Publications
Advantages of Non-Normality in Testing Cointegration Rank
Abstract Since the seminal work of Engle and Granger (1987) and Johansen (1988), testing for cointegration has become standard practice in analysing economic and financial time series data. Many of the techniques in cointegration analysis require the assumption of normality, which may... Read article
Econometric Modelling of Social Bads
Abstract When modeling “social bads”, such as illegal drug consumption, researchers are often faced with a dependent variable characterised by an “excessive” amount of zero observations. Building on the recent literature on hurdle and double-hurdle models, we propose a double-inflated modeling framework, where the... Read article
Brain Drain or Brawn Drain?
Studies on the determinants of migration provide evidence that distance has a strong negative effect. That is, the farther the region is, the lower the probability that people would like to migrate to. However, Western Australia, whose capital city is... Read article
Modelling Illegal Drug Participation in Australia
Abstract We contribute to the small, but important, literature exploring the incidence and implications of mis-reporting in survey data. Specifically, when modelling “social bads”, such as illegal drug consumption, researchers are often faced with exceptionally low reported participation rates. We propose a... Read article
Wellbeing outcomes of lower income renters: a multi-level analysis of area effects
Whether it is better to be ‘poor’ in a ‘poor area’ or one that is more socially diverse has been a central concern for research attempting to establish the neighbourhood effects associated with concentrations of disadvantage and for policies aiming... Read article
Dynamics of health insurance ownership in Vietnam
Vietnam is undertaking health financing reform in an attempt to achieve universal health insurance coverage by 2014. Changes in health insurance policies doubled coverage between 2004 and 2006, yet about one-fifth of the insured in 2004 dropped out of the... Read article
Assets, debt and the drawdown of housing equity by an ageing population
This Positioning Paper is the first output of a project that aims to uncover the uses, financial costs and risks of housing equity withdrawal (HEW) via alternative mechanisms by older Australians. By HEW, we are specifically referring to any mechanism... Read article
Underemployment among mature age workers in Australia
Underemployment is a serious and pervasive problem both in terms of its impact on those individuals affected, and for the economy as a whole. International research has found that those who experience periods of underemployment are more likely to have... Read article
The Impact of Children on Australian Couples’ Wealth Accumulation
Abstract Existing estimates of the cost of raising children mainly focus on what parents spend on their children. This paper challenges the conceptual basis for this approach, and instead investigates how the presence of children impacts upon couples’ wealth accumulation using the life-cycle... Read article
Two Billion Dollars a Week: The Global Resources Boom and Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) has a long association with resource-driven growth, beginning with the Kalgoorlie gold rush of the 1890s which drew people from all over Australia and the world. That boom underpinned the rapid development of what was still a... Read article
Development Priorities in an Emerging Decentralized Economy
Based on a data set of 217 communities in Armenia, this paper studies the choice of priority directions in local development programs in the years 2003–2005. The scope of programs is presented and discussed relative to good practices in local... Read article
Educational Attainment Across Generations
This paper analyses educational attainment among immigrant and native-born youth in Australia. We find that young Australians from non-English-speaking-background (NESB) immigrant families have an educational advantage over their English-speaking-background (ESB) immigrant and Australian-born peers. The educational advantages associated with immigrant... Read article