An Estimated Australian Macroeconomic Misery Index

The degree of community satisfaction with alternative macroeconomic outcomes is of considerable interest to policy makers. Ad hoc measures of community macroeconomic welfare, so-called Misery Indexes, are commonly used as proxies of such welfare These indexes are very rudimentary and make implicit restrictive assumptions about the community's marginal rates of substitution among different macroeconomic outcomes. The current paper demonstrates a framework for statistically estimating the relative responsiveness of community welfare to such variables as unemployment, inflation, interest rates, real wages and measures of Australia's external performance. Morgan Gallup Poll data are used to proxy levels of community (dis)satisfaction .     

The Impact of International Trade and Protection on Australian Manufacturing Employment

The labour market consequences of trade and protection have only recently come under the scrutiny of labour economists. This paper seeks to accomplish two things - to survey the recent research and to provide estimates of the effect that reductions in effective rates of assistance afforded to Australia's manufacturing industries have had on employment. Recent labour market developments reveal a downward trend in manufacturing employment levels. The declines appear to have been associated with lower levels of assistance. However, the estimates of the effect of lower levels of protection are generally small - about a one per cent reduction in employment for each ten per cent reduction in the effective rate of industry assistance. In addition, the manufacturing employment developments appear to be only weakly linked to real wage resistance. Overall, an overriding impression from the find ings presented in this paper is the strength of the structural adjustments ongoing in Australia     

The Pattern and Determinants of Intra-Industry Trade in Australian Manufacturing

This paper presents the pattern and determinants of intra-industry trade (IIT) in Australian manufacturing since the late 1970s. The results point to a sharp rise in IIT from the mid 1980s which appears to be linked with an outward-oriented policy. Industry-level analysis indicates that industries which experienced a sharp fall in protection are the industries with the higher levels of IIT. These include textiles, garments, rubber products, and machinery and equipment. An increasing trend in IIT suggests that the short-term adjustment costs associated with trade liberalisation are likely to be lower, and that liberalisation can proceed without huge short-term adjustment costs. Using a logit model the determinants of IIT are investigated. Results indicate that IIT is positively related to product differentiation and scale economies, and negatively related to the levels of protection and foreign ownership in the pre-liberalisation period. In the post-liberalisation period, however, scale economies explain the inter-industry variations in IIT. R&D intensity and close economic integration appear to have no impact on IIT regardless of the nature of the policy regime.     

Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth: Time-Series Evidence from Australian Manufacturing

This paper uses historical annual data for 27 years from 1968-69 on eight two-digit ANZSIC industries to assess the impact of the changes in industry assistance on economic efficiency. The empirical analysis shows that a 1 per cent decline in the nominal rate of assistance leads to between O.J 8 and 056 per cent gain in total factor productivity, the latter our measure of economic efficiency. This finding has strong policy implications for the future of tariff reform in the manufacturing sector.     

Technological Change in Australian Manufacturing

In the modern era, the extent and character of technical change features prominently in discussions of productivity growth and movements in the competitiveness of manufacturing. While technical change is pervasive in modern manufacturing, it occurs unevenly. In this study, technical change is estimated by fitting dual cost functions for each of 38 sectors of Australian manufacturing over the 32 year period, 1968–69 to 1999–2000. The estimates show that technical change is heavily labour-saving in all industries, but that the overall rate of change, as measured by a rate of cost diminution, and the degree of bias towards saving labour, rather than capital or material, varies substantially across industries.     

企业业绩评价指标的创新研究

传统企业业绩评价指标难以适应现代企业管理的要求,需要进行变革创新。推广应用经济增加值指标是中国企业适应全球经济一体化和信息技术不断发展的必然趋势。     

Manufacturing and the Trade Balance

When the world shifted to the regime of flexible exchange rates after 1970, economists expected that large trade imbalances would soon disappear. Instead, such imbalances not only persisted but soared in the 1980s and 1990s, in spite of significant changes in important currencies such as the yen, the mark and the dollar. This paper reports that manufacturing importers tend to suffer trade deficits whereas exporters of manufacturing products tend to enjoy trade surpluses. The reason lies in the higher rates of productivity growth experienced by exporters of manufactures.     

The Cost of Monopoly in Australian Manufacturing

This article looks at the deadweight loss arising from monopoly elements in Australian manufacturing under various assumptions and its relationship with the level of concentration.     

