This paper presents an analysis of real wages, inflation and labour productivity interrelationships using cointegration, Granger-causality and, most importantly, structural change tests. Applications of tests to Australian data over the period corroborate the presence of a structural break in 1985 and show that a 1 percent increase in manufacturing sector real wages led to an increase in manufacturing sector productivity of between 0.5 and 0.8 percent. Comparable estimates for the effect of inflation on manufacturing sector productivity have limited statistical significance. Granger causality test results suggest that real wages and inflation both Granger-cause productivity in the long run.

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Purpose -The aims of this paper are to measure the impacts of subsidy, work experience and training programmes on New Zealand male registered unemployed, and to examine the sensitivity of these estimates to the amount of time that participants are followed after an intervention. Design/methodology/approach -The impact of an intervention on those who participate in an active labour market programme is the key question addressed in this paper. A New Zealand panel data set is used, which includes both intervention and individual characteristics of the unemployed. Both a potential outcomes and single nearest-neighbour difference-in-differences matching approach are used to estimate the impact of participation. Findings -The key findings are that work experience programmes are the most effective in the short-term. Training programmes are the least effective. Programmes are more effective for the long-term unemployed than for short-term unemployed. The results are sensitive to the point of time examined in the post-intervention period, with short-term benefits disappearing completely three years after the intervention. Originality/value -This paper examines the relative effect of active labour market programmes in New Zealand using a consistent evaluation framework. The sensitivity of the results to different time periods, and matching estimator specifications are examined.

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Research on pedagogica1 issues associated with the delivery and assessment of economics curriculum has increased noticeably since the early 1990s. This has been driven partly by necessity, as declining numbers in economics majors have caused departments to evaluate their performance, partly by the interests of some economists in pedagogy and partly by an increase in teaching of economics to students who have opted for majors other than economics. This paper arises from the latter two causes and reports on an innovation that has been used since 2000 with classes containing both business economics and international business students at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Auckland, New Zealand. Given that students in international business at AUT are drawn from a range of faculties, including business, science and arts, there is no guarantee that they have any background in economics when they enrol in Business and the Macroeconomic Environment, an intermediate level open economy macroeconomics paper and a core paper in both the Business Economics and the International Business majors in the Bachelor of Business Degree. The business economics major students have completed the equivalent of a first year macroeconomics course before they enter this paper. In order to meet the needs of the course and those of the students, the lecturers on this course have developed an innovative assessment and teaching approach. The emphasis of this approach is in aiding the students to cross the threshold from theory to application using real world data and a business application. The rationale for, and details of the approach are outlined and the performance of this new approach is briefly evaluated.