This paper summarises recent Treasury work that has sought to quantify the extent to which Australia’s geography explains the productivity gap with the United States. This work has found that Australia’s geography might explain as much as half of the productivity gap with the United States.

Over the past five years, the labour force participation rate of older Australian men has risen after declining for over 25 years. In combination with ongoing increases in older women’s participation, the participation rate of older persons is now at its highest level on record. This article describes some of the trends and discusses some...

Over the past 50 years, Australia has maintained a labour productivity level of around 80 per cent of that of the United States. To explain this gap, there is growing interest in the hindrances that might be imposed by Australia’s geographic isolation. Bryn Battersby provides an initial investigation of the link between distance and labour...

Economic reforms of the recent decades have helped improve Australia's productivity level relative to the United States and narrow the productivity gap, and additional reforms could help narrow the gap further. But in the long run, according to Graeme Davis and Jyoti Rahman, Australia's productivity growth will be primarily determined by technological progress at the...

This paper sets out a plan for addressing the strategic reform of the international financial institutions in a feasible manner, with a focus on the appropriate forum and process for taking forward particular issues. The paper begins with a taxonomy of reform issues. It then provides an outline of why reforms are necessary so as...