Casual Employment in Australia: A Further Analysis

Casual employment is steadily increasing its share of total employment in Australia. This paper analyses some of the factors that have led to this situation by extending the work of Simpson, Dawkins and Madden (1997). The results, while confirming some of their research and clarifying the role of union membership in limiting the spread of casual employment, also show that the determinants of casual employment in Australia are sensitive to the period of estimation and the form of model used.     

中英礼貌用语的比较

中美文化有异亦有同,这也体现在两种语言的使用者的礼貌用语程度上。着重讨论在日常交际中,中美两种不同文化的语用者使用礼貌用语的异同。     

A Vision for Australia: Indicators from Singapore

This article suggests that Australia could benefit from observing more closely Singapore's current development strategy. The production of labour intensive manufactures primarily by foreign firms and for export formed the core of Singapore's successful economic advance in the 1960s and 1970s. While a factor endowment strength—comparatively cheap labour—lay behind this achievement, the Singapore government actively supplemented this strength by creating a business environment highly favourable to the needs of foreign investors.
With full employment and rising wage levels since then, Singapore lost its comparative advantage in the production of low wage manufactures to other East Asian countries. Recently, its development has been based more on created than inherited advantages. The Singapore government argues that the resources crucial to sustained per capita income advance in middle and higher income countries are not natural resources but rather information, technology, investible funds, research and development (R&D) spending and professional people. Singapore aims to develop its business environment to attract such resources to Singapore.
The government's vision for Singapore is a nation where the share of professional and highly skilled manpower in the workforce rises over time. This employment goal informs the government's approach to all policy matters: infrastructure development, education, urban development, microeconomic reform, taxation, fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy, support for manufacturing and service activities, and attitudes to foreign investors.
By comparison with Australia, Singapore has a very level playing field. The government sees no conflict between intervening to attempt to create competitive advantage while vigorously pursuing microeconomic reforms to make the playing field in Singapore still more level.     

澳大利亚主要银行和地区银行 所有权变更与绩效关系的比较分析

本文旨在澄清私有银行、私有化银行与国有银行之间在绩效方面所存在的一些疑惑。换言之,本文力图阐明银行所有权形式与其经营绩效之间的关系问题。在本文的分析过程中,我们考察私有化改革的一些具体情况,如私有化所经历的阶段及其所面临的经济状况等等。本文的研究运用时序-截面数据建立了所有权-绩效模型,并将其用于考察所有权变更对绩效所产生的影响;同时,还提出了改善银行绩效的可供选择的具体路径。实证检验表明:澳大利亚地区银行通过所有权变更可以改善经营绩效,而主要银行在所有权转型后虽然提升了竞争力,但其经营绩效并未得到显著提高。     

Comparative Analysis of Ownership Transformation and Performance Relationship among Major and Regional Banks in Australia

This article attempts to clarify existing doubts with respect to the performance of private and privatised banks versus public banks; that is, it is an attempt to clarify the ownership–performance relationship. The analysis takes explicit account of the privatisation transformation, including its intermediary stage, and the status of the economy. The ownership–performance model is estimated using cross‐sectional time‐series data and is used to test the influence of ownership changes on performance. Alternative performance measures are considered. The empirical findings show that ownership transformation in the case of regional banks has resulted in improved performance, whilst the benefits in the case of major banks were not significant, even though these banks have become more competitive.     

Smooth and Sticky Adjustment: A Comparative Analysis of the US and UK

This paper adopts the methodology of the microeconometric labor literature to analyze a common assertion from trade economists that reallocation within sectors is less costly than between sectors. Findings are compared across two countries (the UK and US) which have experienced very different recent aggregate unemployment experiences. Workers previously employed in "declining" sectors are more mobile than those employed in 'expanding' sectors in both countries, and individuals are more likely to switch sector the longer they are unemployed. A plausible explanation for this is that individuals initially attempt to find jobs that complement their general and specific skills in order to accrue the associated rewards, and move sector only as this prospect diminishes. This would seem to accord with the 'smooth adjustment hypothesis' which proposes that intraindustry adjustments are less costly than interindustry ones.     

