Productivity and Innovation
The National Innovation and Science Agenda has committed significant amounts of funding to twenty eight action areas, which include de-risking start-ups; investing in STEM; attracting and keeping overseas entrepreneurs; and improving university-industry connectedness, amongst others. These measures signal that promoting a culture of innovation is essential to Australia’s economic growth and future prosperity.
Projects under this theme explore the opportunity and challenges for businesses, individuals and government to drive prosperity through improved productivity and innovation. Research under this theme investigates issues such as barriers and enablers to productivity, and the impacts of infrastructure development and investment, public services, as well as tax and regulatory burdens on economic growth in WA, and opportunities and barriers to innovation for micro-businesses and SMEs, which make up a significant proportion of all businesses in the Australian economy.
Related Projects
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Making Connections: Housing, Productivity and Economic Development
Economic Forecasting Model for Western Australia
Apprenticeship completions: Firm effects and training quality
SouthWest for Asia: Promoting tourism product development in the Australia’s South West tourism region for Asian markets
Testing the ‘Happy‐Performing Managers Proposition’ on WA Managers
WA wine exports: Building an economic future with China
Related Publications
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The so‐called “new growth theory” is characterized by the now Nobel Prize winning insight that ideas are a nonrival input to and output from endogenous investment in innovation. Nonrivalry implies increasing returns to scale, but this also unintentionally creates an... Read article
While it is obvious that the level of democracy will affect the quality of governance, we show that an electoral democracy should not be expected to have an improved level of governance when compared with an outright authoritarian regime. We... Read article
This Western Australia Quarterly Economic Commentary analyses the most recent data on economic and social indicators for WA, as at Q2 2019. This quarter we see that falling private sector investment continues to drag the WA economy into negative growth territory,... Read article
It is commonly argued that maintaining and enhancing Australia’s standard of living will require increasing the proportion of the population attaining university level qualifications in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Accordingly, governments and universities have been proactive in encouraging... Read article
For the benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) to be optimized, the fleet conversion process needs to be efficient and timely. This study explored public attitudes to AVs to inform strategies to increase receptivity to the wide-scale use of AVs. A... Read article
– Fragility lingers for the WA economy – – Show me the money: Wage growth a key culprit for sluggish household consumption growth – – Dwelling approvals improve – but all else is not equal in the housing sector – This Western... Read article
The Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre team acknowledges the Wadjuk Nyungar people as the traditional owners of the land on which the Centre is situated.