Seminar Series

Date & Speaker

Topic

9 August

Professor D. J. Jüttner
Macquarie University

Towards Decoding Currency Volatilities

This study examines on the basis of economic theory the determinants of exchange rate volatilities for a large number of currencies. We relate daily changes in GARCH(1,1) volatilities of exchange rates to the volatility changes of several of their presumed fundamental economic determinants in the context of a portfolio balance model. The use of high-frequency data limits the choice of the explanatory economic variables that can be included in empirical estimates. The first differences of GARCH(1,1) volatilities of share and bond price indices reflect portfolio trading decisions in corresponding markets for both assets. In the same vein, first differences of the gold price volatility, as an additional determinant, are related to exchange rate volatilities of two commodity currencies in the sample. The panel data estimates produce coefficients with the expected signs and statistical significance. The results of our study enhance our understanding of high frequency currency volatility changes for 19 currencies beyond the purview of announcement effects in the event studies framework.

23 August

Professor Russell Smyth
Monash University

Firm Compliance with Social Insurance Obligations where there is a Weak Surveillance and Enforcement Mechanism: Empirical Evidence from Shanghai

This paper draws on a unique data set collected in audits in 2001 and 2002 by the Bureau of Labour and Social Security in Shanghai to examine why firms in Shanghai comply or over-comply with social insurance obligations in a regulatory environment where the expected punishment for non-compliance is low. Drawing on Harrington (1988), we test two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that based on the first audit, the BOLSS will segment firms into low (non-aggressive) and high (aggressive) categories and those in the high category will be more likely to be re-audited. The second hypothesis is that if the identified non-complier is re-audited, it will be more likely to comply with its social insurance obligations in order to be returned from the high (aggressive) category into the low (non aggressive) category. Our first main finding is that firms found to be in non-compliance in the first audit in 2001 were moved into a separate violation category and the probability of being reaudited in 2002 was significantly higher if the firm was in that category. Our second main result is that across the board, firms which were reaudited continued to underpay in 2002 but the extent of underpayment was significantly reduced.

30 August 2007 Professor Kunal Sengupta
University Sydney

"Name ordering in economics publication"

6 September

Dr Dennis Sun

The Determinants of Price in Online Auctions: More Evidence from Quantile Regression

This study explores how seller reputations affect auction prices, and concludes that earlier findings may be biased due to the misspecification of seller reputation. This paper contributes to the literature by offering significant empirical evidence using Taiwanese Internet auction data. Our study reveals that the influence of seller reputations on auction prices is significant, irrespective of the assumptions of linear and non-linear relationships with price. However, failure to consider the non-linear setting of seller reputation would have led us to overestimate the impact of reputations on prices because marginal returns to an incremental increase in reputation declines rapidly for sellers who have more than 15 scores. In addition, using quantile regression, this study finds evidence of considerable differences in their impact on auction prices dependent on the distribution of price levels.

13 September

Associate Professor Pat Wilson
School of Finance
and Economics,
UTS

"Modelling Price Movements in Housing Micro-markets: Identifying Long-term Components in Local Housing Market Dynamics".

The study identifies housing sub-markets (micro-markets) that may be price leaders within local housing market areas and relates their performance to potentially relevant economic factors. This can be important as it provides both policy makers and market players with a useful barometer regarding housing market behaviour. The study attempts to find those markets that interact with each other over the long run and isolate housing sub-markets that are not influenced by housing market behaviour elsewhere in the local urban economy. The study lays the basis for research aimed at identifying whether different housing sub-markets respond to the same or to different economic stimuli. The research is likely to be of interest to policy makers (such as town planners) as well as to developers and lending institutions.

