This paper looks at patterns of own-home wealth across the life cycle in Australia and in several North American and Western European countries and finds that Australia is out of step with comparable countries. In the mid-1990s, the Australian elderly had the lowest relative incomes (compared to national averages) across 19 OECD countries. Including housing...

Technology innovation is the key to reducing carbon emissions cheaply, according to this report based on the experience of six pollution pricing schemes in Australia and overseas. In each case, costs to reduce pollution, and actual prices, were much lower than governments and their experts expected. Governments consistently got it wrong when picking in advance...

The meeting of the 27 EU member states this Thursday will do nothing to solve the crisis of Europeargues German economist Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich. No matter how many rescue packages are announced or meetings held, the current European crisis is the beginning of the decline of the European model. ‘The current attempts to rescue...

The reading literacy of Australian 15-year-old students has fallen sharply over the past decade, results from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reveal. The Australian national report shows Australia’s results have also slipped in mathematics but held ground in science. PISA measures how well 15-year-olds from across the globe are prepared to use...

The potential impact of open access is understood in many communities but requires a greater volume of open access content to be available for the full potential to be realised. The Open Access movement has encouraged the availability of publicly-funded research papers, data and learning content for barrier-free use of that content without payment by...