Discussion paper
"The power of simple theory and important facts" A conversation with Bob Gregory
Bob Gregory contrasts ‘the presuppositions of Royal Parade’ of 1950 Melbourne with the present outlook of himself and Australia at large. He outlines the evolution of his methodological position from the University of Melbourne student to the Canberra policy advisor, and defends that position from criticism. He recalls the genesis of the Gregory Thesis, and...
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Large demographic shocks and small changes in the marriage market
Between 1958 and 1961, China experienced one of the worse famines in her history. Birth rates fell during these years and recovered immediately afterwards. The famine also adversely affected the health of these cohorts. This paper provides non-parametric estimates of the total effects of the famine on the marital behaviour of famine-affected cohorts in the...
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De facto and de jure property rights: land settlement and land conflict on the Australian, Brazilian and U.S. Frontiers
This paper presents a general model of the interaction between settlement and the emergence of de facto property rights on frontiers prior to governments establishing and enforcing de jure property rights. Settlers have an incentive to establish de facto property rights to avoid the dissipation associated with open access conditions. The potential rent associated with...
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The impact of demographic change on human capital accumulation
This paper investigates whether and to what extent demographic change has an impact on human capital accumulation. The effect of the relative cohort size on educational attainment of young adults in Germany is analyzed utilizing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for West-German individuals of the birth cohorts 1966 to 1986. These are the cohorts...
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Tax reform, targeting and the tax burden on women
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...