Sources of Inequality Between Male and Female Wages in Australia

This article examines the influence of labour force status, full-time/part-time employment status, educational qualifications, work experience, and occupation as sources of inequality between male and female wages in Australia. A decomposition method is used to identify the effect of these factors on male/ female inequality. This strategy involves successively removing persons who differ with respect to each of these factors from the population under study and then decomposing the inequality in the remaining sub-population into inequality within each sex and inequality between the sexes. This decomposition is done using the I₀ inequality index proposed by Theil (1967). The study is based on unit record data from the 1981–82 Income and Housing Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It finds that a significant proportion of the inequality between the wages of the sexes can be explained by their differences with respect to the factors listed above.     

A Note on Causality Between Money,Wages and Prices in Australia*

Lead and lag relationships between money, wages. and prices are examined using Australian data. Granger causality tests support univariate causality running from money to both wages and prices. This result is consistent with a monetarist explanation of inflation.     

The Relationship between Personal Income and Net Worth in Australia

This article uses data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to examine the changing distribution of net worth with age. Even after controlling for age, the relationship between income and net worth is positive, except for the older age groups. Inequality falls as age increases. The income poor save in different forms compared with high income individuals of the same age cohort. Holdings of financial assets, especially equity investments and superannuation, are heavily concentrated in the hands of high income earners, while fixed income investments are favoured by the elderly for all income groups.     

Money Wages, Consumer Prices, and Causality in Australia*

This paper exploits recently developed statistical techniques to examine the causal patterns in lag relationships between changes in wages and consumer prices. The analysis uses quarterly data for selected periods and a total historical sample period 1954-82. Causation has generally been unidirectional from wages to prices. However, for the first half of the 1970s bidirectional causation was detected, though the causation from wages to prices was statistically more significant. Brief consideration is given to some policy implications of the results.     

Skilled Immigration and Wages in Australia*

This paper investigates the impact of the relative growth of skilled migration on the structure of Australian wages. Unlike conventional approaches, the present study uses macro data to examine the response of wages to immigration flows. We use instrumental variable techniques to control for the potential endogeneity of immigration. The results, using alternative estimation strategies, are consistent with the dominant findings from existing empirical work. There is no robust evidence that a relative increase in skilled immigrants exerts any discernible adverse consequences on the wage structure in Australia.     

Minimum Wages and Employment: Comment

Does increasing the minimum wage lead to employment losses? For many years most economists thought that the answer to this was a straightforward ‘yes’. However, research during the 1990s began to overturn this conventional wisdom and showed that increases in the minimum wage did not automatically lead to employment losses. A recent Australian study, by Leigh (2003), examined the impact of statutory minimum wages in Western Australia and reached conclusions which supported the conventional view. However, close scrutiny of Leigh's article shows that it is fundamentally flawed. Despite Leigh's efforts, it remains the case that we simply do not know a great deal about the employment impact of Australia's system of minimum wages.     

Unemployment, Real Wages and the Money Supply in Australia*

Many observers have attributed the high unemployment experienced in Australia in the 1970s to the rises in real wages which have occurred in the decade. An alternative or additional hypothesis is that unemployment has resulted from policy directed at controlling inflation and that this has been exacerbated by the occurrence of adverse external factors, particularly bul not solely the oil price shocks, which have made inflation more difficult than otherwise to control .
The results of econometric tests suggest that a significant portion of fluctuations in the unemployment rate can be explained by real wage movements, and as well monetary policy through its effects on the real money supply also seems to affect unemployment. Both real wage rises and monetary restrictions appear to have contributed to the jump in unemployment in 1974–75, and since then the continuing high and rising unemployment rate is closely associated with the low growth rate of the real money supply .     

区域性中心城市与区域环境可持续发展

本文首先论证了区域性中心城市在区域可持续发展系统中的支配地位,然后分析了中心城市在区域环境可持续发展中发挥作用的四个重要领域。     

The Ddeterminants of Individual Wages in Australia: Competitive and Non-Competitive Influences

This work provides a test of competitive theories of wage determination by examining the wages of identical workers across industry classifications. The finding that a set of significant industry wage differentials exists would seem to contradict a purely competitive theory of wage determination. However, the apparent presence of unmeasured human capital that is correlated with industry status does provide one potential competitive explanation for the industry wage effects. Moreover, non-competitive explanations for the differences in industry wages, such as efficiency wage theory or institutional factors, appear to be inconsistent with the nature of the wage differentials.     

The Relationship between Output and Unemployment with Efficiency Wages

Abstract. We construct a stylised model of the supply side with goods and labour market imperfections to show that an economy can rationally operate at a low-effort state in which the relationship between output and unemployment is positive. We examine data from the G7 countries over 1960–2001 and find that only German data strongly favour a persistent negative relationship between the level of output and rate of unemployment. The consequence of this is that circumstances exist in which market imperfections could pose serious obstacles to the smooth working of expansionary and/or stabilisation policies and a positive demand shock might have adverse effects on employment.     

Work Schedules, Wages, and Employment in a General Equilibrium Model with Team Production

This paper provides a prototype general equilibrium model of team production. Team production refers to production processes which require that the work schedules of heterogeneous workers be closely coordinated. The key innovation in the framework is that the work schedules, wages, and employment of heterogeneous workers are endogenously determined in the presence of team production. I demonstrate the potential importance of modeling team production through a quantitative example.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: E23, J20.     

