Growth In Australia Research Articles

Modelling of Renewable Energy Economy in Australia

The Australian economy is dependent on energy use now and in the future because Australia is endowed with abundant, high quality and diverse energy resources, including both renewable and non-renewable resources. The major energy utilization sectors are electricity generation, transport sector and manufacturing which accounts in combination for more than 75% of Australia's total energy consumption. In this article, the time-series energy model for economic growth is reviewed and discussed first, and then an energy economic model is proposed in which decomposing the energy consumption in renewable and non-renewable energy and focuses on resilient strategic investment decisions on the electricity generation and transport sector. The proposed economic model will take a significant role in the long-run reduction of CO2 and economic growth in Australia.

Tourism and Economic Growth in Australia: An Empirical Investigation of Causal Links

This paper seeks to determine whether tourism has promoted economic growth in Australia during the last two decades. Specifically, it uses Granger Causality analysis to explore the relationship between (i) tourism expenditure and gross domestic product and (ii) tourism expenditure and expenditure on other factors known to be associated with tourism demand. According to the results, there is a bi-causal link between tourism and economic growth, indicating the possible existence of tourism-led endogenous growth. The results also suggest that food expenditure (specifically expenditure in restaurants, cafés and takeaways) may be the key to growth in the tourism sector. Evidently, expenditure in this sector may facilitate the growth of other industries through the local market, thus kick-starting a system of endogenous growth via tourism.

Australian Productivity Growth: Trends and Determinants

AbstractAustralian productivity growth has slowed since the mid‐2000s, particularly compared with the period of strong growth in the late 1990s. This has partly been a global phenomenon. In commodity‐exporting economies, rapid capital stock growth has coincided with declining growth of multifactor productivity. While productivity growth in Australia has been particularly weak in the mining and utilities industries, productivity growth has slowed in other industries. A number of potential explanations for the slowdown is considered. The article concludes with a discussion of trends in the terms of trade and the exchange rate and the implications of these for productivity growth.

The changing demographics of Australia over the last 30 years

The changing demographics of <scp>A</scp>ustralia over the last 30 years

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue.Jews, Christians and the Abode of Islam: Modern Scholarship, Medieval Realities. By Jacob LassnerFlood Country: An Environmental History of the Murray‐Darling Basin. By Emily O'GormanRoving Mariners: Australian Aboriginal Whalers and Sealers in the Southern Ocean, 1790–1870. By Lynette RussellPhillip Parker King 1791– 1856: A Most Admirable Australian. By Brian Douglas Abbott, with a Foreword by Paul BruntonMen and Manliness on the Frontier: Queensland and British Columbia in the Mid‐Nineteenth Century. By Robert HoggLarrikins: A History. By Melissa BellantaIn the Shadow of Gallipoli: The Hidden History of Australia in World War I. By Robert BollardKitty's War: The Remarkable Wartime Experiences of Kit McNaughton. By Janet ButlerAustralia and the World Crisis, 1914–1923: Volume 2: A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy. By Neville MeaneyLooking After One's Own: The Rise of Nationalism and the Politics of the Neuendettelsauer Mission in Australia, New Guinea and Germany (1921–1933). By Christine WinterW. Macmahon Ball: Politics for the People. By Ai KobayashiImmigrants Turned Activists: Italians in 1970s Melbourne. By Simone BattistonAustralia and the United Nations. Edited by James Cotton and David LeeTransforming a “White Australia”: Issues of Racism and Immigration. By Laksiri JayasuriyaAustralia's Asia: from Yellow Peril to Asian Century. Edited by David Walker and Agnieszka SobocinskaRoddy's Folly: R. P. Meagher QC – Art Lover and Lawyer. By Damien FreemanMiddle Power Dreaming: Australia in World Affairs, 2006–2010. Edited by James Cotton and John RavenhillInclusive Growth in Australia: Social Policy as Economic Investment. Edited by Paul Smyth and John BuchananViolent Victorians. Popular Entertainment in Nineteenth‐Century London. By Rosalind CroneIndia and the British Empire: Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series. Edited by Douglas M. Peers and Nandini GooptuThe Colonisation of Time: Ritual, Routine and Resistance in the British Empire. By Giordano NanniG.K. Chesterton: A Biography. By Ian KerThe Crisis of Theory. E.P. Thompson, the New Left and Postwar British Politics. By Scott HamiltonThe Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History. Edited by Dan StoneMoscow, 1937. By Karl Schlögel, translated by Rodney LivingstoneIt Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway. Russia and the Communist Past. By David SatterThe Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, The Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s. By Richard WolinWood: A History. By Joachim Radkau, trans. Patrick CamillerThe Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War. By James Q. WhitmanEgypt and the Origin of Civilization: The British School of Culture Diffusion, 1890s–1940s. By Joshua Smith

