In the past decade or so there has been a substantial rise in the indebtedness and debt-servicing obligations of Australian households. This has been accompanied by a trend increase in labour force participation (LFP) for women and more recently for men. Microeconomic data show a clear positive correlation between indebtedness and LFP. This paper models...

This paper presents some empirical evidence consistent with optimal smoothing in the face of temporary shocks; the persistence of the deficit is attributed to a modest degree of impatience relative to the rest of the world. It is argued that the factors that have made Australia relatively resilient to external shocks are also those that...

Wealth is an important measure of overall economic well-being, and influences migrants’ ability to integrate into their new country. Using data from the 2002 HILDA survey, Rochelle Belkar explores the disparity between the wealth distributions of Australian and foreign-born households. Her results reveal that immigrants accumulate less wealth than their Australian-born counterparts and that the...