张家界旅游发展与居民收入的互动效应及影响因素

以典型旅游城市张家界市为案例地,构建了区域旅游业发展与居民收入互动的概念模型,并利用协整分析方法研究了张家界旅游发展与居民收入的互动效应及影响因素。结果发现,张家界旅游发展的居民收入效应存在城镇居民与农村居民的群体空间异质性规律:旅游发展仅对城镇居民收入具有显著影响,弹性系数为0.319,而对农村居民无显著影响。这种异质性主要受居民收入来源结构、旅游国民收入分配格局、旅游空间结构等因素的影响。而张家界居民收入增长均并未对该区域旅游发展产生显著影响,则主要受居民收入总体水平、旅游者动机与认知水平、制度等因素影响。文章最后提出实现两者优化互动的相关建议。     

退耕还林、非农就业与农民增收——基于21省面板数据的双重差分分析

退耕还林工程实施的最初目的在于遏制水土流失,但因同时影响农户收入和就业方式而具有经济效应。本文利用2006—2010年间国家统计局贫困监测调查数据,旨在评估退耕还林在农民增收、非农就业和扶贫开发等方面的政策效果。研究发现,首先,退耕还林后,包括退耕还林补贴在内的农民收入与退耕还林前相比有所增长,但如果不计退耕还林补贴,农户退耕后非农收入的增长刚好弥补因耕地减少而导致的收入损失,增收效果暂不明显;其次,从整体来看,退耕还林补贴主要集中于低收入农户,因此明显降低了农村居民收入的不平等程度;再次,在退耕后农户的就业取向上,不同收入群体之间存在显著差异,高收入农户倾向于从事林牧渔业经营活动,而中等收入农户倾向于外出务工,差异的产生与人群组间的内在特征有关;此外,工程暂且无法吸引退耕村非退耕户从事非农就业,带动效应不显著;最后,项目的脱贫效果随贫困标准的不同而存在差异,总体而言,脱贫效果显著。尽管农户增收主要来源于退耕补贴,但考虑其生态保护效应、非农就业促进效应、收入分配效应以及扶贫效应,退耕还林工程应当予以持续。在此过程中,如何促使退耕户实现稳定的非农就业,避免退耕户复垦是制度完善的关键。     

Consumption and Income Inequality in Australia

Consumption may be a more appropriate measure of household well-being than income or earnings. Using four ABS Household Expenditures Surveys collected between 1975 and 1993, we compare trends in consumption and income inequality among Australian households. We find that consumption is much more equal than income. While there were significant increases in both income and consumption inequality, consumption inequality rose by much less. One interpretation of the results is that some income inequality in Australia reflects transitory fluctuations which households can smooth,'and that part of the growth in income inequality reflects an increase in these transitory fluctuations.     

Income and Health Concentration in Australia

This paper measures the concentration of ill-health among income groups in Australia using health survey data from 1989–90 ( Australian Bureau of Statistics 1991 ) and 1995 ( Australian Bureau of Statistics 1997 ), which contain responses on self-assessed health status and gross personal income. The technique of direct standardisation is used to control for the influence on health status of gender and age. Comparisons of the concentration of ill-health over time and between males and females and persons living in rural and urban areas are reported. For both surveys and all groups, we find that ill-health is concentrated among lower income groups. Concentration measures of ill-health are higher (in absolute terms) for men than for women. In all categories apart from women, the concentration measures fell between 1989–90 and 1995 surveys.     

The Unemployment-Vacancy Relationship in Australia

One of the most important features of the Australian economy in the past two decades has been the structural deterioration of labour market performance, reflected in both an increase in the average rate of unemployment and an outward shift in the Beveridge Curve, which depicts the relationship between unemployment and vacancies. This article attempts to uncover some of the causes for this structural deterioration, in terms of the factors affecting the UVrelationship. We find that the Beveridge Curve shifted out around 1974, consistent with an increase in the equilibrium rate of unemployment which is generally agreed to have occurred around that time. Using gross labour market flow data, we also investigate the determinants of the equilibrium Beveridge Curve in the 1980s. We find that the Beveridge Curve shifted further outwards in the 1980s. The most important determinant of this shift was the decline in the search effectiveness of the unemployed, reflected in the increasing incidence of long-term unemployment. Partially offsetting this influence during this time were the declining labour force participation of men, and the very large increases in female employment.     

Private and Government Employment in the OECD: Productivities and Wages

This paper estimates the productivity of private and government employment for a panel of 23 OECD economies over the 1961–1992 period, and investigates their relation to the government/private wage ratio. The paper finds that (i) the elasticities of output with respect to private and government employment are statistically significantly different from each other; (ii) the marginal products of private and government employment are not statistically significantly different, which suggests that government employment is neither over- nor under-provided, and that shifting employment from one sector to the other is not likely to produce substantial output gains; and (iii) in most of the countries examined, government workers are overpaid in the sense that the government/private wage ratio exceeds the corresponding ratio of marginal products.
(J.E.L. E24, E62).     

The Relationship Between Output Growth and Unemployment: A Re-examination of Okun's Law in Australia

In this article, we investigate the questions of whether some form of Okun's Law holds for Australia, and if so whether the Okun relationship has been stable. The results indicate that alternative formulations of the ‘law’ do not give rise to numerically similar parameter estimates. Nevertheless, one of these formulations yields estimates which appear to be both plausible and consistent with results from previous analyses. This particular formulation suggests that Okun's relationship in Australia underwent a structural change around 1974. The parameter estimates obtained can be regarded as rules of thumb which may be useful in discussing broad consequences of policy actions.     

Employment, The Labour Force and Unemployment in Australia: A Disagregegated Approach

This article presents statistical analysis of the distributional aspects of labour market developments in the Australian economy from 1966 to 1985. The focus is on the adjustment of the labour force to changes in employment opportunities. Two sets of data for selected age/sex/marital groups are utilised in the analysis: regressions to test for differences in the sensitivity of labour force participation to employment opportunities and a series of tables documenting population adjusted changes in employment and the labour force. The aggregate relationship between employment changes and labour force changes (and hence changes in unemployment) is explained by the disaggregated data.