Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications
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ItemThe determinants of research and development and intellectual property usage among Australian companies, 1989 to 2002(Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 2004)
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ItemThe Occupational Career Paths of Australian Tradesmen(Informa UK Limited, 2003-12)
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ItemForces shaping firms' decision to innovate: evidence from large Australian organisations( 2003-03)This paper investigates the forces that lead some firms to engage in more innovative activities than others using a survey of over 200 large Australian firms. Many earlier studies on the determinants of innovation followed the Schumpeterian tradition, and focused on size and market structure as possible causes of innovativeness, however with the event of new qualitative measures of industry knowledge and managerial styles, these factors have been found to be insignificant. The results show that factors common to all industries, such as the extent of learning, knowledge spillovers, appropriability and managerial style, are more important than industry specific forces. Foreign owned companies were also found to be more innovative, other things considered
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ItemConflict inflation: estimating the contributions to wage inflation in Australia during the 1990s.( 2003-03)One of the major emerging macroeconomic problems during the century has been the tendency for inflation to accelerate under prolonged periods of full employment. According to Isaac (1977) and Kaldor (1996, 5th Lecture), this arises from the process of wage determination common to most western economics. They argue that there are three major objectives of wage earners that are in competition with one another. First, the desire to maintain relativities; secondly, the desire to have a 'fair' share of companies profits; and thirdly, a reluctance to allow any encroachment on achieved standards due to unfavourable (exogenous) events. If companies have differing rates of profit then the first objective will conflict with the second. If there are adverse changes the terms of trade, then the third objective will cause inflation. This paper tests how well the three objectives of wage earners cited above in the context of their power to effect these objectives, explains wage inflation in Australia using a times series of micro wage rate rates for detailed occupations and industries for the period 1989 to 2000. We find that wages are sensitive to the three major objectives, but not occupational unemployment rates.