Many nations including China, India, Brazil, the United States and New Zealand have foreign investment regimes that provide more regulatory oversight and greater transparency than ours in terms of land holdings. We believe proper oversight can provide greater certainty to investors and ensure there is greater confidence in the Australian community that the investment taking...

This publication presents the detailed official ABS trade in services data for 2011as well as a range of other statistics that are available to users interested in Australia's trade in services. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publishes official statistics on Australia’s trade in international services, compiled using international standards set out by the International...

This paper tests the assumption of a Cobb-Douglas production function (a unitary elasticity of substitution between capital and labour) for 20 of New Zealand’s industries, using Statistics New Zealand’s industry-level productivity data. It also assesses how the Leontief production function (zero substitutability) may apply to New Zealand industries. The econometric estimates of the capital-labour substitution...

The purpose of this study is to benchmark the regulatory role of local government across all Australian states and the Northern Territory, with a particular focus on those local government responsibilities which materially impact on business costs.

This publication analyses the growth, direction and commodity breakdown of Australia's trade over the last five years, and includes individual reports showing the composition of trade with over eighty of Australia's trading partners. Also included is a section on Australia's trade in services. In this issue the geographic country regions have been aligned with the...