Australian Macroeconomic Policy Experience*

This paper looks at Australian macroeconomic experience from approximately 1912 to 1985. The whole period is divided into five episodes. The idea in preparing this paper was to try to answer three questions namely: how did Australian experience differ from that of other OECD countries, what policy lessons could be learnt, and finally, what light could be shed on the relevance of various macroeconomic theories notably rational expectations. In fact. the questions have by no means been adequately answered though the paper goes furthest in dealing with the first question. I hope it will encourage further discussion and research¹ Anticipating some of the conclusions, the historical review suggests that Australian experiences have been fairly similar to those of other OECD countries. notably European countries. But the timing has sometimes differed the Australian wages explosions have been (more or less) exceptional and recently Australia has been special in having on incomes policy, It also appears that the theory of rational expectations does not get much support from Australian was behaviour, that policy from 1916 to 1981 was not really monetarist, and that fiscal expansions since 1982 have been made possible by the availability of the international capital market.     

Australian Monetary Policy: Recent Experience and Some Current Issues

This article surveys Australia's recent monetary experience highlighting current problems in interpreting the stance of monetary policy. It then examines changes in the techniques of monetary policy stemming from deregulation and changing views of the authorities. Finally, money supply control, deregulation and broad money growth, and commercial bill financing are analysed so as to help to shed light on the current problems of interpreting monetary condition.     

The Macroeconomic Implications of Current Fiscal Policy

Exchange rate changes and intertemporal consumption responses suggest that the short-run impact of current fiscal policy on aggregate demand will be small. However, cuts to public expenditure may have undesirable long-term consequences.     

货币政策方略：来自金融危机的教训

直至2007年8月．货币经济学理论和实证研究上的进展已经使经济学家和政策制定者认定当前存在着一门明晰的“货币政策科学”。中央银行就货币政策方略的绝大部分要素达成了一致,同时货币政策被认为在OECD国家取得了巨大成功：后者不仅保持着低通膨,而且通胀波动率也很低。此外,这些国家的产出波动率也下降了,而自20世纪80年代初以来的时期更被冠以“大缓和（Great Moderation）”的称号。货币经济学家和中央银行家都自我感觉相当良好。     

宏观经济政策效果的决定因素

财政政策与货币政策是用于减轻宏观经济运行波动的主要政策手段。宏观经济政策效果,取决于诸多因素,比如健全的（金融）市场体系,明晰的产权。其他条件不变,（金融）市场体系越健全,产权关系越明晰,宏观经济政策效果就越好。     

Lessons for Development from the Japanese Experience

Economic class, defined in relation to its actual control over the economy’s productive assets, is the most useful lens for examining power distribution in the post-Soviet transition and clarifying the neoliberal nature of its social provisioning processes. Using Ukraine as an illustration, I argue that only ownership empowerment of economically powerless classes can democratize the oligarchic transition economies. As an exit strategy from oligarchic capitalism, I recommend that state capitalism be implemented, as a transitory condition only, to divest oligarchs of unlawfully acquired economic power. Then, progressive restructuring of oligarchic companies must be conducted through broadening property ownership to include shared ownership and worker participation in economic decisions. I conclude that only by nurturing the democratic fundamentals of the economy and promoting a social democratic welfare state could a government in post-Euromaidan Ukraine initiate its own social control and create a genuine political and economic democracy.     

The Impact of the Welfare State and Social Policy on the Working Population: The Recent British Experience

This paper focuses on financing the welfare state expenditures in the UK. It offers a comprehensive analysis of social expenditures and taxes paid by the working population families, and an estimation of the net benefits received by them. While the subsequent analysis of the welfare state and its development primarily concentrates on the British experience, it has a broader application to other OECD countries. The UK as the most egalitarian “liberal market economy,” offers an interesting case for the study of the interaction between the welfare state expansion and economic growth. In terms of her capitalist economic structure, (interaction between market and economy) she is relatively closer to the USA and other Angelo-Saxon (liberal market) economies. In terms of her level of social expenditures, she is much closer to the European “social market economies” than the USA and other more egalitarian “liberal market economies.”     

