The Australian economy is unusual, in both what it produces and its policy settings. Policymakers cannot borrow blindly from overseas. Researchers need to do their part by providing careful analysis of Australian circumstances. In that vein, this report sketches five unusual features of Australia’s economic structure.

The New South Wales JobSaver program was a job retention scheme that supported businesses and workers during the 2021 COVID-19 lockdowns by subsidising a proportion of firms’ payroll expenses. But like the federal JobKeeper program, it may have preserved jobs during the lockdown at the cost of poorer future labour market outcomes for the workers...

This report highlights how today’s young Australians differ from previous generations and explores what this means for their economic security, work opportunities, living arrangements, path to independence and overall wellbeing. For policymakers seeking to seeking to ensure that an intergenerational pattern of improvement continues, this report offers three implications.

From 1996 to 2021, Australia’s rate of housing mobility declined from 18% to 15%. This paper assesses the implications of this shift and outlines the underlying drivers. Past work links this to Australia’s decline in job mobility, but this paper finds at most weak links. The findings challenge a number of common narratives.

Post-Study Work Rights (PSWRs) are granted through temporary visas that allow international students to remain and work in the host country after graduation. This research note investigates the economic consequences of extending PSWRs durations. While extending PSWRs was effective in increasing enrolments, it did not lead to clear improvements in international graduates’ labour market outcomes.