Economics Discipline

ANNUAL REPORT

2013

Economics Discipline

ANNUAL REPORT

2013

Economics Discipline The University of Western Australia

Mailbag 251 35 Stirling Highway

Crawley, Western Australia, 6009

http://business.uwa.edu.au/schools/disciplines/economics

This report was prepared by Joshua Bon and Aiden Depiazzi with valuable input from many colleagues in the Economics Discipline.

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 6

2. STAFF MEMBERS .......................................................................................................... 8

3. EXAMPLES OF RESEARCH ...................................................................................... 23

4. SEMINAR SERIES ........................................................................................................ 26

5. THE SHANN MEMORIAL LECTURE ...................................................................... 30

6. HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA CONFERENCE .............................................................................................................. 32

7. UWA WORKSHOP ON THE CHINESE ECONOMY .............................................. 33

8. PHD CONFERENCE IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ....................................... 35

9. VISITORS ....................................................................................................................... 36

10. RESEARCH GRANTS................................................................................................... 38

11. TEACHING ..................................................................................................................... 39

12. PHD STUDENT TOPICS .............................................................................................. 40

13. MASTER OF ECONOMICS PROGRAM................................................................... 42

14. HONOURS PROGRAM ................................................................................................ 43

15. PRIZES AND SCHOLARSHIPS .................................................................................. 45

16. PUBLICATIONS ............................................................................................................ 46

17. DISCUSSION PAPERS ................................................................................................. 50

18. SEMINAR AND CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS BY STAFF .......................... 52

19. OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES ................................................................... 58

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1. Introduction

2013 was the Centenary Year for Economics at The University of Western Australia. Economics started as part of the Faculty of Arts when Edward Shann was appointed as the Foundation Professor of History and Economics. Shann was a most influential and charismatic economist, who conducted important research that culminated in the classic book An Economic History of Australia (Cambridge, 1930). Shann also played an important role in economic policy during the Great Depression, when he was part of the Copland Committee in 1931, which formulated the famous Premiers’ Plan. The annual Shann Memorial Lecture, jointly organised by UWA and the Economic Society, celebrates his contributions.

Economics is now part of the UWA Business School, where it is a major contributor to the teaching of the School’s more than 5,000 students, who range from first years to PhDs, as well as being active in publishing research. Over the past 100 years, UWA Economics has had more than its proportionate share of outstanding students who have gone on to be leaders in their field. From the early years, these include Reg Appleyard (who was Professor of Economic History at UWA), H. C. (Nugget) Coombs (first Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia), Keith Frearson (influential economist at Monash), Bob Hawke (Prime Minister of Australia), Austin Holmes (leading central banker at the Reserve Bank of Australia), John La Nauze (Professor, The University of Melbourne and ANU), Max Newton (financial journalist and newspaper publisher), John Neville (Professor of Economics, UNSW), Wilfred Salter (path-breaking researcher on productivity who died at a young age) and Arthur Tange (Secretary to the Commonwealth Department of External Affairs). Since that era, there have been, of course, been many prominent graduates, including the current Premier of WA, Colin Barnett.

We are proud of the achievements of our graduates who now work around the world in the private and public sectors, as well as in universities. Many of our honours graduates have been employed by the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney and Perth, Treasury in Canberra and the WA public service. A number of graduates have continued with their studies to do PhDs at major US universities such as Berkeley, New York University and Princeton.

There is an impressive flow of research from Economics that deals with China, India, and Indonesia, global economic modeling, international economics, the history of economic thought, as well as other areas. This research is influential and has been published in the top journals in the world. In the recent government ERA exercise, the quality of Economics’ research was assessed as being 4 out of a maximum of 5.

The contributions of the staff and students were recognised in 2013 in several ways. Associate Professor Andrew Williams won the School’s prize for Excellence in Teaching. Winthrop Professor Ken Clements was awarded the UWA Business School Dean’s Best Paper Prize for “Quality, Quantity, Spending and Prices” (with G. Gao, European Economic Review, 2012). Stephen Ingram won the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Western Australian Undergraduate Award for his honours thesis Commodity Prices Cycles: Theory and Measurement. Phillip Metaxas won the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia’s prize for the best undergraduate thesis, for his honours dissertation Australia’s Contribution to International Trade Theory: The Dependent Economy Model.

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Finally, Grace Gao was awarded the BHP Billiton PhD Prize by the UWA Business School, a prestigious accolade recognising Grace’s thesis as having made the most outstanding contribution to the relevant research field of any of the School’s PhD dissertations in 2013.

