Sectoral Employment Dynamics in Australia and the COVID-19 Pandemic

We develop a multivariate time series model of employment in 19 sectors for Australia. We use this model to determine the long-run effect of a 1% increase in economic activity in any chosen sector on aggregate employment. Our findings point to manufacturing and construction sectors as those that generate the largest positive spillovers for the aggregate economy. Moreover, we provide an interactive web-based app that produces our model's forecasts based on any user-specified scenario. As the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic evolve, the sectoral employment multipliers together with these interactive tools will provide useful information for policymakers.     

Retirement in Australia: A Closer Look at the Financial Incentives

In Australia, labour force participation among older people has been declining. Previous research has found that in many OECD countries, the retirement income system actually provides a financial incentive for older workers to retire early. In this article, we model the retirement behaviour of Australian men and women aged between 55 and 70 years, where individuals retire in the period that the present value of their lifetime retirement income is maximised. Our findings suggest that the Australian retirement system does provide an incentive to retire early. However, men are much more likely than women to respond to these financial incentives.     

The Australian Economy in 2020–21: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Prospects for Economic Recovery

This article summarises developments in the Australian economy in 2020. It describes the economic growth and labour market ramifications associated with COVID-19, and the fiscal and monetary policies implemented to help counter its effects. COVID-19 has resulted in considerable slack in an economy that was weak pre-pandemic. While current policies are appropriately focused on stimulating demand and supporting employment, existing challenges such as weak growth in productivity, gross domestic product and real wages are also likely to remain relevant post-pandemic.     

Modelling The Second Stage of Transition From Communism: A Closer Look at the Balkans

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Education, Employment Status and Earnings: A Comparative Test of the Strong Screening Hypothesis

We apply the comparative technique originated by Wolpin (1977) to discriminate between the 'weak' and 'strong' screening hypothesises. Controlling for self-selection, we find evidence for weak but not strong screening.     

Economic Impacts of SARS/MERS/COVID-19 in Asian Countries

This paper surveys the recent literature on the economic impacts of SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, which Asian countries have experienced in the past two decades. In particular, we provide a detailed summary of how each of the past infectious diseases has impacted on the Asian economies and the extent of that impact. This paper also documents how the governments of Asian countries have responded to the COVID-19 shocks with their economic policies, and discusses the effectiveness of these economic policies to mitigate the COVID-19 shocks on their economies.     

The Economic Cost of Gender Gaps in Effective Labor: Africa's Missing Growth Reserve

This study analyzes the impact of the gender gap in effective labor – defined as the combined effect of the gender gaps in labor force participation and education – on economic output per worker. The results indicate that the gender gap in effective labor has a negative effect on the economic output per worker in African countries. A 1 percent increase in the gender gap in effective labor leads to a reduction in output per worker by 0.43–0.49 percent in Africa overall, 0.29–0.50 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 0.26–0.32 percent in a wider group of countries from Africa and Asia. The total annual economic losses due to gender gaps in effective labor could be as high as US$255 billion for the African region. Results confirm that Africa is missing its full growth potential because a sizeable portion of its growth reserve – women – is not fully utilized.     

The Determinants of Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment: A Closer Look

Over the last fifteen years, China rapidly expanded its outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) through remarkable economic growth and the “go global” policy. Chinese firms explored investment avenues especially in developing and emerging countries. As a result, China became the third largest contributor of OFDI. We examine the determinants of Chinese OFDI in 67 countries during the period lasting from 2006 to 2015 using the feasible generalized least square method. We find that the size of the economy, market opportunities, cost advantages due to low wage structure, ease of doing business, country risk, and geographical proximity are the prominent factors leading to changes in Chinese OFDI in developing and emerging economies. We find that China’s investments in different developing and emerging countries are driven by a different set of factors and the determinants of Chinese OFDI vary in low and high per capita income countries.     

