The Impact of Input and Output Tariffs on Firms' Productivity: Theory and Evidence

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on productivity. It shows that when intermediate inputs are not highly differentiated, lowering input tariffs leads to a rise in within‐firm productivity and wages, and lowering output tariffs has the opposite effect. When intermediate inputs are highly differentiated, the conclusions reverse. These predictions are supported by the data, given by the industrial survey from INEGI (Mexico's Insitituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informacion) in the period 1984–90. The paper yields estimates for the elasticity of substitution among intermediate inputs, which are useful in determining the direction of the impact of trade liberalization. These estimates can be used to assess the gains from trade liberalization.     

The Persistence of the Female Wage Disadvantage

Studies of the Australian labour market during the 1980s reported that the gender wage differential narrowed. However, a different story emerged during the 1990s when the gender pay gap persisted. A large part of the pay gap is attributable to different 'treatments' of men and women in the labour market. This article examines whether the female wage-disadvantaged state is a temporary or permanent phenomenon. The results show that while there is some mobility in the female wage distribution, there also exists a high degree of stickiness. It is argued that the wage-disadvantaged state for females is generally not a temporary phenomenon.     

Inter-Temporal Decompositions of Labour Market and Social Outcomes

This paper compares the Wellington (1993) and Smith and Welch (1989) decompositions of changes in labour market outcomes over time. The two examples considered are differences by gender in educational attainment and the gender wage differential. The results suggest that even though the procedure developed by Wellington (1993) has been favoured in recent research, the Smith and Welch decomposition is a more informative approach.     

Signalling power of special dividends in an imputation environment

The present study examines the impact of the announcement of special dividends for a sample of Australian companies over the period July 1989 to June 2002. The risk‐adjusted price reaction to special dividend announcements from the day before the announcement to the day after the announcement (day ?1 to day 1) is positive and statistically significant, averaging 3.67 per cent. Initial special dividend announcements (4.68 per cent) led to stronger price reaction than special dividend announcements that follow an earlier special dividend (1.51 per cent) in the previous year. The magnitude of price reactions to special dividend announcements is statistically related to the size of the special dividend, the existence of prior special dividend announcements, abnormal cash flow for the year ended after the special dividend announcement, the existence of dividend reinvestment plans (DRP) versus non‐DRP, and a preannouncement effect. Finally, we found strong support for the information content/signalling hypothesis for special dividend announcements that do not participate in DRP and limited support for those associated with DRP.     

A Neural Network Analysis of Mortgage Choice

There exists today an unanswered question as to whether, and the degree to which, borrower characteristics impact the choice between fixed and adjustable rate mortgages. In this paper, we apply a neural network analysis to supply evidence that answers this question. We find evidence that the characteristics of a borrower's net worth, marital status and education level and whether a co-borrower is involved contribute in a significant way to the neural network's ability to determine mortgage choice. Further, we show how, because of the facility of neural networks in modeling intrasample differences, they achieve material and statistically significant accuracy gains over qualitative choice models in predicting whether a borrower will choose a fixed or adjustable rate mortgage.     

High School Graduation in Australia: Do Schools Matter?

This study examines the determinants of high school graduation in Australia. It uses two main approaches to estimation. The first of these is a conventional probit model based on a range of family background and demographic variables. This approach is then extended through consideration of a random parameters probit model. The results show that schools matter to the chances of completing high school in Australia. However, the school effects seem to have more to do with the selection of more able students with superior socioeconomic backgrounds than with the independent creation of favourable school or classroom climates.     

Are children an incentive or a disincentive for migration? Evidence from Vietnam

This study analyzes the influence of children on household migration decisions using data on current internal movement in Vietnam a country that has experienced significant rural–urban migration in the recent years. Families with children usually have three migration choices: move together, stay together or send only one parent to work afar. Using an instrumental variable approach, we show that having an additional child reduces the probability of household migration by 0.0115, while it increases the likelihood of fathers’ migration by 0.0121. These effects suggest that households with more children may be less mobile but may have a greater economic need for migration.     

Australia's Immigration Selection System and Labour Market Outcomes in a Family Context: Evidence from Administrative Data

This paper examines the efficacy of the Australian points system in a family context among working-age permanent resident immigrants who arrived between 2000 and 2011 when there was a major focus on skills selection. Sixty-seven per cent of these immigrants were granted a skilled visa while 25 per cent hold a spousal visa (spouses of Australian citizens). More than half of the skilled visa recipients are the spouses of the primary applicants. Primary applicants among skilled visa holders are assessed for their skills in line with the Australian points system but secondary applicants, such as spouses, among skilled visa holders and spousal visa holders are not subject to any skills assessment before becoming permanent residents. We study differences in economic outcomes by permanent visa types and the role of points system factors in explaining these differences using the Personal Income Tax and Migrants Integrated Dataset and the Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset. We find that primary skilled visa holders earn at least 26–28 per cent more than spousal visa holders, and this is similar for both genders. However, spouses of primary skilled visa holders earn 13–18 per cent more than spousal visa holders. This difference is higher among females than males. Occupation differences can account for nearly half of the differences in income and can entirely capture the role of education and English proficiency. Primary skilled immigrants and their spouses have higher rates of labour force participation and employment than spousal visa holders, starting in the first year of arrival, and the gap is much higher for primary skilled visa holders, but these differences do not disappear quickly.     

五个组织荣获2009年美国波多里奇国家质量奖

一年一度的美国国家质量奖于2009年12月7日揭晓,美国总统贝拉克·奥巴马和商务部长骆家辉共同宣布了2009年度的波多里奇国家质量奖的获奖组织。五个杰出组织获此殊荣。这是美国政府授予创新及绩效卓越组织的总统级别的最高荣誉。五个获奖组织将在2010年年初在美国首都华盛顿出席隆重的颁奖庆典。     

Policy volatility and growth

The paper aims to examine how fiscal and monetary volatility might affect the balanced economic growth rate using a standard monetary growth model characterized by nominal wage rigidity and productive public spending. The model shows that any type of shock — monetary or fiscal — can generate either a negative or positive relationship between short-run volatility and long-run growth, critically depending on the size of government and the elasticity of output with respect to labor/capital. In particular, given the labor income share, it shows that excessive government spending may cause the impact of fiscal volatility on long-run growth to turn from positive to negative. In addition, a rise in the volatility of the monetary shock is capable of generating either an increase or decrease in the mean of growth. With the range of the labor share values in reality, the model produces results consistent with the fact that the relationship between volatility and growth is generally found empirically to be more negative in developing than in developed countries. The model can be seen as a further explanation for the ambiguous empirical evidence in the existing literature.