20 September

4 October

11 October

Elias Sanidas

Exploring the long term Chinese economic absorptive capacity with neighbouring countries

Abstract

This paper examines the long term dynamic tendencies of trade and GDP between China and neighbouring countries such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. This is a similar situation to what already happens in North America vis-à-vis the US. A hypothesis is proposed whereby it is shown theoretically and briefly econometrically that there is an inherent tendency for Korean exports to China to grow faster than Korean exports to other countries or regions with the consequence of reaching a very high percentage (even 90%). Statistics on trade and GDP show signs of this tendency already occurring. A theoretical model (use of dynamic differential equations) and some econometric results based on Canadian data are strong evidence of this hypothesis being a real possibility. Explanations of this hypothesis are also presented (for example the ‘flying geese’ argument). If this hypothesis is true then an East Asian free trade area will be possible providing political rivalries and balances are first resolved. Some recommendations or policies are formulated, such as balance of integrated sub-regions, and inclusion in the East Asia Free Trade area of the greater Pacific region.

18 October

Yumiko Meloche: Bilateral trade & investment between Australia & Japan

Surachai Chancharat: Interdependence and dynamic linkages between stock markets of Thailand and its major trading partners.

25 October

Neil Dias Karunaratne.
School of Economics
The University of Queensland

The Sustainability of Australia’s Current Account Deficits

The paper aims to revisit the policy debate and empirics of the sustainability and solvency of high current account deficits in Australia. In the recent past there was a heated controversy about the use of activist policies to reduce the high current account deficit. Today despite high current account deficit the issue of sustainability of high current account does not appear to be a matter of policy concern. The paper argues that this remarkable shift the policy concerns about the sustainability of h high current account deficits has come about because structural change in the Australian economy due to globalization. Globalisation has forced the floating of the Australian dollar and liberalisation of the capital controls. These changes have undermined the efficacy of the static Mundell-Fleming work-horse policy paradigm replaced it with a new policy paradigm based on consumption -smoothing related to intertemporal optimization. The paper will use unit root and cointegration test empirics incorporating structural breaks to shed further light on the paradigmatic shift that explains why the concerns about the high current account deficits have disappeared from the policymakers radar.

Tariffs, subsidies and profits: a re-assessment of structural change in Australia 1901-39

This paper offers a re-interpretation of the drivers of structural change in Australia from federation until the outbreak of World War II. The broad story of structural change is that manufacturing increased its relative share of both output and employment while the share of the farm sector and mining contracted. The large tertiary sector, including construction, oscillated around its mean. The conventional wisdom is that these shifts were largely the result of government policy, particularly the increase in trade barriers that stimulated import substitution by manufacturers. However, if the unit of analysis is the firm rather than the economy then a wider range of possibilities come into view. We contend that profit maximizing firms responded to changing relative profits between and within sectors that shifted in response to more sources of stimuli than tariffs and subsidies. These included exogenous shifts in consumer preferences and a number of changes on the supply side: the adoption of new technologies, changing factor proportions, and greater specialization in manufacturing and services generating positive experience effects.

Body Mass Index: A new approach in biometric history

Over the last two decades, biometric history has established itself as a potent tool for economic historians endeavouring to understand how human welfare has been shaped by the workings of slavery, labour markets, distributional inequality, and gender. Most frequently, it has been used to trace trends over time in living standards as these fluctuated in response to economic change, such as industrialisation or deindustrialisation, famine or invasion. Biometric history has involved the study of human stature. Height captures many facets of what we consider human welfare. How tall an individual grows is a function of genetics plus environmental conditions: nutritional inputs net of demands for work, health, and basic body maintenance. Height thus reflects on matters as diverse as access to and quality of food markets, adequacy of housing and clothing, the state of public health and the disease environment, working conditions and intensity. Amassing large samples minimises genetic effects and captures these environmental ones. Velocity of growth, age at terminal height, trends in terminal height, and differences between groups in society, are the key elements that enable heights to be translated into an account of living standards accumulated over the growing years. Weight is another useful measure, as is body mass (weight adjusted for height). Weight and BMI measure food adequacy and distribution, with implications for labour productivity and health. Today we are familiar with the myriad of health concerns linked to excess body mass: cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, musco-skeletal disorders. Health problems are elevated at the other end of the body mass spectrum, also. It is this relationship between BMI, consumption, distribution and health, that makes body mass a potentially useful approach in understanding the past. One facet is its ability to illuminate age- and gender-specific wellbeing. Because weight and BMI measure current nutritional status – unlike height which is essentially fixed after the growing years – they can offer insight into living standards over the life cycle, when teamed with data for individuals of different ages. Gendered patterns have implications for the workings of the labour market and the household. This paper offers a case study of body mass, ageing and gender inequality in mid-Victorian London using individual-level data on 32,000 prisoners.