There were several staff movements in 2013. Peter Hartley, a specialist in energy economics, who has a PhD from The University of Chicago and holds the George and Cynthia Mitchell Chair in Sustainable Development and Environmental Economics and Professor of Economics at Rice University in Houston, Texas, was appointed BHP Billiton Chair in the Business of Resources at UWA. James Key was appointed Assistant Professor; James has a PhD from Pennsylvania State University and works in international trade, growth and development, and education. Elisa Birch was promoted from Assistant Professor (level B) to Associate Professor (level C). After serving Economics for 38 years, Paul McLeod will retire from the University in mid-2014. Among other activities, Paul was Executive Dean of the then Faculties of Economics, Law, Commerce and Education and most recently, has been Coordinator of the Honours Program. We thank Paul for all his contributions. We are sad to report that Paul Miller, who was a senior member of staff for the period 1987-2010, passed away in November 2013. Paul was a leading researcher in labour economics whose achievements were noted in the Federal Parliament by former ANU professor, now MP, Andrew Leigh.1

At the end of 2013, I completed my five-year term as Head of Economics. I have appreciated the assistance of Michael McLure and Andrew Williams as Deputy Heads, and I would like to thank all staff for their efforts in making UWA Economics such a harmonious and productive group. Peter Robertson started his term as the new Head of Economics on 1 January 2014 and I wish him well in this role.

Ken Clements February 2014

1See http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansardr/7c9ab1c0-b8d7-4984-afcf-e66510c0be9b/toc_pdf/House%20of%20Representatives_2013_12_02_2126_Official.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22chamber/hansardr/7c9ab1c0-b8d7-4984-afcf-e66510c0be9b/0000%22

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2. Staff Members

WINTHROP PROFESSORS

K.W. Clements

BEc-Hons MEc Monash, PhD Chic., FASSA Head of Discipline, Economics

Winthrop Professor Clements has published recently in journals such as American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Business, European Economic Review and Journal of International Money and Finance. In 2013, Cambridge University Press published his book Currencies, Commodities and Prices. In 2009 he received a Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, and in 2013 he was awarded the UWA Business School Dean’s Best Paper Prize. His research has been supported by a series of grants from the Australian Research Council and he currently holds a BHP Billiton Research Fellowship. Key Interests: International finance, monetary economics, applied microeconomics and index numbers. Joined: 1981.

“If lawyers run the US, economists run Australia”

P. Hartley

BA-Hons MEc ANU, PhD Chic. BHP Billiton Chair in the Business of Resources

Winthrop Professor Hartley is an applied economist currently working in the area of energy economics, although he has also published research in a number of fields. His research has appeared in journals such as The Energy Journal, Energy Economics, Empirical Economics, Journal of Political Economy, International Economic Review, The Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking and Economica. He obtained his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1980 and has also taught at Princeton, Rice, Monash, Melbourne universities and the ANU. Key Interests: Natural gas supply, demand and trade; electricity markets; contracting in energy markets; energy transitions. Joined: 2013.

“Increased LNG market liquidity will encourage spot market

trading and contract volume and destination flexibility”

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P. Robertson

BA-Hons Otago, MEc UNE, PhD S. Fraser Associate Dean of Research and Research Training, Business School

“China’s buying power on the world economy remains much smaller than the USA’s. This matters a great deal for the

political influence it can exert...”

Winthrop Professor Robertson was educated at the University of Otago, the University of New England and Simon Fraser University. His former employers include the University of New South Wales and the Productivity Commission. His current research focuses on economic growth, development and trade with particular attention to East Asia, China, Indonesia and India. His recent research publications have appeared in journals such as International Economic Review, Oxford Economics Papers, Economic Theory, and The Journal of International Economics. Winthrop Professor Robertson assumed the role of Head of the Economics Discipline on January 1, 2014. Key Interests: Economic growth, international trade, human capital accumulation, and international labour flows. Joined: 2009.

D.A. Turkington

BA Well., MCom Cant., MA PhD Calif. Berkeley, FASSA

“The less agents know about current values of exogenous variables, the greater are the

possibilties for statistical identification of the system

describing their behaviour."

Winthrop Professor Turkington has published in Journal of Econometrics, Journal of the American Statistical Association and International Economic Review, and is the co-author (with R. Bowden) of the Econometric Society Monograph, Instrumental Variables. Dr Turkington’s current research focuses on the application of matrix calculus to econometric models. He has written a book on this topic: Matrix Calculus and Zero-One Matrices: Statistical and Econometric Applications, published by Cambridge University Press, 2002. His most recent book is Generalized Vectorization, Cross-Products, and Matrix Calculus, published by Cambridge University Press, 2013. Key Interests: Theoretical econometrics, instrumental variables, rational expectation models, and matrix calculus. Joined: 1972.

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R. Tyers

BEng MEngSci Melb., MS PhD Harv.

