SYSTEMATIC INFLUENCES ON TEACHING EVALUATIONS: THE CASE FOR CAUTION*

In this paper, we examine eight years of Quality of Teaching (QOT) responses from an Economics Department in an Australian University. This is done to determine what factors, besides the instructor, have an impact on the raw average student evaluation scores. Most of the previous research on student ratings has been conducted in the US. One significant difference between US and Australian tertiary education is that, on average, the number of foreign undergraduate students in Australia is ten times the number in US institutions. We find that cultural background significantly affects student evaluations. Other factors that have an influence on the average QOT score include: year level; enrolment size; the quantitative nature of the subject; the gender of the student; fee‐paying status by gender; course of study; the differences between the course mark and previous marks; the quality of workbooks; the quality of textbooks; and the QOT score relative to those in other subjects taught at the same time. In addition, average QOT scores for instructors who have taught in a mix of subjects are similar to those based on scores adjusted to account for subject and student characteristics.     

The Impact of Inflation and Taxation on Tenure Choice and the Redistributive Effects of Home-Mortgage Interest Rate ReguIation*

Judy Yates (1981) notes the regressive redistributive impact of home-mortgage interest rate regulation and offers some explanations. This paper provides an alternative explanation of Yates' observations in terms of the interaction of inflation with the current tax system in Australia. A model of tenure choice in the context of inflation and taxation is developed. In explaining this phenomenon, the model also establishes the regressive nature of the tax subsidy to owner-occupation. Home-mortgage interest rate regulation is then introduced. This reinforces the redistributive bias in the housing finance market. The model is used finally to predict the impact of deregulation. It is concluded that deregulation by itself can only remove redistributive bias resulting from regulated mortgage interest rates. Reform of the tax system is required to eliminate the regressive redistributive effects of the tax subsidy to owner-occupation .     

Effect of World Fertility Scenarios on International Living Standards

This paper applies a two good, multi-region Ramsey-Solow model of the world economy to determine the impact that alternative world fertility rates would have on international capital markets and living standards. Notable features of the model include: relative consumption demands and relative employment efficiencies that vary by age, traded and non-traded goods, vintage technology, outward-looking reference consumption, a proportion of non-optimising rule-of-thumb consumers and imperfect capital mobility due to asymmetric information. The model suggests that projected demographic change will imply a flow of international capital from the ageing regions to the younger regions; and that the world interest rate will fall. The lower world interest rate will cause a loss in living standards for ageing regions, the lenders, and a gain for the younger regions, who are borrowers.     

The Dynamic Interactions Between the Phillips Relation and the IS-LM Model*

In this paper the IS-LM model is extended dynamically by the addition of a price-adjustment relation (the Phillips relation) and a quantity-adjustment relation. Three specifications of the Phillips relation are considered. It is shown that the nature of the price-adjustment process has important implications for stability; in fact the price-adjustment processes which yield clockwise (counter-clockwise) Phillips loops may also be unstable (are not unstable). On the other hand, the speed of the price-adjustment process is not relevant for stability. The speed of quantity adjustment is only important in the expectations case and there the slower the speed of adjustment the more likely is instability. No clear conclusions emerge, in general, concerning the slopes of the IS-LM relations and stability. In conclusion the results are related to the debate on the micro-foundations of Keynesian economics.     

Textual Analysis in Accounting and Finance: A Survey

Relative to quantitative methods traditionally used in accounting and finance, textual analysis is substantially less precise. Thus, understanding the art is of equal importance to understanding the science. In this survey, we describe the nuances of the method and, as users of textual analysis, some of the tripwires in implementation. We also review the contemporary textual analysis literature and highlight areas of future research.     

Trading Complex Assets

We perform an experimental study to assess the effect of complexity on asset trading. We find that higher complexity leads to increased price volatility, lower liquidity, and decreased trade efficiency especially when repeated bargaining takes place. However, the channel through which complexity acts is not simply due to the added noise induced by estimation error. Rather, complexity alters the bidding strategies used by traders, making them less inclined to trade, even when we control for estimation error across treatments. As such, it appears that adverse selection plays an important role in explaining the trading abnormalities caused by complexity.     

Market Access and WTO Border Tax Adjustments for Environmental Excise Taxes under Imperfect Competition

The literature identifies linkages between domestic environmental policies and trade, the treatment of imports being an important issue in administration of domestic environmental excise taxes. With the aim of ensuring foreign exporters do not attain a competitive advantage, border tax adjustments are used. Since most environmental excise taxes apply to intermediate goods, the relevant border tax adjustment applies to final imported goods. However, when both intermediate and final goods markets are oligopolistic, border tax adjustments may be non‐neutral. Moreover, even if market access is unchanged, border tax adjustments can still lead to redistribution of profits between domestic and foreign firms.     

Child Support Reform: Some Analysis of the 1999 White Paper

This paper uses a sample of lone mothers (and former lone mothers who are now repartnered) drawn from the 1997 Family Resources Survey to analyse the potential effects of reforming the UK system of child support. The main deficiency of the data is that non-resident fathers cannot be matched to the mothers in the data, and this is overcome by exploiting information from another dataset which gives the joint distribution of the characteristics of separated parents. The effects of reforming the child support system are simulated for the amount of maintenance liabilities, the amount paid and the net incomes of households containing mothers-with-care and of households containing non-resident fathers. The likely effects of the reform are simulated at various levels of compliance. The analysis highlights the need for further research into the incentive effects of child support on individual behaviour.     

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES MEETS MILTON FRIEDMAN AND EDMOND PHELPS: THE RANGE VERSUS THE NATURAL RATE IN AUSTRALIA, 1965:4 TO 2003:3

In this paper we compare the estimates of the range model in Lye and McDonald (2005a) with estimates of a natural rate model. We find that the range model is superior to the natural rate model according to econometric criteria and economic plausibility. Our estimates of the range model suggest that a significantly lower rate of unemployment is obtainable at the current time by aggregate demand policy, indeed a rate of 3.1 per cent for 2003:3 compared with about 6.5 per cent for the natural rate model. Thus we conclude that basing macroeconomic policy on the natural rate model would underrate the possibilities for economic welfare in Australia.     

The Setting of Retail Prices in a Customer Market*

This paper extends the theory of the determination of retail prices in a customer market to a shop selling many types of goods. For a multi-good shop, a discontinuous marginal revenue function for each good sold is derived. Under reasonable assumptions the size of this discontinuity depends only on the customer dynamics and is independent of own-price elasticities and cross-price elasticities. A discussion of the determination of producer prices shows how the theory can explain the relative stability of retail prices.