Social Distancing,Labor Market Outcomes,and Job Characteristics in the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study investigates the role of job characteristics on an individual’s decisions to follow social distancing policies, work, and apply for unemployment insurance in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use data that track millions of mobile devices and their daily movements across physical locations to measure whether the devices’ owners leave their homes, or work part-time or fulltime on a given day, and we also collect data on weekly unemployment insurance claims. We find that the presence of jobs with a high work-from-home capacity in a region increases the ability of people to follow social distancing policies and decreases their unemployment risk, whereas the presence of jobs with high physical proximity decreases the incidences of following social distancing policies and unemployment and increases the incidence of work during the pandemic. These heterogeneous responses based on local job characteristics persist even conditional on a broad set of demographic and socioeconomic variables.     

Gender Gaps in Unpaid Domestic and Care Work: Putting The Pandemic in (a Life Course) Perspective

Our paper examines  trends in gender inequalities in unpaid domestic and care work over the short- and long-term in Australia, including assessing the impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns. We use the concept of time—historical, biographical and transitional—as a framework for our analyses. Drawing on data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, we find wide and continuing gender gaps in unpaid work over the past two decades. We demonstrate that parenthood is a far greater producer and exacerbator of gender inequalities in unpaid domestic and care work than COVID-19 lockdowns.     

The Employment Effects of Gender Discrimination in Australia 1994–95

Interpreting the unexplained component of the gender wage gap as indicative of discrimination, the empirical literature to date has tended to ignore the potential impact wage discrimination may have on employment. Clearly, employment effects will arise if discrimination lowers the female offered wage and the labour supply curve is upward sloping. The empirical analysis employs the ABS Income Distribution Survey 1994–95 and finds evidence of both wage and associated employment effects. The analysis is replicated for the earlier period 1989–90. A comparison across time is of interest given the substantial deregulation of the Australian labour market over the period.     

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.     

Quantitative Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock to Household Consumption in China

We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic shock on household consumption in China. Using household survey data, we find that the proportion of liquidity-constrained households increases quickly, but the constraint levels vary across distinct groups. We build a heterogeneous agent life cycle incomplete market model to analyze the long-run and short-run effects of the pandemic shock. The quantitative results reveal a slow recovery of consumption due to three reasons: hiking unemployment rate, declining labor productivity, and worsening income stability. The hiking unemployment rate plays the key role in households’ consumption reduction since it simultaneously leads to a negative income effect and upsurging precautionary saving motives. Our paper highlights the importance of maintaining a stable labor market for faster recovery.     

Earnings Inequality in Australia: Changes, Causes and Consequences

This article reviews research on recent developments in earnings inequality in Australia. Four main issues are addressed. First, what are the main changes in earnings inequality which have occurred? Second, what do we know about the causes of changes in earnings inequality? Third, how have earnings differentials between workers in different skills groups changed, and to what extent can those changes be explained by shifts in the relative demand for labour and relative supply of labour by level of skill? Fourth, how have changes in earnings inequality affected the distribution of income?     

Past Experiences,Personality Traits,and Risk Aversion: Evidence from Individual Risk Attitudes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Individuals’ risk attitudes play an important role in economic decision making and policy evaluation, particularly in the midst of unprecedented uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We adopt a multiple-price-list elicitation method with real money incentives to measure precisely individuals’ risk attitudes at different stake levels and the extent to which they are affected by personal and social shocks following the COVID-19 outbreak in China. We find that subjects who had previously experienced negative personal shocks are more risk-averse at medium and large stakes but more risk loving at very small stakes. For our sample, COVID-19 has no significant impact on risk attitudes, as it is more likely to be regarded as a social shock. The result indicates that the impact of COVID-19 on individual risk attitudes is not as influential as expected, unless the individual’s personal life is affected directly.     

The Earnings of Immigrant Men in Australia: Assimilation, Cohort Effects, and Macroeconomic Conditions

This paper analyzes the earnings of immigrant men in Australia using data from Income Distribution Surveys for 1982, 1986 and 1990. The paper expands on the standard approach used in the literature to evaluate immigrant earnings adjustment by considering the impact of current labour market conditions and conditions at labour market entry on current earnings. Immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds have significantly lower earnings on arrival in Australia compared with native-born males, and this gap is not narrowed as years in Australia increase. However, poorer macroeconomic conditions at entry are found to have a significantly smaller negative effect on the earnings of immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds than native-born males.