Reich argues that globalization will increase the relative earnings of those whose occupation involves identifying and solving problems and managing ideas. Hence, the return to education, especially education in the form of a university degree, will rise. This paper examines the return to education in Australia in the 1980s and shows that in the private sector there has been a substantial rise in the relative earnings of graduates. Due to special circumstances there has been a fall in the public sector. Previous findings of little change are the result of aggregation problems.
This paper surveys what is known about wealth distribution in Australia and concludes that our knowledge is scanty. The most reliable evidence comes from studies using probate returns and with the abolition of estate duties, these studies are becoming out of date. However, it is clear that wealth is very unequally distributed. The top 5 per cent of adult individuals own between 40 and 50 per cent of the wealth. This inequality is not just due to life cycle effects, and there is no strong evidence that wealth distribution has become more equal in Australia in the period since the First World War. Copyright 1984 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.
This study adjusts the total deficit (or net public sector borrowing requirement) of the whole of the public sector in Australia for the effects of changes in both the level of economic activity and the implicit tax that inflation imposes on the holders of government bonds. Both adjustments are important, even when looking at year-to-year changes in the structural deficit. When the stance of fiscal policy is measured by the structural deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product, four years stand out as years of major changes. In each of the years 1973-74, 1979-80 and 1987-88 the stance of fiscal policy was substantially tightened with the abrupt tightening in 1979-80 being the largest change, though not much larger than that in 1973-74. By far the biggest change relaxing the stance of fiscal policy was in 1983-84, and the change in this year was the biggest of any change in either direction in the period.
Since the data necessary to make a formal quantitative analysis of Work for the Dole employment outcomes is not available to researchers who are independent of Commonwealth Government Departments, this article examines the (then) Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business (DEWRSB) net impact report, finding in it a number of weaknesses. The combined effect of these is to inflate the estimated value for net impact but a corrected estimate is still higher than many consider likely. Any figure for the net impact estimate of an Australian labour market program can only be a broad indicator. This article argues that in the case of Work for the Dole the net impact is definitely positive and by more than a trivial amount.
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