Modelling International Policy Games: Lessons from European Monetary Coordination

Most international monetary policy games are modelled as prisoners' dilemma games. Political scientists suggest however that other game-theoretic structures (chicken, stag-hunt and deadlock games) could be more appropriate to describe international monetary coordination. This paper provides some empirical evidence on this issue, by studying the case of European monetary coordination from 1979 to 1989. First, central banks' and governments' preferences are revealed through an analysis of their actual behaviour. Then, the dynamic game describing policymakers' interactions is simulated under alternative institutional arrangements: coordination, defection, sub-group coalitions, etc. The main conclusion is that the stylised facts derived from those experiments seem not to be consistent with the implications of the prisoners' dilemma framework. Consistency is instead found with the features of a stag-hunt game. CEPR and FEEM This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

宏观调控的有效性与货币政策作用

宏观调控应该瞄准常态增长率。由于劳动力市场可以在较长时期内处于低工资水平，所以中国可以创造出较高的经济增长率。货币政策除了具有通货膨胀效应之处，还具有产出效应，从而使得货币政策能够发挥宏观调控的巨大作用，有利于经济的高速增长和城市化的加速发展。     

Surveying Mobile Populations: Lessons from Recent Longitudinal Surveys of Indigenous Australians

Geographically mobile populations are notoriously difficult to survey, especially in a cross–cultural context. In broad terms, it is difficult to ensure that respondents are representative of the underlying population, can be relocated, and that data obtained are relevant to them. At a practical level, the problem can be as basic as not having any well–formed notion of what defines a household. Consequently, the resulting analysis of households is at best imprecise and, at worst, conceptually confused. This article documents the lessons for the design and conduct of longitudinal data collection from three recent surveys of an exceptionally mobile population, Indigenous Australians. There appears to be a trade–off between cultural relevance, data quality, response rates and survey costs. The use of Indigenous interviewers does not, in itself, guarantee that response rates will be acceptable.     

The Cultural Dimension of Technology Management: Lessons from the History of the Automobile

This article criticizes traditional innovation strategies for focusing too one-sidedly on technological matters. By applying the concept of 'cultural ambience', the authors attempt to show that new technologies stand a larger chance of being introduced on a large scale if, on the one hand, they can be made to fit into existing organizational networks and legal structures and, on the other hand, they are compatible with firmly established routines and perceptions. Regardless of the degree of novelty aimed at, engineers and managers have to pay attention to non-technical factors. Technology management is always cultural management. The thesis of the article is supported by brief narrative analyses of four so-called alternative automobile projects: the NSU rotary-engine car, GM's EV1, a Norwegian electric vehicle and the recently launched Smart car.     

可借鉴的日本水资源管理

我国现在面临着严峻的水危机,正在以历史上最稀缺的水资源和最脆弱的水环境支撑着最大规模的人口和经济发展。人均淡水资源量仅为2200m^3,不足世界平均水平的1／4。今年西南五省又出现百年未遇的大旱,全国焦急。转头东望,东邻日本在水资源的管理方面有一整套经验值得我们借鉴。     

金融危机的货币政策反应

自20世纪90年代以来,我国已经历两次由国际金融危机所引发的宏观经济紧缩,这表明外源性冲击已成为影响国内经济增长的重要制约因素.实证研究表明,在当前国内经济受到外部冲击而出现紧缩时,货币政策对消费和投资的影响依然显著,但在效果上存在差异.降低利率能长期稳定提高消费增长;而货币供应量扩张仅在五个季度内能显著刺激投资增长,长期基本无效.因此,本文认为现阶段在与财政政策和产业政策配合拉动内需时,应将带动国内消费增长作为货币政策长期任务,而将提高国内投资作为短期目标.     

Activist Macroeconomic Policy, Election Effects and the Formation of Expectations: Evidence from OECD Economies

We examine the explanatory power of a political—business cycle theory in which governments practice short-run policy to lessen the impact of exogenous shocks. Governments have ideological objectives with respect to macroeconomic performance, but are constrained by an augmented Phillips curve. The most prominent version, the rational partisan model, incorporates forward-looking expectations. This model can be compared to a competing model based on backward-looking expectations. Alesina and Roubini's recent advocacy of the rational model uses OECD data. Our reconsideration of the same data, updated to 1995, suggests that the adaptive expectations version offers a better explanation than the rational one.     

Policy Rules for Exploitation of Renewable Resources: A Macroeconomic Perspective

A fundamental problem for an economy based on a common property resource is the absence of a market to trade the resource. This implies that private costs will be below social costs. This paper investigates possible government interventions that correct for such distortions in a neoclassical growth model with a production externality in harvesting. The model predicts that the welfare of the representative household increases considerably when a Piguovian tax is implemented. The policy that replicates the command optimum is highly complex and changes over time. On the other hand, a large share of the maximum welfare increase is internalized by introducing a constant quantity tax, suggesting that the potential of such policies is high.