The Determinants of Firm Profitability in Australian Manufacturing

This study provides new evidence on the determinants of the profitability of Australian manufacturing firms by analyzing a unique firm-level data set of firm performance over the period 1984-93. The panel nature of the data permits the estimation of dynamic profitability models over the business cycle, to test both the persistence and cyclicality of firm profitability. Econometric results suggest that lagged profitability is a significant determinant of current profit margins, and that industry concentration is positively related to firm profit margins. Also, profit margins are found to be procyciical in concentrated industries but counter-cyclical in less concentrated industries.     

Fiscal Illusion at the Local Level: An Empirical Test Using Australian Municipal Data

This paper seeks to extend the literature on the empirical analysis of fiscal illusion in two ways. First, it provides a simultaneous test of four specific hypotheses subsumed under fiscal illusion, namely the revenue-complexity, renter illusion, debt illusion and flypaper models. and second, it adds evidence drawn from the Australian institutional milieu to existing empirical work which has an overwhelming North American focus. Using 1991 data from 46 local government authorities in Tasmania, the results suggest significant support for revenue-complexity, debt illusion, and the degree of indirectness of the revenue system.     

A Regional Analysis of Technical Change in Australian Manufacturing

Manufacturing is an important sector to many Australian regional areas. Technical change is important to the economic performance of manufacturing and improvements in competitive advantage. In this paper, technical change in manufacturing is estimated for each of the Australian States using a cointegration framework, for the period 1954–55 to 1995–96. Regional differences in technical change are identified.     

论商业秘密的国际保护

伴随着Trips等一系列国际公约的订立,商业秘密的国际保护趋势愈加明显,但由于各国国内商业秘密立法与国际公约标准的差异,商业秘密保护的国际趋势中面临着众多问题.中国的商业秘密立法需要注意与国际标准接轨,并在立足国情的基础上进行一系列的革新.     

Adjustment of Profits: Evidence from Australian Manufacturing

Studies of industry profitability generally deal with long-run equilibrium models, making no allowance for slow adjustment to equilibrium. In this study, a cross-sectional analysis is carried out against a sample of Australian manufacturing industries at the Australian Standard Industrial Classification (ASIC) four-digit level between 1977–78 and 1984–85. Firstly, a profit model is estimated in equilibrium form as well as allowing for both uniform and variable adjustment rates across industries. The variable adjustment model is superior, with either model implying at least half adjustment to equilibrium within the seven-year sample period. Secondly, results are examined for the impact of firm homogeneity of firms within industries. Homogeneity of firms is found to have substantial impact,increasing both the estimated profits-concentration relationship and the estimated speed of adjustment.     

Cyclical and Competitive Influences on Pricing in Australian Manufacturing

Dynamic pricing equations are estimated using an error correction model, with data on a panel of 89 Australian manufacturing industries for the 14 years, 1971172 through 1984/85. The overall pattern is consistent with prices approximately following a fixed mark-up rule in low concentration industries, while the mark-up factor in high concentration industries is strongly pro-cyclical. Also, in high concentration industries that are heavily exposed to import competition, the mark-up factor increases with prices of foreign competing products and with the general price level for domestic manufactures.     

The Duration of Industrial Disputes in Australian Mining and Manufacturing

Using a unique dispute-level database of industrial action in Australian mining and manufacturing industries, this paper investigates the determinants of the duration of industrial action. For the first time in the Australian literature, the duration of individual disputes is analysed within a hazard function framework that estimates conditional settlement probabilities over the duration of the dispute. Further, the analysis is conducted for both strikes and non-strike forms of industrial action such as bans on working overtime. A range of parametric and semi-parametric specifications are estimated in order to determine the sensitivity of the results to alternative econometric techniques. The duration of both strikes and work bans are found to be affected by a range of factors, including the state of the labour market, industry characteristics, past union experiences and the cause of the dispute. The conditional settlement rate of both strikes and bans are found to be upward sloping, implying that the longer that a dispute has already lasted, the more likely that it is to end. However, failing to control for unobserved heterogeneity results in bias toward declining conditional settlement rates.     

沪深300股指期货仿真交易价格风险实证研究

基于拓展股指期货无套利区间定价模型对沪深300股指期货仿真交易定价进行的实证检验,以及对两岸三地同品种、同时段的股指期货进行的比较分析,发现沪深300股指期货仿真交易存在较严重的实际价格与无套利价格背离现象.虚拟资金、无风险套利机制缺失和股票现货大牛市等,是价格背离的重要原因.