Modelling Productivity Effects of Trade Openness in Manufacturing Industries: A Cost Function Approach

A cost function approach is followed to model the productivity effect of trade openness in terms of cost saving. The idea of ‘cost saving’ is closer to the entrepreneur’s view of productivity. An entrepreneur would expect a reduction in the cost of production if trade openness brings any benefits to his firm. The output-enhancing productivity effect of openness is obtainable from the cost-saving productivity effect through the cost output link. The cost function framework also enables us to investigate whether trade openness induces firms to adopt a technology that is biased towards the use or saving of any factor of production. An empirical exercise conducted with time series data for the Australian two-digit manufacturing industries reveals significant cost-saving and output-enhancing productivity effects of trade openness. Trade openness is biased towards the saving of labor and the use of capital. These results are quite insensitive to the choice of alternative measures of openness.

Structures, Tools and Systems for research in social science: where ATUL fits into the School of Economics

My core discipline, Information Systems (IS), began in the 1970s and grew out of the need to better understand the nature, development, use and impact of computer-based socio-technical systems in organisations. IS takes a systemic view of human activity in which systems are purposeful, holistic and dynamic so that the whole is complex, i.e. more than just the sum of an interrelated set of diverse components. Information systems artefacts have undergone extreme transformations since the 1970s resulting in dramatic changes not only to the way organisations perform but also how we engage in all aspects of what we do, including our work as researchers. The discipline of IS has also changed with the times. ATUL was set up in the year 2000 as the Activity Theory Usability Laboratory when we were using an Activity Theory framework to study human-computer interaction. We have moved on to other areas of technology-supported human activity and knowledge management. ATUL is refocussing to reflect this and its new position in Commerce. This seminar will present the output of the current research of ATUL into network-centric organisational structures. It will describe new tools and systems to support ways of working in the ‘knowledge era’ and suggest that these research findings can be applied to our own knowledge work. The proposition is that social science research be improved through network-centric configurations and the new advanced socio-technical systems available to us as researchers (even in Economics).

The price elasticity of demand for PBS pharmaceuticals amongst high income elderly people in Australia

Historically, older Australians with low incomes have been entitled to concessions for PBS pharmaceuticals. In 1999, the income eligibility threshold for such concessions almost doubled. The topic of this paper is the responsiveness of affected people to the resultant change in price for pharmaceuticals. A difference-in-difference quasi-experimental methodology is used on micro data from the National Health Surveys of 1995, 2001 and 2004-05. Preliminary results suggest that affected people were not highly responsive to the price change. The estimated price elasticity of demand is +0.02. (95% CI: -0.40, 0.44). The results suggest that the policy is efficient in the sense that it does not seem to induce people to consume more pharmaceuticals than they would without the concession. The result also suggests that high-income older people do not require concessions in order to purchase a sufficient quantity of pharmaceuticals.

Neo-Liberal Labour Market Reform and Labour Productivity: New Evidence for New Zealand

In 2006 Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) published its first ever estimates of productivity growth. These estimates were notably higher than those that had been unofficially made previously by, for example, various academics, the NZ Treasury and the OECD. Further retrospective estimates, as well as updates on existing SNZ estimates, are scheduled for release during early in 2007. This seminar will discuss some of the implications of these new data for our understanding of the impact of New Zealand's controversial Employment Contracts Act 1991. Comparisons will also be made with New Zealnd's experience during the post-ECA period and that of Australia.

