Economics News

Professor Kym Anderson's recent study (co-authored with Alan Winters of the University of Sussex) "The Challenge of Reducing International Trade and Migration Barriers" was featured in the the 28 March edition of The Economist.

Published by the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 Project, the study estimates the losses from such protectionism as already exists; calculates the potential gains that might accrue if protectionist temptations were ignored and, estimates the possible benefits if further migration were encouraged as well.

Looking at merchandise trade barriers and farm subsidies, the costs of trade distortion are almost $300 billion a year, but is stated in the study to be a conservative one, a it assumes all industries respond to liberalisation in the same way, and that competition is perfect, which it is not. The study estimates the cost of protection to be between $460 billion a year to over $2.5 trillion.

The full article from The Economist is available here, and the paper is available here.

On 10 April, Professor Jeffrey Williamson presented the 52nd Joseph Fisher public lecture. Speaking on `Globalisation and the Great Divergence', he discussed how volatile prices of primary commodities (agriculture and minerals) have affected the economic growth rates of primary-exporting countries over the past three centuries, and the implications for the differences in living standards between countries rich in natural resources and others.

Professor Williamson's paper can be downloaded here; the accompanying Powerpoint presentation is available here.

26/7 May 2008: Principles of a Modern Federal Community
Recent events in Australia highlight the continuing shifts in relationships between the Commonwealth and State Governments, and the design and evolution of those relationships will be one of the most important policy issues over the next 5 years. This conference will explore the emerging debates relating to key policy questions that require a coordinated response from Australian Governments.

The two-day conference is organised around both cross-cutting questions and case studies. The questions include the traditional concerns of the allocation of spending and revenue raising powers, the role of institutions such as the Grants Commission, the allocation of regulatory powers, the manner in which agreements are reached between levels of government, and the ways in which governments are held accountable for the implementation of those agreements. Particular case studies of interest include health, water, education and transport.

Please click here to visit the conference website.

28/9 July 2008: Managing Selection in the Analysis of Economic Outcomes
Economic analysis of outcomes often must account for the selection of economic agents into groups, partnerships, networks, and institutions before the outcome happens. Yet selection is rarely modelled explicitly and rigorously by economists, and may differ across samples and subpopulations of people. How do economists manage this problem, given that they wish to derive generalizable analytical results about the nature of the outcome? Are the tools economists use to manage selection sufficiently developed and credible? How do these tools differ across different branches of economics - in network theory, the analysis of field data, and economic experiments - and can scholars working in these fields learn from each other about ways they might handle selection?

A two-day workshop will be held on 28/9 July 2008 to promote intra-disciplinary collaboration between economic empiricists, theorists, and experimentalists around these questions. The workshop is designed for scholars working in different subfields of microeconomics and micro-econometrics who are interested in advancing their knowledge of how selection is variously controlled, modelled, or exploited in the analysis of microeconomic outcomes. The workshop will consist both of traditional paper presentations and mini-workshops, each led by a field specialist, about how selection is approached in different economic subfields.

For further information, please visit the workshop's website.

• Kym Anderson and Ernesto Valenzuela (2008), "The Softest Subsidy. Agricultural Subsidy Cuts, New Biotechnologies, and Developing Countries: the Case of Cotton", Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (special issue on agricultural policies), Winter/Spring, Vol 9(1):7-15.
• Pardey, P.G. & J. James & J. Alston & S. Wood & B. Koo & E. Binenbaum & T. Hurley & P. Glewwe (2007), Science, Technology and Skills", background paper for the 2008 World Development Report of the World Bank. MN, USA: InSTePP, October 2007.
• Dariel de Sousa and Christopher Findlay, "Relationship between Liberalisation in the Logistics Sector and Trade Facilitation", in Trade Facilitation Beyond the Multilateral Trade Negotiations: Regional Practices, Customs Valuation and Other Emerging Issues, A Study by the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network, UNDP ESCAP New York, 2007.
• Jiti Gao, and Yongmiao Hong (2008), "Central limit theorems for generalized U-statistics with applications in econometric specification", Journal of Nonparametric Statistics 20, 61-76.
• Song Xi Chen, Jiti Gao, and Cheng Yong Tang (2008), "A test for model specification of diffusion processes", The Annals of Statistics 36, 167-198.
• Reza Siregar and A H Gunawan, "Outward Investment Surge in the Midst of Weak Inward Investment: The Indonesian Experience", in Ramkishen S Rajan, Rajiv Kumar Nicola Virgill (eds.), New Dimension of Economic Globalization. Surge of Outward Foreign Direct Investment from Asia, World Scientific, 2008.

• Eran Binenbaum (2007), "Qualitative Analysis of an R&D Consortium", Contemporary Economic Policy.

• Professor Kym Anderson and Ernesto Valenzuela, "Global trade policy developments since the 1950s: implications for agricultural exporting countries", AARES Conference, Canberra, 6-8 February
• Eran Binenbaum, "Orphan R&D Incentives", American Agricultural Economics Association, Portland.
• Jiti Gao, Keynote Speech: "Recent Developments on Nonlinear Time Series Econometrics and Financial Econometrics", International Conference on Modelling and Managing Ultra High Frequency Data, Perth, 12-14 February 2008
• Jiti Gao, "Structural Estimation in Semiparametric Simultaneous Time Series Models", New Zealand Econometric Study Group Meeting, Auckland 7-9 March 2008.
• Risti Permani, "Education as a Determinant of Economic Growth in East Asia: Historical Trends and Empirical Evidences (1965-2000)", Asia Pacific Economic and Business History (APEBH) Conference, Melbourne, 15 February 2008
• Mark Weder, "Credit, Confidence and the Roaring Twenties", Southern Workshop in Macroeconomics 2008, University of Auckland, 28-30 March 2008.

• Gemai Chen (University of Calgary), "A New Quantile Function Based Model for Modeling Price Behaviors in Financial Markets"
• Fabrice Collard (University of Toulouse), "Gold Rush Fever in Business Cycles"
• Cary Deck (University of Arkansas), "Measuring Risk Attitudes Controlling for Personality Traits"
• Harris Dellas (University of Bern), "Misperceived vs Unanticipated Money: A Synthesis"
• Alexander Field (Santa Clara University), "Procyclical TFP and the Cyclicality of Output per Hour, 1890-2004"
• Paul Frijters (Queensland University of Technology), "The Effect of Child Development on Female Labour Supply"
• Jiti Gao (University of Adelaide), "Non-linear and Semi-linear Models in Economics and Finance: A Personal Overview"
• Jonathan Pincus (University of Adelaide), "An equitable and efficient developmental approval process?"
• Suraj Prasad (University of New South Wales), "Task Assignments and Incentives : Generalists versus Specialist"
• Pierre Siklos (Wilfrid Laurier University), "What Has Inflation Targeting Accomplished? The Evolution of Inflation Pressure in Australia, Canada and New Zealand"
• Mike Young (University of Adelaide),"A future-proofed basin A new water management regime for the Murray-Darling Basin"

For the list of upcoming speakers, please visit the Seminars and Workshops webpage.