Multiracialism and Meritocracy: Singapore's Approach to Race and Inequality

This paper characterizes Singapore's efforts to tackle the problem of persistent racial inequality in terms of the notion of fair meritocracy. Singapore's race policy attempts to level the playing field through its unique race-based self-help organizations and a comprehensive, racially integrated, public housing program. Individuals are then sorted by the ostensibly objective mechanism of a standardized test based educational system. The social and economic implications of this policy are examined and, using summary data from the 1980 and 1990 censuses, the extent to which Singapore has been successful in creating a fair multiracial meritocracy is assessed.     

Economic Aspects of the Foreign Student Question*

Foreign students comprise about 4 per cent of total student enrolments at Australian universities and colleges. The numbers of private overseas students in Australia are regulated by quota and by the imposition of a subsidized fee. Australian government policy towards overseas students has been discussed in two recent government reports which reach conflicting conclusions about desirable policy changes. This paper puts forward the arguments against which the economic aspects of these two reports can be judged, discussing the theoretical basis for regulation by fees and quotas and applying these considerations in the present A ustralian context. It is found that, despite some recent moves in the right direction, Australian policy towards foreign students and towards the use of tertiary education as a medium of foreign aid, is still short of ideal when judged on economic grounds.     

An Analysis of Occupational Outcomes for Indigenous and Asian Employees in Australia

This paper examines occupational performance in Australia across three racial groups in Australia: Indigenous Australians; Asian people, defined as all those whose language spoken at home was either Chinese, Vietnamese or other forms of a South-east or East Asian language; and white people, defined as the residual category. The paper has as its starting point, observed differences in occupational attainment among the three groups in Australia and sets out to account for these observed differences on the basis of both race and non-racial attributes such as, age, education and area of residence.     

Review Essay on Economics for the Common Good

The initial stage of labor market activity for young adults influences their labor market engagement and earnings profiles over their life cycle. I examine earnings inequality among young adults in a dynamic setting. Education, marital status, race are contributors to the observed earnings inequality. Earnings equalization is observed in the long run, and the proportion of earnings inequality attributed to education, marital status, and race is found to be significant.     

Inequality and the business cycle: evidence from U.S. survey data

ABSTRACT

We study the effects of macroeconomic shocks on measures of economic inequality obtained from U.S. survey data. To identify aggregate supply, aggregate demand, and monetary policy shocks, we estimate vector autoregressions and impose sign and zero restrictions on impulse response functions. We find that the effects of the macroeconomic shocks on inequality depend on the type of shock as well as on the measure of inequality considered. Contractionary monetary policy shocks increase expenditure and consumption inequality, whereas income and earnings inequality are less affected. Adverse aggregate supply and demand shocks increase income and earnings inequality, but reduce expenditure and consumption inequality. Our results suggest that different channels dominate in the transmission of the shocks. The earnings heterogeneity channel is consistent with the inequality dynamics after monetary policy shocks, but it appears to be less crucial when the economy is hit by either aggregate supply or aggregate demand shocks. Using variance decompositions, we find that although the macroeconomic shocks account for large shares of the variation in the macroeconomic variables, their contributions to the dynamics of the inequality measures are limited.     

Measuring Attitudes Towards Inequality

Individuals' attitudes to inequality aversion are measured using survey data, based on the leaky-bucket experiment, for several groups of students in Australia and Israel. Three forms of social welfare function are estimated. It is found that measures of inequality aversion can be obtained with some precision and that these estimates are substantially lower than the values typically used by those measuring inequality and examining optimal tax structures. Furthermore, a welfare function based on the Gini inequality measure is generally found to give a better fit than forms based on constant relative or constant absolute inequality aversion.
JEL Classification : C 91; D 63     

中国收入差距的走势和影响因素分析

中国收入差距在过去20年中持续扩大,对经济的持续增长、社会公正与稳定都提出了挑战。本文通过计量模型检验库兹涅茨曲线在中国是否存在,证明收入差距还有继续上升的明显趋势,但其下降阶段不能确证。同时模型分析发现有一系列因素对收入差距的扩大或缩小有重要影响。这包括经济增长方面的因素、收入再分配和社会保障、公共产品和基础设施,以及制度方面的因素。这说明有可能通过合理的政策调整来控制收入差距的继续扩大。文章讨论了这些发现的政策含义。     

Racial/ethnic match and student–teacher relationships

This paper explores the role of teacher race/ethnicity in the teacher-perceived relationships with kindergarten and early elementary school students. Employing a model with both student and teacher fixed effects, we discover a positive link between the racial/ethnic match and the teacher-reported relationships with students. Specifically, minority students tend to have closer relationships with their teachers when they are taught by a minority teacher. Our analyses also provide suggestive evidence that the effects on the teacher–student relationships could not be driven by differential racial discrimination between white and minority teachers. Particularly, white and minority teachers are not differentially biased in judging their relationships with minority students, implying that the source of the racial/ethnic interaction effects is likely to come from the role modeling of behaviors. Given the importance of the relationships between young children and nonparental adults in their early stages of life, these findings have crucial policy implications.     