Winthrop Professor Tyers specialises in applied international economics and has contributed in areas of commodity trade policy, the labour market effects of trade reform, the economic effects of global demographic change and open economy macroeconomics as applied to Chinese economic policy and its international implications. He has published four books, 76 refereed journal articles and more than 50 chapters in edited books. His research grants have been from the Australian Research Council, the Australia-Japan Foundation, the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, the Australian Council for International Agricultural Research, the World Bank and the USDA Economic Research Service. Key Interests: International trade, international finance, economy-wide modelling, and applied macroeconomics. Joined: 2009.

“The slower and more ‘inward focused’ growth to which the Chinese Government is now

committed will contract its excess saving.”

PROFESSORS

N. Groenewold

BEc MEc Tas., MA PhD W. Ont.

Professor Groenewold teaches in international finance. He has published in a number of journals including Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Macroeconomics, China Economic Review, Pacific Economic Review, Journal of Empirical Finance, Economics Letters, Economic Inquiry, Regional Studies, and Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. He is currently working on applications of regional models to issues in China with a long-time collaborator at Jinan University in China as well as on the contribution of various forms of macroeconomic policy to stabilisation in Australia during the Global Financial Crisis. Key Interests: Macroeconomics, regional economics, financial economics. Joined: 1997.

“Everything depends on everything else.”

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M.T. McLure

BA Murd., Grad DipEd WAIT, MEc W. Aust., PhD Curtin

Professor McLure is a historian of economic thought. His research has been published in many journals – including Cambridge Journal of Economics, History of Political Economy, and European Journal of the History of Economic Thought – and he was co-editor of History of Economics Review between 2007 and 2011. Michael is the author of two books, Pareto, Economics and Society (Routlege) and The Paretian School and Italian Fiscal Sociology (Palgrave Macmillan), and co-editor of the ‘critical and variorum’ edition of Pareto’s Manual of Political Economy (OUP, in press). Key Interests: Vilfredo Pareto, the Lausanne School, A.C. Pigou, and the Cambridge School. Joined: 2002. “Pareto and Pigou were the

second generation leaders of two major rival schools within neoclassical economics”

A. Rammohan

BA B’lore, MA S. Fraser, PhD La Trobe

Professor Rammohan’s research focuses on development issues in India and China. This research has been funded by competitive grants from the Australian Research Council and AusAID. She also has collaborative research links with international organisations such as IFPRI (USA), ICASEPS (Indonesia), Indian Statistical Institute and TISS (India). Her research on Australian policy issues, child care and female employment choices, has been cited in the media and in the Commonwealth Treasury and OECD report on childcare. Papers from her research have been published both in Australian policy journals such as Australian Economic Papers and Australian Journal of Labour Economics, as well as in international journals such as Health Economics, Education Economics, Oxford Economic Papers, Research in Labour Economics and Oxford Development Studies. Key Interests: Development, health, education, and gender. Joined: 2009.

“Food security is one of the twenty-first century’s key global challenges, and lessons learned

from India have particular significance worldwide.”

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Y. Wu

BS Anhui, MA Nankai, MA ANU, PhD Adel.

Professor Wu is an economist specializing in development economics, international trade and applied econometrics. His research interests include the Asian economies (particularly, China and India), productivity analysis, economic growth, resource and environmental economics. He has published extensively in these fields including six authored books. Professor Wu is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies (Routledge, UK), China Agricultural Economic Review (Emerald, UK) and East Asian Policy (National University of Singapore). His teaching interests include international economics, business econometrics and development economics. Key Interests: Development, energy, growth, China. Joined: 1996.

”My research falls broadly in the area of development economics with a central focus on China”

ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS

E.R. Birch BCom-Hons Curtin, PhD W. Aust.

Associate Professor Birch first joined the Economics Discipline under an ARC grant in 2004. Her research has been published in journals including Economic Record, Australian Economic Papers, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Australian Journal of Labour Economics and Journal of Economic Studies. Elisa has also co-authored a book published by Palgrave MacMillian. Her main research interests are labour economics and the economics of education. In 2011 Dr Birch was awarded an Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. This fellowship is to study the determinants of earnings and labour supply of Indigenous Australians. Key Interests: Labour economics, socioeconomic outcomes of Indigenous Australians, wage determination, and education. Joined: 2007.

“The finding indicates a high degree of homogeneity among students who perform very well

at university.”

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P. Crompton BBus-Hons Curtin, PhD W. Aust. Postgraduate Programs Director, Business School

Associate Professor Crompton has published in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Agricultural and Resources Quarterly, Resources Policy, Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Statistics, and Applied Economics Letters. Dr Crompton has edited a book on the Shann Memorial Lectures; Australian Macroeconomic Policy Debates: Contributions from the Shann Memorial Lectures 1991-2000 (UWA Press). Key Interests: Econometric modelling, commodity markets and metals including iron ore, steel and coal. Joined: 1996.

