ANU Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
Permanent URI for this collection
The Centre for Economic Policy (CEPR) began in the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU in 1980, at the initiative of the late Professor Fred Gruen. It was founded on account of a major gap in Australian universities between research and economic policy debate. CEPR was the first institution in Australia to seek to bridge this gap, and continues to inform sound research-led policy.
CEPR Discussion Papers
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Open Access The structure of tertiary education fees(Canberra : Australian National University, Centre for Economic Policy Research, 1988., 1988-05) Brennan, Geoffrey; Australian National University. Centre for Economic Policy ResearchThis paper is an attempt to apply the standard framework of conventional welfare economics to the question of tertiary education fees.Item Open Access An Australian housing model(Canberra : Australian National University, Centre for Economic Policy Research, 1982-12) Williams, Ross A.Item Open Access The payment of mining royalties to aborigines in the Northern Territory: compensation or revenue(Canberra : Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1983, 1983) Altman, Jon C., 1954-Item Open Access The effects of inflation: a review with special reference to Australia(Canberra : Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1981, 1981) Pagan, A. R.; Trivedi, P. K.Item Open Access The regulation of import competition and its effects on the environment of Australian industry(Canberra : Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1980, 1980) Anderson, K.; Snape, R. H.Item Open Access The Australian domestic air freight market: consequences of partial deregulation(Canberra : Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1984, 1984) Gawan-Taylor, MItem Open Access Crime, punishment and deterrence in Australia: an empirical investigation(Canberra : Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1982, 1982) Withers, G. A. (Glenn Alexander), 1946-Item Open Access Protectionism and non-tariff barriers(Canberra : Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 1982, 1982) Cassing, James HItem Metadata only Economic Growth, Environmental Issues and Trade(Canberra, ACT: Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), The Australian National University, 1993-09) Anderson, KymThis paper explores the implications for trade relations of the greening of world politics. It modifies the standard theory of changing comparative advantages in a growing world economy to show the effects on trade of taking into account the fact that the demand for domestic environmental policies increases as economies expand. The demands for environmental policies would not be a problem if they were confined to first-best policies. Trade problems arise, however, when those policies undermine an industry's competitiveness (from which protection is sought), or when a trade policy measure is adopted in an attempt to impose one's own standards on another country's environment, or when trade liberalization is opposed by environmentalists. The paper shows how all three unnecessarily threaten to undermine the global trading system and how, in the cases of coal and food, trade liberalization could well improve rather than worsen the global environment.Item Metadata only GM Food Crop Technology: Implications For Sub-Saharan Africa(Canberra, ACT: Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), The Australian National University, 2004-07) Anderson, Kym; Jackson, Lee AnnThe first generation of genetically modified (GM) crop varieties sought to increase farmer profitability through cost reductions or higher yields. The next generation of GM food research is focusing also on breeding for attributes of interest to consumers, beginning with ‘golden rice’, which has been genetically engineered to contain a higher level of vitamin A and thereby boost the health of unskilled labourers in developing countries. This Paper analyses empirically the potential economic effects of adopting both types of innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It does so using the global economy-wide computable general equilibrium model known as GTAP. The results suggest the welfare gains are potentially very large, especially from golden rice, and that those benefits are diminished only slightly by the presence of the European Union’s current ban on imports of GM foods. In particular, if SSA countries impose bans on GM crop imports in an attempt to maintain access to EU markets for non-GM products, the loss to domestic consumers due to that protectionism boost to SSA farmers is far more than the small gain in terms of greater market access to the EU.Item Open Access Agriculture, Developing Countries, And The World Trade Organization Millennium Round(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), The Australian National University) Anderson, KymThe potential welfare gains from further liberalizing agricultural markets are huge, both absolutely and relative to gains from liberalizing textiles or other manufacturing, according to GTAP modeling results. Should attempts to liberalize farm trade in the next WTO round follow the same pattern as the Uruguay Round, or might a more radical approach be required to bring agriculture more into the WTO mainstream? The present paper explores this question from the viewpoint of developing countries by focusing especially on the Uruguay Round's dirty tariffication and adoption of tariff rate quotas. It also examines new agricultural issues, notably one on the demand side (food safety) and one on the supply side (agriculture's so-called multifunctionality), both of which have