Measurement error in the constructed price of child care can explain why previous Australian studies have found partnered women's labour supply to be unresponsive to child care prices. Through improved data and improved construction of the child care price variable, we find child care price elasticities that are statistically significant, negative and in line with...

Tony Melhuish, Anthony King and Elizabeth Taylor argue that the Commonwealth rent assistance rules should be modified to recognise regional variations in the rental market and in the impact of the program. Changes to the rules may result in improved regional performance, without any major increases in the overall budget allocation to the program.

Tony Melhuish and Anthony King outline a project to map the level of demand for housing assistance in the short to medium term; the likely 'hot spots' of demand; which client groups are likely to drive demand; and potential changes in the composition of the client groups and the type of housing required.

Ann Harding, Rachel Lloyd, Anthea Bill and Anthony King outlines new techniques used to create synthetic household microdata and demonstrates how they can be used to analyse poverty rates, the spatial impact of possible policy change, and the characteristics of the poor by geographic area.

In this report, Tony Melhuish and Anthony King provide baseline projections for local government areas of potential demand for housing assistance by household characteristics.