The sustainability of consumer credit growth in late twentieth century Australia

This article reports on a study about the use of credit by Australian consumers between 1980 and 1996. Considerable growth in the use of credit by consumers was coupled with an increasing reliance on credit to finance purchase transactions as consumers’ other sources of purchase finance became depleted. An increasing number of consumers were found to be experiencing difficulty meeting their debt‐ servicing commitments. These results suggest that the growth in use of consumer credit that has occurred in Australia may not be in the long‐term interest of consumers or the economy.     

A cricket ground or a football stadium? The business of ground sharing at the Adelaide Oval before 1973

Before 1973, cricket and Australian Football used the Adelaide Oval for major games during their respective seasons. Football’s popularity as a spectator sport prompted its organising body to seek to build an improved stadium, but cricket authorities controlled the asset and acted to maintain its specialised character as a cricket ground. A case study of how the gains from a shared capital good are negotiated when asset controllers and users have different objectives is provided. A series of counterfactual scenarios based on football remaining at the Oval is constructed from archival sources and their outcomes projected based on data in financial reports.     

Economic and Distributional Impact of COVID-19: Evidence from Macro-Micro Modelling of the South African Economy

A computable general equilibrium model linked to a microsimulation model is applied to assess the potential short-term effects on the South African economy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With a particular focus on distributional outcomes, two simulations are run, a mild and a severe scenario. The findings show significant evidence of decline in economic growth and employment, with the decline harsher for the severe scenario. The microeconomic results show that the pandemic moves the income distribution curve such that more households fall under the poverty line while at the same time, inequality declines. The latter result is driven by the disproportionate decline in incomes of richer households while the poorest of the poor are cushioned by government social grants that are kept intact during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is still unfolding and its economic modelling as well as the data used to operationalise the model will need to be updated and improved upon as more information about the disease and the economy becomes available.