Growth and technological progress in selected Pacific countries

This paper studies the sources of technological progress that determined output and labor productivity growth across a group of leading Pacific economies – Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. – in the period 1980–2006. We consider three alternative sources of technological progress: disembodied and factor-embodied technical change both to capital and labor. The contribution to growth of each of these sources is evaluated using both traditional and equilibrium growth accounting techniques. We find that capital accumulation is the main determinant of GDP growth in Australia, Japan and the U.S., whereas the main contribution in South Korea is given by Total Factor Productivity (neutral technology). In general, about a half of the contribution to growth of capital-embodied technical change comes from Information and Communication Technology in all the considered economies. We conclude that the higher growth of South Korea, due to Total Factor Productivity change, can be explained by changes in the intensity in the capital/labor use.

Was Pro-Poor Economic Growth in Australia for the Income-Poor? And for the Multidimensionally-Poor?

We investigate the pro-poorness of Australia’s strong economic growth in the first decade of the twenty-first century using anonymous and non-anonymous approaches to the measurement of pro-poor growth. The sensitivity of pro-poor growth evaluations to the definition of poverty is evaluated by comparing the results for the standard income-poverty measure with those based on a multidimensional definition of poverty. We find that Australian growth in this period can be only categorized as pro-poor according to the weakest concept of pro-poorness that does not require any bias of growth towards the poor. In addition, our results indicate that growth was clearly more pro-income poor than pro-multidimensionally poor. Counterfactual distribution analysis reveals that differences in the distribution of health between these two groups is the non-income factor that most contributes to explain this result.

A reassessment of energy and GDP relationship: the case of Australia

This paper investigates the long- and short-run relationships between energy consumption and economic growth in Australia using the bound testing and the ARDL approach. The analytical framework utilized in this paper includes both production and demand side models and a unified model comprising both production and demand side variables. The energy–GDP relationships are investigated at aggregate as well as several disaggregated energy categories, such as coal, oil, gas and electricity. The possibilities of one or more structural break(s) in the data series are examined by applying the recent advances in techniques. We find that the results of the cointegration tests could be affected by the structural break(s) in the data. It is, therefore, crucial to incorporate the information on structural break(s) in the subsequent modelling and inferences. Moreover, neither the production side nor the demand side framework alone can provide sufficient information to draw an ultimate conclusion on the cointegration and causal direction between energy and output. When alternative frameworks and structural break(s) in time series are explored properly, strong evidence of a bidirectional relationship between energy and output can be observed. The finding is true at both the aggregate and the disaggregate levels of energy consumption.

Immigration and Refugees: Punctuations in the Commonwealth Policy Agenda

In April 2013, Australia's population reached 23 million. Up to 60 percent of population growth in Australia comes from immigration and 40 percent of population growth comes from natural increase. It is therefore not too surprising that the issue of immigration receives a considerable amount of attention in the overall Commonwealth policy agenda. However, immigration policy is a complex policy area that is vulnerable to sudden increases in policy attention. Such increases in policy attention may be related to external shocks, wars or changing global economic conditions. This article charts some of the contextual factors, which result in high‐salience punctuations and intense policy activity in the area of immigration.

Ensuring cultural sensitivity for Muslim patients in the Australian ICU: Considerations for care

Australia is a diverse and multicultural nation, made up of a population with a predominant Christian faith. Islam, the second largest religion in the world, has demonstrated significant growth in Australia in the last decade. Coming from various countries of origin and cultural backgrounds, Muslim beliefs can range from what is considered ‘traditional’ to very ‘liberal’.It is neither possible nor practical for every intensive care clinician to have an intimate understanding of Islam and Muslim practices, and cultural variations amongst Muslims will mean that not all beliefs/practices will be applicable to all Muslims. However, being open and flexible in the way that care is provided and respectful of the needs of Muslim patients and their families is essential to providing culturally sensitive care.This discussion paper aims to describe the Islamic faith in terms of Islamic teachings, beliefs and common practices, considering how this impacts upon the perception of illness, the family unit and how it functions, decision-making and care preferences, particularly at the end of life in the intensive care unit.