Optimization of Advertising Expenditure: An Australian Case Study

This paper tries to investigate the optimization of advertising sales effects related to advertising expenditure by Australian companies that offer car insurance premiums. The paper uses short-term and long-term optimization models to derive the necessary criteria to be used in empirical investigation. The paper also develops and tests a simultaneous equations model to examine the interdependence between competitive advertising.

Analysing the Dynamic Effects of the GST on Various Goods and Services Included in The CPI Basket

This paper quantifies the magnitude and duration of the GST effect on the quarterly growth rate of the eleven groups of the consumer price index (CPI) in Australia using the Box and Tiao intervention analysis. It was found that prices did not increase significantly before or after the introduction of GST beyond what could have been expected on the basis of the discernible systematic pattern of fluctuation in the data. Furthermore, the varying one-off effect of GST on prices was significant in seven out of eleven CPI groups, the effect was found insignificant for the other four CPI groups

The decline of calendar seasonality in the Australian stock exchange, 1958-2005

This paper examines calendar effects in Australian daily stock returns over the forty-seven years from 6 January 1958 to 30 December 2005. Three calendar effects – day-of-the-week, day-of-the-month and month-of-the-year – are examined separately and jointly using parametric tests of differences in means and variances and a regression-based approach. The results indicate that the Australian market is characterised by seasonality of all three forms, with Tuesday, December and the second day of the month the most significant. However, there is also evidence of parameter instability and structural breaks in these relationships, with indications that the market has become more efficient in recent years, with day-of-the-week and day-of-the-month effects becoming less important in the post-1987 crash period.

Sincere Social Capital with Material Status Sensitivity: Index and an Inverted U-Shaped Utility-Wealth Theory

This paper explores a possible effect of social capital on the relationship between utility and wealth. Material status sensitivity is considered in constructing the individual social-capital index. The incorporation of the index into the individual’s utility function leads to the proposition that if utility is directly increased by wealth but indirectly reduced by diminishing intensity and quality of sincere social interaction as the material-status-gape widens, there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between utility and wealth. People located in the lower and upper tails of the wealth distribution are less content and hence more vulnerable to depression.

Seminar
10

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Abstract:

Dr Abbas Valadkhani & Prof Simon Ville
School of Economics & Information Systems

Thursday 19th October
12.30-2.00pm
tba

Analysing the Comparative Performance of Australian Universities Under The Unified National System, 1992-2003

This paper compares and contrasts the distribution of research inputs and outputs across Australian universities by providing snapshots for the years 1992 and 2003. The Gini coefficients for eleven performance measures and a selection of Lorenz curves are presented. We have found that research-input measures have remained relatively unevenly distributed across universities, whereas output measures exhibited a more evenly distributed pattern as the corresponding Gini coefficients point to a gradual and rather consistent decline through time. This supports the view that the generation of research output is becoming more equal across Australia’s universities. Once the “Group of Eight” (Go8) universities are excluded from the database, the results showed a less uneven distribution of performance. Although this group took the lion’s share of research inputs in 2003, it produced a smaller share of outputs.

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Abstract:

Associate Professor Glenn Otto

Thursday 21st September
12.30-2.00pm
38.G01
Light lunch will be provided

House Price Growth in Australia's Capital Cities

The paper examines the role of economic activity, population growth, mortgage rates and inflation as key drivers of the real growth rates of house prices in Australian capital cities over the past 15 years. The empirical evidence suggests that these economic variables do explain a sizeable percentage of the growth in capital gains. In particular the level of mortgage interest rates is found to be an important influence in all eight cities. The effects of the other economic variables are less consistent across the capital cities; however one interesting finding is evidence of a positive spillover effect from the Sydney housing market onto house prices in a number of other capital cities (Abelson, 1994 and Bewley, Dvornak and Livera, 2004).