The effect of commute time on racial earnings inequality: a case study of the Houston metropolitan statistical area

Data from the United States Census confirm a substantial increase in the racial earnings gap between 1980 and 1990. This paper examines data on whites and non-white wage and salary incomes in Houston TX for 1980 and 1990. Data on time travelled to work is used to simulate what would be the impact of shorter commute times on earnings inequality. The central finding is that a reduction in travel time from residence to work would cause a very small reduction in racial earnings and income inequality. This suggests that advances in urban transportation policy alone are not sufficient to solve the problem of racial earnings inequality.     

Inequality persistence through vertical vs. horizontal coalitions

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the observed high persistence of cross-country differences in inequality. It focuses on the interactions between inequality and the predominance of either horizontal coalitions (among individuals of similar economic status) or vertical ones (among individuals with different economic status). A model is proposed showing that the interactions between inequality and the type of coalition formed in a society can give rise to self-sustained social contracts where inequality persists. Key mechanisms of the model are illustrated using the transformation in inequality, redistribution and social relations in Modern England, as well as the “paternalist” system of the US South at the beginning of the XXth century.     

Energy and nanotechnologies: Priority areas for Australia's future

This paper explores the possibilities offered by the use of nanotechnologies to contribute to new and improved approaches to energy conversion, storage and distribution in Australia in the short term (less than 5 years), medium term (5–15 years) and long term (greater than 15 years). In 2007 the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) examined the potential for the application of nanotechnologies to future energy systems in Australia. Four workshops were held in major cities around Australia bringing ATSE Fellows and experts together for brainstorming sessions and a questionnaire was circulated more widely. These provided inputs on future energy needs in Australia and the critical areas to be considered in research and commercialisation of nanotechnologies in energy systems. Using a matrix approach a number of opportunities were identified as short term — energy conservation, environmental management, catalysts for combustion, photovoltaic cells; medium term — catalysts for conversion of biomass, gas and coal, fuel cells, advanced photovoltaics, capture and storage of carbon dioxide; and long term — hydrogen production, storage and use. These applications are discussed in the Australian context. The implications for government policy on support of the findings are discussed.     

Income Inequality in Australia in an International Comparative Perspective

Earlier comparative work on income distribution has tended to suggest that Australia is characterised by less income inequality than other industrialised economies. Concerns about the quality of the Australian data used in such comparisons have led to the need for more detailed assessment of the situation. The Luxembourg Income Study has been a focus for this work by bringing together microdata sets for a range of countries and reorganising them to conform to standardised concepts and definitions. This paper builds on earlier work undertaken as part of the Luxembourg Income Study by including Australia in an international comparative analysis of income distribution and redistribution. The Australian data are those from the 1981–82 Income and Housing Survey, with income tax imputed onto the data file. Results are presented for the gross and net income distributions between both families and individuals in seven countries. A common set of equivalence scales is also used to adjust for differing family needs. The results indicate that, using several summary measures of inequality, the distribution of income in Australia is less equal than in four of the other six countries studied. Earlier research which placed Australia high on the international league table of income equality is thus not confirmed by the results.     

Declining Strike Activity in Australia 1983–85: An International Phenomenon?*

The paper investigates the possible effect of Australian incomes policy on strike activity compared to other countries not adopting such a strategy. The chief issue is whether Australia experienced a more pronounced fall in strikes during the 1983–85 period of the Accord than a representative group of other countries. We also seek evidence for the proposition that there is a transmission of industrial restiveness between countries. The results are unambiguous: in an international context the Australian diminution of strike activities after the beginning of the Accord was most unusual, and there is no evidence of a general world-wide transmission of industrial disputation.     

Effects of monetary and government spending policy on economic inequality

Using detailed micro-level income and expenditure data, we study the effects of monetary and government spending policy shocks on income and expenditure inequality in the US from 1990 to 2018. We find that expansionary monetary and government spending policy shocks systematically decrease income, disposable income and expenditure inequality. There is evidence of time variation on the effects and monetary policy and transfer payment shocks. Various impulse responses suggest that the impacts of the policy shocks increase during and after the Great Recession. The responses of income and expenditures of households at different percentiles suggest that expansionary monetary and government spending policy have a larger positive impact on households with low income and expenditures relative to those at the top of the distribution. We do not find evidence of the significant impact of Quantitative Easing policies on income inequality, however, expenditure inequality appear to increase due to the policies.     