浅析泰国农业的转基因技术

本文从泰国传统农业经济出发,比较全面地介绍了泰国农业转基因技术的发展过程、研发现状,以及泰国转基因农作物的商业化的政策限制。同时,探讨了农业转基因技术的国际潮流。     

澳大利亚法务会计准则的解析、启示与反思

法务会计是与一项与司法公正相关的服务,因而需要准则规范法务会计服务行为.按照这个逻辑,我们可以比较合理地解释法务会计准则存在的必要性.与此同时,实务监督部门的努力印证了该思想的可行性,如美国注册会计师协会(AICPA)在其多个指导性文件中涉及法律服务的内容规定;加拿大注册会计师协会(CICA)在其法务会计准则讨论稿也作出了类似的规定;在我国,2009年10月由中注协发布的<中国注册会计师职业道德规范>也对会员提供诉讼服务的行为规范做出规定.澳大利亚法务会计准则是其中的典型代表,与其他国家相比,澳大利亚法务会计最为显著的特点在于它形成了内在统一的、具有职业道德性质的行为准则,与其他国家零散于多项准则的做法不同.     

Aggregation of Utility and Equivalence Scales: A Solution to the Pangloss Critique

Definitions of equivalence scales are usually based on a household utility function. This may be founded on an assumption of the household maximizing a welfare function of individual utilities. Basing inter-household comparisons of welfare on this approach is fallacious because households put different weight on the utility of the various household members, a weighting that does not necessarily correspond to an ethically sound aggregation of utility. This is called the Pangloss critique. To solve the problem, I suggest keeping the model of household behavior, but to introduce a new function to aggregate the household members' utilities. Equivalence scales based on this approach are shown to have desirable properties.     

Potential Growth and Inflation: Estimates for Australia, the United States and Canada

Estimates of potential output growth for Australia, the United States and Canada are presented and analysed in this article. We define potential growth as that growth rate consistent with a steady (domestic component of the) inflation rate (SIRG). At around 4 per cent per annum, Australia's SIRG has been relatively stable for the past 30 years, which seems inconsistent with the view that wide‐ranging microeconomic reform in the 1990s raised growth potential. However, we show that the reduction in employment growth in Australia from the 1980s to the 1990s may account for the absence of a rise in potential growth. In Canada and the United States the SIRGs are closer to 3 per cent, and we explore the reasons why potential growth estimates are higher for Australia than for North America. We also discuss why Australia's growth averaged less than its potential in the 1980s and 1990s and the possible use of our estimates for monetary policy purposes.     

Time Scales,Wavelet Realized Volatility and Jump Variation: An Empirical Investigation for India

Journal of Quantitative Economics - In this paper we empirically implement concept of wavelet realized volatility with recent advances in wavelet shrinkage literature and try to provide robust...     

汇率预测的神经网络方法及其比较

浮动汇率兴起以来,大量的参数方法和非参数方法被用于汇率预测,神经网络是其中的一种.神经网络方法在汇率预测中的应用有三种不同的方法:同质神经网络模型、异质神经网络模型和神经网络组合模型.本文讨论了三种神经网络预测模型的特点以及局限性,并通过时这三种方法的比较得出结论:神经网络组合模型充分考虑了汇率的线性特征和非线性特征,比同质神经网络和异质神经网络预测模型更系统、更全面,能更好地进行汇率预测.     

Changes in Indirect Taxes in Australia: A Dynamic General Equilibrium Analysis

Over the last thirty years, the effects of indirect taxation changes have been analysed using comparative static general equilibrium models. We use a new method to analyse current changes in Australia's indirect taxes: dynamic computable general equilibrium modelling. Comparative static methods compare the situation in a given year (usually unspecified) with and without a policy change. The dynamic method shows the effects of a policy change through time. Comparative static methods are usually restricted to estimates of long-run changes in allocative efficiency. The dynamic method provides information not only on efficiency but also on adjustment processes, including variations in employment. With our dynamic method, the effects of policy changes are analysed as deviations from explicit forecasts. We find that these forecasts are important for the policy results. For Australia's current set of indirect tax changes, our main conclusions are (i) the short-run employment effects depend critically on the wage response; (ii) merchandise exporters benefit but tourism is harmed; and (iii) the long-run welfare effectsare likely to be negative, reflecting a decline in the terms of trade and increased compliance costs.     

Household Composition, Equivalence Scales and the Reliability of Income Distributions: Some Evidence for Indigenous and Other Australians

Indigenous families experience substantial and multiple forms of economic burden arising from the size and structure of their families and households. Indigenous households are more likely to have more than one family in residence than other Australian households and are more likely to be multigenerational with older Indigenous people living with younger people in extended family households. This paper seeks to characterise the economies of household size in Indigenous and other Australian households using equivalence scales that cover the range of feasible values and 1995 National Health Survey data.