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

John Pezzey
ANU

Thursday 7th September
12.30pm
40.131

Mechanisms for Controlling a Total Quantity Under Uncertainty

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Dr H.M.T.N.R. Herath
Visiting Fellow from Sri Lanka

Thursday 17th August
12.30pm
40.123
Light lumch will be supplied

Role of the State of Sri Lanka in the Context of Selected Asian Countries: Identification of the Drawbacks

Speaker/s

 
Date
Time
Location

Topic

Dr Martin O'Brien
Economics Discipline
School of Economics and Information Systems
University of Wollongong

Thursday 18th May
12.30-1.30pm
40.131

The Youth Labour Market in Australia - Implications from Work Choices Legislation

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Professor Andrew Worthington
Head, School of Accounting & Finance
University of Wollongong

Thursday 4th May
12.30-1.30pm
40.131

Modelling spot prices in the Australian wholesale electricity market

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Professor Mokhtar Metwally
Economics Discipline
University of Wollongong

Thursday 13th April
12.30-1.30pm
40.130

Students Preferences for Teaching Strategies that Strengthen the Learning of Economics in Middle Eastern Universities

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Associate Professor Joan Rodgers and Dr Abbas Valadkhani
School of Economics & Information Systems
University of Wollongong

Thursday 6th April
12.30-1.30pm
40.131

A Multi-Dimensional Ranking of Australian Economics Departments

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Professor Tran Van Hoa
Centre for Strategic Economic Studies (CSES), and Director, Vietnam and ASEAN+ Research Program
Victoria University

Thursday 30th March
12.30-1.30pm
40.130

Impact of Policy Change and Shocks on Trade and Growth within Asian FTAs

Speaker/s


Date
Time
Location

Topic

Dr Stephen Morgan
University of Melbourne

Thursday 16th March
12.30-1.30pm
tba

The Measure of Chinese: Stature and Economic Development since 1800

Abstract
Stature matters for humans, both individuals and populations. Human height is closely correlated with income, and is a net output measure of nutrition available for human growth from childhood to adulthood (or year of measurement for children). Very poor nutrition in childhood leads to stunting (low height for age) with long-lasting effects on future education capacity, employment prospects, wellbeing and longevity. Other things being equal, a population will be become taller in proportion to how well it is fed, clothed and housed. Average height is therefore a measure of the population’s access to resources in a particular socio-economic and epidemiological environment. Economic historians have applied these insights from human biology to study welfare during industrialization, mostly focused on Europe and North America. The approach – the anthropometric method – has addressed the longest running debate in world economic history, the impact of industrialisation on the standard of living, yet China barely figures in any of the comparative studies. We know virtually nothing about how the Chinese experienced the past 200 years of economic growth compared with the depth and detail of studies of the standard of living in Western Europe, North America and the European colonies such as Australia. This is a major problem in the history of China that has eluded scholars for many years. It stems from the paucity of conventional economic data such as long time series of income, real wages and household budgets. Height data are more plentiful. This seminar will draw on data collected in China, Taiwan and Australia that allows us to develop estimates of the standard of living that empirically and systematically address the divisions among scholars about the impact of China’s opening to the global economy from the early 19th century. The paper will discuss the sources of data (prison, immigration and personnel files for individuals, and small- and large-scale surveys) and present regression estimates for trends in height for South China in the 1800s, inter-regional differences in height 1880s to 1930, and trends in height of the Chinese since 1949, including the welfare consequences of the Great Leap Forward famine of 1959-61.

Seminar
11

Speaker/s


Date
Time
Location

Topic

Ms Reetu Verma and Mr Shane Brittle (PhD candidates, School of Economics and Information Systems)

Thursday 20th October
12.30-1.30pm
40.131
Light lunch will be served

Financial reforms in India (Reetu Verma)

Fiscal Policy, private savings responses adn current account deficits in Australia (Shane Brittle)

Dr Abbas Valadkhani
School of Economics and Information Systems, University of Wollongong

Thursday 25th August 2005
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.131 (Light lunch will be served)

Export Price Volatility in Australia: An Application of ARCH and GARCH models

Abstract
Australia has one of the more volatile set of export prices among OECD countries. This paper examines the extent to which Australia's export prices relate to the world prices using quarterly time-series data spanning the period 1969q4-2002q3. The empirical results based on dynamic least squares method show that Australia's export prices are cointegrated with the global export prices. A short-term dynamic ARCH-in Mean model, which captures the time varying nature of price volatility, has been used to explain the growth rate of Australia's export prices. It is found that (a) changes in Australia's export prices are highly associated with systematic changes in world export prices; (b) the diversification of Australia's export base has contributed to a significant reduction in the volatility of export prices during the study period; and (c)the time varying volatility has not undermined, in a significant manner, the growth rate of Australia's export prices.

