing the current episode with earlier cycles. While similarities exist across most episodes, current macroeconomic policy...