Economics - Research Publications
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ItemDiscrete hours labour supply modelling: Specification, estimation and simulation(John Wiley & Sons, 2005)The assumption behind discrete hours labour supply modelling is that utility-maximising individuals choose from a relatively small number of hours levels, rather than being able to vary hours worked continuously. Such models are becoming widely used in view of their substantial advantages, compared with a continuous hours approach, when estimating and their role in tax policy microsimulation. This paper provides an introduction to the basic analytics of discrete hours labour supply modelling. Special attention is given to model specification, maximum likelihood estimation and microsimulation of tax reforms. The analysis is at each stage illustrated by the use of numerical examples. At the end, an empirical example of a hypothetical policy change to the social security system is given to illustrate the role of discrete hours microsimulation in the analysis of tax and transfer policy changes.
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ItemIslamic religious education and the debate on itsreform post-September 11(University of New South Wales Press, 2005)The place of Islam and Muslims in the West has been a source of much debate in the post-September 11 era, not least in the area of Islamic education – an area seen by some Western commentators as a major source of anti-Western attitudes, and a breeding ground for terrorism. Such simplistic views of Islamic religious educational systems and institutions ignore the complex history of Islamic education and the diverse forms that it has taken across different times, places and cultures. This chapter from the book Islam and the West: Reflections from Australia explores the development of Islamic religious education over time, tracing its growth and decline in the pre-modern period and moves towards reform in the modern era. This is followed by a discussion of the generally simplistic perception, held particularly among Western commentators post-September 11, 2001, that Islamic religious education is closely linked to terrorism. Saeed notes that the hijackers involved in the 2001 attacks were not graduates of traditional Islamic education, a fact overlooked by many commentators. Although many prominent Muslim academics and scholars have been working to reform Islamic education over the past century, Saeed argues that these efforts may well have been hindered rather than helped by the authoritarian and coercive forms of reform which are being called for by some commentators in the West. In fact, the war on terror may well be the biggest stumbling block to the reform of Islamic religious education.
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ItemOptimal licensing policy in differentiated industries(WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2005-03)
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ItemSome stability results for Markovian economic semigroups(Blackwell, 2005)
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ItemPoverty Traps(Elsevier, 2005)
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ItemAn n-year roll forward reserve model for social long term care insurance in Australia( 2005-02)We propose an n-year roll forward reserve model for a social LTC insurance scheme that may be introduced in Australia. Using the projected future needs and costs of LTC as derived in Leung (2004a), we calculate the likely contribution requirements to maintain 1-year, 2-year and 4-year level roll forward reserves for a hypothetical Australian Commonwealth government administered social LTC insurance scheme in Australia and to derive short term reserve profiles for such a fund over the next 50 years.
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ItemSecond order Bayesian revision of a generalised linear model( 2005-05)It is well known that the exponential dispersion family (EDF) of univariate distributions is closed under Bayesian revision in the presence of natural conjugate priors. However, this is not the case for the general multivariate EDF. This paper derives a second order approximation to the posterior likelihood of a naturally conjugated generalised linear model (GLM), i.e. multivariate EDF subject to alink function (Section 5.5). It is not the same as a normal approximation. It does, however, lead to second order Bayes estimators of parameters of the posterior.The family of second order approximations is found to be closed under Bayesian revision. This generates a recursion for repeated Bayesian revision of the GLM with theacquisition of additional data. The recursion simplifies greatly for a canonical link. The resulting structure is easily extended to a filter for estimation of the parameters of a dynamic generalised linear model (DGLM) (Section 6.2). The Kalman filter emerges as a special case.A second type of link function, related to the canonical link, and with similar properties, is identified. This is called here the companion canonical link. For a given GLM with canonical link, the companion to that link generates a companion GLM (Section 4). The recursive form of the Bayesian revision of this GLM is also obtained (Section5.5.3). There is a perfect parallel between the development of the GLM recursion and its companion. A dictionary for translation between the two is given so that one is readilyderived from the other (Table 5.1). The companion canonical link also generates a companion DGLM. A filter for this isobtained (Section 6.3).
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ItemThe Distribution of the Dividend Payments in theCompound Poisson Risk Model Perturbed byDiffusion( 2005-02)We consider a diffusion perturbed classical compound Poisson risk model in the presence of a constant dividend barrier. An integro-differential equation with certain boundary conditions for the n-th moment of the discounted dividend payments prior to ruin is derived and solved. Its solution can be expressed in terms of the expected discounted penalty (Gerber-Shiu) functions due to oscillation in the corresponding perturbed risk model without a barrier. When the discount factor is zero, we show that all the results can be expressed in terms of the non-ruin probability in the perturbed risk model without a barrier.
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ItemFitting combinations of exponentials to probability distributions( 2005-11)Two techniques are described for approximating distributions on the positive half-line by combinations of exponentials. One is based on Jacobi polynomial expansions, and the other on the log-beta distribution. The techniques are applied to some well-known distributions (degenerate, uniform, Pareto, lognormal and others). In theory the techniques yield sequences of combination of exponentials that always converge to the true distribution, but their numerical performance depends on the particular distribution being approximated. An error bound is given in the case the log-beta approximations.
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ItemExploring unknown quantities : development and application of a stochastic catastrophe model with output and sensitivities( 2005-05)Stochastic catastrophe models are now widely used to assess and manage catastrophe exposure. In Australia, natural perils are the focus of modelling, havinghistorically caused substantial insured losses. The proprietary nature of commonly used models has resulted in limited public scrutiny of their workings – despite the existence of significant inconsistencies in cross-model output. This paper adds to the currently limited body of publicly available literature regarding the detail of catastrophe model development. This is done through a thorough presentation of a theoretical model and the application of this model to the peril of hailstorm in the Sydney region for commercial property insurance. It is found that data is difficult to obtain, placing constraints on the model design. Additionally, the sensitivity of output to changes in assumptions and parameters is highly significant – supporting the argument for greater cross-model comparison. Finally, it is suggested that increased co-operation and openness would help to address the causes of model inconsistency and improve the overall standard of catastrophe modelling