The paper proposes a return to a progressive individual based income tax and universal family payments for dependent children, for reasons of both fairness and efficiency, and argues for the elimination of policy instruments that create complexity and serve only to reduce the transparency of tax reform. In the early 1980's Australia had a highly...

Australia has experienced frequent and large commodity export price shocks like Third World commodity exporters, but this price volatility has had much more modest impact on economic performance. Why? This paper explores Australian terms of trade volatility since 1901. It identifies two major price shock episodes before the recent mining-led boom and bust. It assesses...

Asia looks and feels very different now compared to the days of the Cold War. The sense that Asia now works differently can be traced to a single source - the re-emergence of China. Asia looks and feels very different now compared to the days of the Cold War. The sense that Asia now works...

This investigation follows the intriguing evolution of the Howard Government's depictions of China, and reveals a complex and calculated strategy that successfully transformed a potentially volatile conflict of interests into a functional foreign policy.Australia's strategic depiction of China has assumed increased importance as it attempts to harmonise economic interests (focusing on China) with security interests...

This paper analyzes the effect of growing up on welfare on young people's involvement in a variety of social and health risks. Young people in welfare families are much more likely to take both social and health risks. Much of the apparent link between family welfare history and risk taking disappears, however, once family structure...