important implications for developing countries' trade. Options facing developing countries are explored in the final section, where it is suggest the new millennium round offers an opportunity for those countries to be pro-active and take the high ground in demanding faster reform of both farm and textile trade in return for their own opening up.Item Metadata only The Entwining of Trade Policy with Environmental and Labour Standards(Canberra, ACT: Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), The Australian National University) Anderson, KymWhile environmental and labour issues are not new to the GATT, nor to other trade policy fora, they are likely to have a more prominent role in trade policy discussions in the years ahead for the newly formed World Trade Organization (WTO). Many developing countries perceive the entwining of these social issues with trade policy as a threat to both their sovereignty and their economies, while significant groups in advanced economies consider it unfair, ecologically unsound, even immoral, to trade with countries adopting much lower standards than their own. This paper examines why these issues are becoming more prominent, whether the WTO is an appropriate forum to discuss them, and how they affect developing and other economies. It concludes that: (a) the direct effect on developing economies is likely to be small and for some may even be positive through improved terms of trade and/or compensatory transfer payments; but (b) there is an important indirect negative effect on them and other economies, namely the potential erosion of the rules-based multilateral trading system that would result from an over-use of trade measures to pursue environmental or labour market objectives.Item Open Access Estimating the impact of gubernatorial partisanship on policy settings and economic outcomes: a regression discontinuity approach(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 2007-06) Leigh, AndrewUsing panel data from US states over the period 1941-2002, I measure the impact of gubernatorial partisanship on a wide range of different policy settings and economic outcomes. Across 32 measures, there are surprisingly few differences in policy settings, social outcomes and economic outcomes under Democrat and Republican Governors. In terms of policies, Democratic Governors tend to prefer slightly higher minimum wages. Under Republican Governors, incarceration rates are higher, while welfare caseloads are higher under Democratic Governors. In terms of social and economic outcomes, Democratic Governors tend to preside over higher median post-tax income, lower posttax inequality, and lower unemployment rates. However, for 26 of the 32 dependent variables, gubernatorial partisanship does not have a statistically significant impact on policy outcomes and social welfare. I find no evidence of gubernatorial partisan differences in tax rates, welfare generosity, the number of government employees or their salaries, state revenue, incarceration rates, execution rates, pre-tax incomes and inequality, crime rates, suicide rates, and test scores. These results are robust to the use of regression discontinuity estimation, to take account of the possibility of reverse causality. Overall, it seems that Governors behave in a fairly non-ideological manner.Item Open Access Weak Tests and Strong Conclusions: A Re-Analysis of Gun Deaths and the Australian Firearms Buyback(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 2007-06) Neill, Christine; Leigh, AndrewUsing time series analysis on data from 1979-2004, Baker and McPhedran (2006) argue that the stricter gun laws introduced in the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) post- 1996 did not affect firearm homicide rates, and may not have had an impact on the rate of gun suicide or accidental death by shooting. We revisit their analysis, and find that their results are not robust to: (a) using a longer time series; or (b) using the log of the rate rather than the level (to take account of the fact that the rate cannot fall below zero). We also show that claims that the authors had allowed both for method substitution and for underlying trends in suicide or homicide rates are misleading. The high variability in the data and the fragility of the results with respect to different specifications suggest that time series analysis cannot conclusively answer the question of whether the NFA led to lower gun deaths. Drawing strong conclusions from simple time series analysis is not warranted, but to the extent that this evidence points anywhere, it is towards the firearms buyback reducing gun deaths.Item Open Access A Comparative Analysis of the Nativity Wealth Gap(Canberra, ACT: Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), The Australian National University) Bauer, Thomas K; Cobb Clark, Deborah A; Hildebrand, Vincent A; Sinning, MathiasThis paper investigates the source of the gap in the relative wealth position of immigrant households residing in Australia, Germany and the United States. Our results indicate that in German and the United States wealth differentials are largely the result of disparity in the educational attainment and demographic composition of the native and immigrant populations, while income differentials are relatively unimportant in understanding the nativity wealth gap. In contrast, the relatively small wealth gap between Australian and foreign-born households, exists because immigrants to Australia do not translate their relative educational and demographic advantage into a wealth advantage. On balance, our results point to substantial cross-nationality disparity in the economic well-being of immigrant and native families, which is largely consistent with domestic labor markets and