Australian Cars in a Global Economy

Lobbyists for car industry protection argue that Australia should delay reducing tariffs until trading partners have 'reciprocated', but in reality, trade liberalisation and import expansion have been increasing East Asian and global markets for competitive Australian suppliers of automotive products. This reality is one reason why the car industry is a success story of Australian reform, with quality improving, real value added rising and exports increasing strongly over the past decade, as protection has fallen rapidly.
The recent government decision to suspend the reduction in protection from 2000 to 2005, and over the five years taken as a whole greatly to reduce the rate of decline, is a symbol of a more general reform malaise in Australia.
The car manufacturers said that they would have 'accepted' larger reductions in protection in the context of more vigorous pursuit of efficiency-raising reform in other areas, notably in taxation. It is time for the government to take the industry at its word: to commit itself to replacement of more distorting indirect taxes by a value added tax; and to use this congenial context to restore momentum in the reduction of protection.     

The market integration of large and small economies: Australia,the U.S., and Japan

A cross spectral comparison of the major Australian business and inflation cycles with their American and Japanese equivalents indicates a close degree of price integration between Australian and American markets and a strong quantity integration of Australian and Japanese markets. These studies suggest the operation of an international monetary transmission channel linking the Australian and American economies and a foreign trade multiplier channel transmitting Japanese disturbances to the Australian economy. The policy implications of these different forms of market integration are discussed with the emphasis placed on Australian currency exchanges.     

Neighbourhood and Family Effects in Educational Progress

Increasing inequality in Australian cities has created the need for a deeper understanding of the interaction between spatial segmentation and economic outcomes. This paper offers a preliminary economic analysis of Australian neighbourhood externalities in the context of increasing segmentation. Theoretically, neighbourhoods can affect youths' economic out-comes through their effects on school quality, information flows, job networks, and demonstration effects. We utilise a new survey of 171 year 12 students in ten Melbourne high schools to examine the impact of individual, family, and neighbourhood characteristics on the decision to attend post-secondary education. It is shown that there exist neighbourhood externalities that affect human capital investment decisions. Finally, we offer some tentative implications for public policy.     

Policy,Demography, and Market Income Volatility: What Shaped Income Distribution and Inequality in Australia Between 2002 and 2016?

Isolating the impact of policy, demographic shifts, and market volatility on changes in income inequality is of great interest to policymakers. However, such estimation can be difficult due to the complex interactions and evolutions in the social and economic environment. Through an extended decomposition framework, this paper estimates the effect of four main components (policy, demography, market income and other factors) on the year-over-year changes in income inequality in Australia between 2002 and 2016. This was a period marked by substantial policy, population, and economic shifts due to factors such as the mining boom, the global financial crisis and increasing immigration. The framework also incorporates a flexible non-parametric market income model which captures demand-side shock better than a standard parametric model. Our results suggest that market income was the primary driver of income inequality for all segments of the income distribution in Australia over the past 15 years. Policy factors, moreover, have had the largest net impact on reducing inequality overall, especially for lower income earners.     

Rent-seeking bureaucracies, inequality, and growth

This paper develops a Schumpeterian growth model in which institutional quality matters for inequality and growth. In particular, asymmetric information between political authorities and rent-seeking bureaucratic agencies diverts resources from innovative activities – crucial for development to take off in middle and low income countries – and unnecessarily exacerbates income inequality. The theoretical predictions not only match empirical facts on inequality, institutional quality and growth well documented in the literature, but are easily assessed in two groups of Latin American and African countries, as shown in the final calibration analysis.     

Privatisation in Australia: Understanding the Incentives in Public and Private Firms

Privatisation has been an important tool of government policy in Australia and overseas in the last two decades. We explain recent contributions to research in privatisation, and apply a simple framework to ownership policy in a wide variety of Australian cases, including prisons, airports, Telstra, water and gas distribution, and ambulance services. The framework is not limited to these applications, and is aimed at providing a starting point for policy makers in their assessment of alternative ownership regimes. Our analysis is supportive of other authors, who have cast doubt on the wisdom of prison privatisation, and we extend this conclusion to ambulance services and the disposal of highly toxic waste. Application of our framework also suggests that Australian privatisations may have involved excessive separation of assets. The framework also provides a basis for arguing that a key monopoly component of Telstra—the 'wires' component—be kept in public ownership, and access auctioned to service providers. We consider the possible pitfalls of corporatisation policy, and argue that corporatised entities may operate to improve the appearance of success at the expense of the reality.