The genetic and environmental etiologies of individual differences in early reading growth in Australia, the United States, and Scandinavia

This first cross-country twin study of individual differences in reading growth from post-kindergarten to post-second grade analyzed data from 487 twin pairs from the United States, 267 twin pairs from Australia, and 280 twin pairs from Scandinavia. Data from two reading measures were fit to biometric latent growth models. Individual differences for the reading measures at post-kindergarten in the United States and Australia were due primarily to genetic influences and to both genetic and shared environmental influences in Scandinavia. In contrast, individual differences in growth generally had large genetic influences in all countries. These results suggest that genetic influences are largely responsible for individual differences in early reading development. In addition, the timing of the start of formal literacy instruction may affect the etiology of individual differences in early reading development but have only limited influence on the etiology of individual differences in growth.

Trophodynamics of the eastern Great Australian Bight ecosystem: Ecological change associated with the growth of Australia's largest fishery

We used the Ecopath with Ecosim software to develop a trophic mass-balance model of the eastern Great Australian Bight ecosystem, off southern Australia. Results provide an ecosystem perspective of Australia's largest fishery, the South Australian sardine fishery, by placing its establishment and growth in the context of other dynamic changes in the ecosystem, including: the development of other fisheries; changing abundances of apex predator populations and oceanographic change. We investigated the potential impacts of the sardine fishery on high tropic level predators, particularly land-breeding seals and seabirds which may be suitable ecological performance indicators of ecosystem health. Results indicate that despite the rapid growth of the sardine fishery since 1991, there has likely been a negligible fishery impact on other modelled groups, suggesting that current levels of fishing effort are not impacting negatively on the broader ecosystem structure and function in the eastern Great Australian Bight. Results highlight the importance of small pelagic fish to higher trophic levels, the trophic changes that have resulted from loss and recovery of apex predator populations, and the potential pivotal role of cephalopod biomass in regulating ‘bottom-up’ trophic processes. The ability to resolve and attribute potential impacts from multiple fisheries, other human impacts and ecological change in this poorly understood region is highlighted by the study, and will be critical to ensure future ecologically sustainable development within the region.

The Linkage Between Stock Price and Economic Growth in Australia: A Chicken-and-Egg Paradox?

This study attempts to re-investigate the linkage between stock prices and economic growth in Australia using the cointegration and Granger causality tests. The study covers the quarterly data from 1960:Q1 to 2008:Q4. The cointegration test exhibits that the variables are cointegrated, implying that stock prices and economic growth in Australia are moving together in the long-run. Nevertheless, the TYDL causality test suggests that there is only a unidirectional causality running from stock prices to economic growth. Moreover, the recursive regression-based TYDL causality test affirms that this unidirectional causality is stable over their respective period of analysis. Therefore, the relationship between stock prices and economic growth in Australia is no longer a chicken-and-egg paradox.

Determinants of Business Exits in Australia

The annually increasing firm exits have significant financial, legal and social impacts on productivity, employment and economic growth in Australia. However, evidence of the impacts of firm exits is sparse. This paper undertakes a first-ever study that empirically investigates the determinants and their impacts on firm churn. This paper is innovative to the literature in four aspects: (1) Local Region Areas (LGAs) data, rarely available in other countries, has been used for the analysis; (2) using LGAs as the basic analytical unit is able to eliminate the heterogeneity problems encountered by other studies which are based on national and cross-national data; (3) panel data modelling techniques identify robust evidence; (4) systematic statistical tests guarantees the robustness of the results. The dataset, provided by Australia Bureau of Statistics, include 3462 observations of 577 Local Government Areas (LGAs) during 2004-2009. The research identifies variables positively and negatively affecting the exits and finds that size matters in determining business exits. The last section concludes with a discussion of limitations and future research directions.

Temporal introduction patterns of invasive alien plant species to Australia

We examined temporal introduction patterns of 132 invasive alien plant species (IAPS) to Australia since European colonisation in 1770. Introductions of IAPS were high during 1810-1820 (10 species), 1840- 1880 (51 species, 38 of these between 1840 and 1860) and 1930-1940 (9 species). Conspicuously few introductions occurred during 10-year periods directly preceding each introduction peak. Peaks during early European settlement (1810-1820) and human range expansion across the continent (1840-1860) both coincided with considerable growth in Australia's human population. We suggest that population growth during these times increased the likelihood of introduced plant species becoming invasive as a result of increased colonization and propagule pressure. Deliberate introductions of IAPS (104 species) far outnumbered accidental introductions (28 species) and were particularly prominent during early settlement. Cosmopolitan IAPS (25 species) and those native solely to South America (53 species), Africa (27 species) and Asia (19 species) have been introduced deliberately and accidentally to Australia across a broad period of time. A small number of IAPS, native solely to Europe (5 species) and North America (2 species), were all introduced to Australia prior to 1880. These contrasting findings for native range suggest some role for habitat matching, with similar environmental conditions in Australia potentially driving the proliferation of IAPS native to southern-hemisphere regions. Shrub, tree and vine species dominated IAPS introduced prior to 1840, with no grasses or forbs introduced during early colonisation. Since 1840, all five growth forms have been introduced deliberately and accidentally in relatively large numbers across a broad period of time. In particular, a large number of grass and forb IAPS were deliberately introduced between 1840 and 1860, most likely a direct result of the introduction of legislation promoting intensive agriculture across large areas of the continent. Since the 1980s, only three IAPS have been introduced (all deliberately introduced forbs). The decline in IAPS introductions is most likely a reflection of both increased surveillance and biosecurity efforts and the likelihood that many potential IAPS are still within a pre-expansion lag period.