the selection policies used to shape the nature of immigration flow.Item Open Access ‘This Arbitrary Rearrangement of Riches’: an Alternative Theory of the Costliness of Inflation(Canberra, ACT: Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), The Australian National University, 2007-05) Coleman, WilliamThis paper develops a model of the costliness of inflation that places the locus of costs in the bond market, rather than the money market. It argues that inflation is costly on account on the contraction of the bond market caused by the riskiness of inflation. The theory is premised upon the social function of bond markets as consisting of the transference of technological risk from those economic interests where risk is most concentrated (and so most painful) to interests where it is less concentrated (and so less painful). Using a Ramsey-Solow model with decision-makers maximising expected utility from consumption and real balances, the paper argues that unpredictable inflation impedes this useful transfer in risks secured by the bond market. Unpredictable inflation makes debt most costly when income is the most needed by debtors (since when the ex post real interest is highest, the debtor is in consequence the poorest), and credit the most remunerative when income is the least needed by creditors (since when the ex post real interest is the highest, the creditor is as a consequence richest). The upshot of these disincentives to borrow and lend is that less risk is transferred. Thus unpredictable inflation reduces the socially beneficial transfer of risks that a bond market secures.Item Open Access Why Investors Prefer Nominal Bonds: a Hypothesis(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 2007-05) Coleman, WilliamThe paper advances an answer to a puzzle: Why is any lending or borrowing done in terms of money, when such money debt exposes the lenders’ wealth to inflation risk? The ‘received’ answer to this question is that money bonds are just proxies for real bonds, proxies born of insufficient appreciation, or a benign neglect, of inflation risk. As mere ‘proxies’, this answer implies that money bonds are redundant: anything a money bond could do, a real bond could do. The thesis of the paper is that money bonds are not redundant. Money bonds have a social benefit. That benefit lies in the reduction that money bonds secure in the unpredictability of consumption that arises from the operation of real balance effects in an environment of unpredictable money shocks. It is the very vulnerability of money bonds to inflation makes them useful in immunising the economy against unpredictable redistributions of purchasing power caused by real balance effects.Item Open Access Top Incomes in Indonesia, 1920-2004(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 2007-03) Leigh, Andrew; van der Eng, Pierre; ;Using taxation and household survey data, this paper estimates top income shares for Indonesia during 1920-2004. Our results suggest that top income shares grew during the 1920s and 1930s, but fell in the post-war era. In more recent decades, we observe a sharp rise in top income shares during the late-1990s, coincident with the economic downturn, and some evidence that top income shares fell in the early-2000s. For pre-war Indonesia, we decompose top income shares by income source, and find that for groups below the top 0.5 percent, a majority of income was derived from wages. Throughout the twentieth century, top income shares in Indonesia have been higher than in India, broadly comparable to Japan, and somewhat lower than levels prevailing in the United States.Item Open Access Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in Local Consumer Markets: Exploiting the Army’s Procedures for Matching Personnel to Duty Locations(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 2006-12) Cobb Clark, Deborah A; Antecol, HeatherWe use the exogenous assignment of Army personnel to duty locations to analyze the relationship between the characteristics of local markets and the propensity for consumers to be subjected to racial discrimination in their everyday commercial transactions. Overall, one in ten soldiers report that they or their families have experienced racial discrimination in finding non-government housing or in patronizing businesses in their local communities. Discrimination is related to a community’s demographic profile with white and Asian soldiers feeling more unwelcome in local businesses as the local population becomes heavily weighted towards other groups. Moreover, there is evidence that increased economic vulnerability in the community results in more housing discrimination amongst minorities. While the evidence that increased competition reduces consumer market discrimination is mixed, it is clear that discrimination is related to the nature of a soldier’s interaction with the local community.Item Open Access Marriage and Education in Australia: Decomposing the Enrolment and Human Capital Effects(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 2007-05) Worner, Shane MathewUsing the first two waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, this paper explores the relationship between educational attainment and age at first marriage. Theory suggests that there are two effects driving the relationship, namely the Enrolment effect and the Human Capital effect. Using a Proportional Hazards model we analyse the effect of an individual’s education level on the timing of first marriage. Controlling for other institutional factors, cohort effect and social/ family background we find that the higher an individual’s education level, the older they are when they first marry. We find that the effect of education is much stronger for females than for males.