Publications
Factors shaping the dynamics of housing affordability in Australia 2001-11
The research documented in this report offers key insights into the duration of exposures to unaffordable housing. It also identifies the socio-demographic characteristics of those low-income Australians who find it more difficult to climb out of unaffordable housing in the first... Read article

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright?
There is a general sense of unease with the recent slowdown in China’s economic growth. Large businesses and the State’s finances have suffered as a result. But is China the ‘be all and end all’ of the focus on Western... Read article

Constitutions and the political agency of women
The underrepresentation of women in parliaments worldwide warrants attention to discern underlying sources. This study examines one potential source: the countries’ constitutions. Based on a large cross-country dataset from 2011, the study demonstrates that women’s representation in parliament is larger... Read article

Economic Evaluation: Objective, approach, challenges and solutions
Keep them Safe (KTS) is the NSW whole-of-government response to the recommendations of the Wood Special Commission. NSW has spent nearly $800m over five years to reform the child protection and early intervention systems, with over 50 different projects being... Read article

The Rotterdam demand model half a century on
The system-wide approach to demand analysis emphasises the interrelatedness of all n elements of the consumption basket and leads to a set of demand equations characterised by n income elasticities and an n × n matrix of own- and cross-price elasticities. This... Read article

Russian language skills and employment in the Former Soviet Union
During the Soviet era, proficiency in the Russian language was often a ticket to attractive employment opportunities in the member republics. Does it still contribute to securing employment in the former Soviet republics after two decades of transition? Using data... Read article

The Costs of Doing Business in WA
The cost of doing business in Western Australia has long been a rhetoric heard and discussed throughout the state, with increased economic activity in recent times exacerbating the issue. The geography of the state, with its capital – Perth, one... Read article

Beyond our Means?
The ability of both households and governments to increase savings and manage debt has been an ongoing policy issue in Australia and throughout the world. Debt can be a good thing if it encourages real asset growth beyond that of... Read article

Gender in language and gender in employment
Women lag behind men in many domains. Feminist scholars have proposed that sex-based grammatical systems in languages reinforce traditional conceptions of gender roles, which in turn contribute to disadvantaging women. This article evaluates the empirical plausibility of this claim in... Read article

Mortgage equity withdrawal and institutional settings
In this exploratory paper, we investigate whether there are links between institutional context and the development of markets in home equity conversion that are based on financial instruments facilitating mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW). Using secondary data and literature sources from... Read article

Australian demographic trends and their implications for housing subsidies
This Positioning Paper is the first output of a project that aims to forecast future housing subsidies that will accompany projected demographic changes and the challenges these trends may pose for the fiscal sustainability of housing policy. Population ageing is... Read article

The Impact of Children on Australian Couples’ Wealth Accumulation
Existing estimates of the cost of children focus on what parents spend on their children, which has limited relevance to parents’ financial capacity to meet those costs. An alternative indicator of the affordability of children, their impact upon couples’ wealth... Read article