Trading the Happy Object: Coffee, Colonialism, and Friendly Feeling

Trading the Happy Object: Coffee, Colonialism, and Friendly Feeling

Determination of Small Business Churn in Australia

The annually increasing firm churn has significant financial, legal and social impacts on productivity, employment and economic growth in Australia. However, evidence of the impacts of firm churn is sparse. This paper undertakes a first-ever study that empirically investigates the determinants and their impacts on firm churn. This paper is innovative to the literature in four aspects: (1) Local Region Areas (LGAs) data, rarely available in other countries, has been used for the analysis; (2) using LGAs as the basic analytical unit is able to eliminate the heterogeneity problems encountered by other studies which are based on national and cross-national data; (3) panel data modeling techniques identify robust evidence; (4) systematic statistical tests guarantees the robustness of the results. The dataset, provided by Australia Bureau of Statistics, include 3462 observations of 577 Local Government Areas (LGAs) during 2004-2009. The research identifies variables positively and negatively affecting the churn and finds that size matters in determining business churn. The last section concludes with a discussion of limitations and future research directions.

Effect of inflation uncertainty, output uncertainty and oil price on inflation and growth in Australia

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between inflation, inflation uncertainty, growth and growth uncertainty for Australia.Design/methodology/approachMultivariate EGARCH models has been used to estimate the relationship between inflation, inflation uncertainty, growth and growth uncertainty for Australia.FindingsUsing quarterly data in multivariate EGARCH models, this study finds that both inflation uncertainty and output uncertainty have negative and significant effects on output growth. The paper also finds that, while inflation uncertainty has a positive and significant effect on inflation, output uncertainty has a negative and significant effect on inflation. The study uses a newly constructed oil price dummy as a control variable and finds that oil price changes significantly increase inflation uncertainty. The study also finds that inflation uncertainty and the inflation level have both declined since the adoption of a formal inflation‐targeting monetary policy in Australia.Research limitations/implicationsMultivariate EGARCH model can be used to estimate the effects of inflation, inflation uncertainty, growth and growth uncertainty for cross‐country analysis.Originality/valueThis is the first study of the effect of inflation uncertainty and growth uncertainty on inflation and growth in Australia using a newly constructed oil price dummy in a multivariate EGARCH framework.

International Trade and Economic Growth Nexus in Australia: A Robust Evidence from Time‐Series Estimators

AbstractThis study examines the effects of international trade on output and tests the null of Granger non‐causality between trade and economic growth in Australia. The single‐equation IV‐GMM, DOLS, FMOLS and NLLS and the system‐based ML estimates consistently support the positive and significant long‐run effects of exports and investment on output. The effects of imports are consistently negative across all the estimates. The OLSEG, RLS and ARDL‐ECM estimates provide a mixed and weak and that overparameterised level‐VAR estimates no support for the effects of trade on output. The estimates of the model with structural breaks provide a dominant support for the cointegrating relationship among variables. In conclusion, the evidence supporting the positive and significant long‐run effects overwhelms the evidence providing a mixed, weak or no support for the effects of trade on output. The results of the study can be inductively generalised to mimic the findings of the literature at large and to suggest that a part of the inconclusiveness over the gains of trade could analogously be ascribed to the use of different methodologies and test statistics across studies. The results support the acceleration of exports and investment to foster the higher levels of output and economic growth.

Population Growth in Australia: Views and Policy Talk for Possible Futures

AbstractDebates about population growth and the policies that might direct it have occurred from time to time in Australia and have always received publicity. This paper explores two facets of Australia's recent discourse about population growth. First, it identifies the major scholarly work of the last two decades that analyses the significance of population growth in Australia, this work seeking to provide an alternative to diverse popular and populist claims made in the 1990s. Second, the paper raises the particular areas of policy thinking on which this debate has drawn when seeking to support the need for population to grow more or grow less (population ageing, the need for urban [social and physical] infrastructure, and the recent discussion of the export industry of education). The paper concludes by asking why certain powerful public discourses constitute population growth as something to be feared.