Prof Yochanan Shachmorove, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Thursday 11th August 2005
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.130 (Light lunch will be served)

A Thirty-Year Excursion Into the Venture Capital Industry in the United States

Prof Gustav Feichtinger, Vienna University of Technology, Austria

Friday 29th July
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.130 (Light lunch will be served)

Dynamics and Control of 'Deviant' Behavior

Andre Jordaan, Department of Economics, University of Pretoria

Thursday 2 June
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.128 (Light lunch will be served)

Growth and Development Challenges in South Africa

Seminar 6

Speaker/s

Date
Time
Location

Topic

Paul Blacklow, University of Tasmania
Russel Cooper, University of Western Sydney
Roger Ham, University of Western Sydney, and
Keith McLaren, Monash University

Thursday 26 May
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.130 (Light lunch will be served)

A Regular Demand System with Commodity-Specific Demongraphic Effects

Eduardo Pol
Economics Discipline, School of Economics and Information Systems, University of Wollongong

Thursday 19 May
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.128 (Light lunch will be served)

The Double Paradox of Elementary Economics Education

Alex Frino, Prof and Head, School of Business, University of Sydney

Friday 13th May
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.130 (Light lunch will be served)

Market Transparency and Liquidity: Evidence From the Sydney Futures Exchange by Luke Bortoli, Alex Frino, Elvis Jarnecic and David Johnstone.

Ass Prof Darrel Doessel
Qld Centre for mental health Research, School of Population Health, University of Queensland

Thursday 28th April
12:30 - 1:30pm
40.130 (Light lunch will be served)

Changes in Mental Health Inequality:Some Time-Series Evidence from Australia

Abstract
Interest in inequality in the health sector is long-standing but mental health inequality receives little attention. Numerous, and at times conflicting, concepts and measures of inequality and health exist in the literature, indicating that a standard approach to inequality measurement in both health and mental health has not yet emerged in the literature. Differing views exist also over what are the appropriate health data upon which to take equality/inequality measurements. This study presents an argument that the Grossman conception of health capital, which implies that health output is measured by "healthy time", guides us to the appropriate data for equality/inequality measurements of mental health. Such an approach is related to another conception in the economic and psychology literatures on measurement: the latent variable. It is also argued here that the important measures of inequality commonly employed in economics to measure inequality in regards to income, wealth etc can be usefully applied to the measurement of (mental) health inequality. In the empirical sections of this paper, time-series hospital morbidity data coded by ICD7, ICD8, ICD9 and ICD10 for all Queensland hospitals are analysed. From our time-series on coefficients of variation, Gini coefficients and Atkinson measures, we estimate time trends to provide statistical descriptions of mental health inequality through time, both for males and for females. Lorenz curves are also constructed. Some readers may regard an exercise in constructing illness concentration curves to be a relevant approach for the present exercise. However, concentration curves are not generated in this study because they are applicable to a different research question. The empirical results presented here are the first such estimates calculated for Australia.

Kankesu Jayanthakumaran & Elias Sanidas

Thursday 21st August 2003
12:30 - 1:30 pm
40.130

Trade Reforms and the survival of the Passenger Motor Vehicle (PMV) in Australia

Abstract
The Passenger Motor Vehicle (PMV) industry in Australia has experienced extensive trade reforms in the late 1980s which were expected to promote a competitive PMV industry. This paper tests the hypotheses that protection and liberalization have a significant effect on production, imports, exports, labour productivity and organizational innovations (A1); and this effect is particularly evident since 1989 (A2). We have used cointegration analysis to test the hypothesis (A1) and the Chow test for (A2). Our study confirms the above two hypotheses.