“Slower growth reflects expected slower economic growth and a decline in energy consumption due to structural changes in the

Chinese economy.”

P.B. McLeod BEc PhD Adel. Honours Coordinator, Economics

Associate Professor McLeod teaches in the area of microeconomics, including microeconomic theory, resource economics and public policy economics. He has published articles in International Journal of Transport Economics, Transportation Research, Urban Studies, Environment and Planning, Journal of Economic Psychology, People and the Physical Environment, Accounting and Finance, International Journal of Public Sector Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Environmental Management and Australian Transport Research Forum. He has acted as a consultant to several government departments and private firms, and has served on a number of Government Committees of Inquiry. Key Interests: Transport, housing, natural resources, productivity, and competition policy. Joined: 1976.

“Wealth and income are ... more important in explaining housing consumption than the family life

cycle concept.”

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M.A.B. Siddique BA-Hons MA MPhil Rajsh., DipResMeth Dhaka, DipResRurDev Hawaii, PhD W. Aust.

Postgraduate Coordinator, Economics

Abu Siddique’s research activities centre around some of the critical areas in contemporary development economics such as trade, migration, sustainable development, corruption, and good governance with special focus on the Asia-Pacific region. He has published in international journals such as Journal of Development Studies; Environment International; International Journal of Social Economics, South Asia; and Empirical Economics Letters. He has also authored, edited and co-edited numerous books including Globalisation, Agriculture and Development: Perspectives from the Asia-Pacific (Edward Elgar) and Regionalism, Trade and Economic Development in the Asia-Pacific Region (Edward Elgar). Key Interests: Development economics, regional trade, corruption and good governance. Joined: 1987.

“…in Sri Lanka, growth causes remittances and remittances

cause growth.”

S.H.K. Tang BA Leth., MA S. Fraser, PhD Tas.

Associate Professor Tang’s main research interests are empirical growth models and development economics. His papers have been published in a range of international journals such as China Economic Review, Economic Inquiry, Economics Letters, Journal of Asian Economics, Journal of Economics, Journal of Macroeconomics, and Pacific Economic Review. He has also published two book chapters and is the author of the book, The Chinese Stock Market: Efficiency, predictability and profitability (with N. Groenewold, Y. Wu and X. Fan), which was published by Edward Elgar, 2004.

Key Interests: Development economics, output volatility, technological progress and financial development. Joined: 2005.

“...live-in foreign domestic workers can have critical

influences on school children’s educational outcome.”

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E.J. Weber Lic oec publ Zurich, MA PhD Roch. Editor, UWA Economics Discussion Papers

Associate Professor Weber is an applied macroeconomist with research interests in monetary economics, insurance economics and economic growth. His research has been published in Australian and international professional journals, such as Macroeconomic Dynamics, B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, Explorations of Economics History, and Energy Economics, among others, and in edited books. He teaches courses in macroeconomics, monetary economics and mathematical economics. Before joining UWA, Associate Professor Weber taught economics at the University of Zurich, the University of Rochester, the California State University, Northridge, and the Victoria University of Wellington. Key Interests: Quantitative easing during the Global Financial Crisis, multi-peril crop insurance. Joined: 1989.

“The United States adopted a combination of increasing government spending and

monetary expansion that created inflation during every episode of a negative natural interest rates except once - during the Great

Depression [in the 1930s]”

A. Williams BEc-Hons PhD W. Aust. Acting Deputy Head of Discipline, Economics

Associate Professor Williams’ teaching is focused in the core first-year microeconomic theory course. In 2007 he completed his PhD thesis on the links of the long-run relationship between governance and economic growth, and has had papers published in World Development, Economics of Governance and Journal of Development Economics. He was the Acting Deputy Head of Economics from January to June of 2013. Key Interests: Transparency, governance, economics of education. Joined: 2000.

“…the release of more information preceded higher

investment, and therefore, indirectly, higher economic

growth.”

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ASSISTANT PROFESSORS

I. Chatterjee BSc Calc., MA JNU, MPhil IGIDR, PhD Monash

Assistant Professor Chatterjee is an applied micro economist working in the areas of industrial organisation, game theory, development and institutions. Her research has been published in journals such as Economic Modelling, Economics Letters, Applied Economics and Information Economics and Policy. At UWA she teaches first year undergraduate Macroeconomics, second year undergraduate Microeconomics and a postgraduate unit on Economic Management and Strategy. She completed her PhD from Monash University in 2010. Key Interests: Digital piracy, strategic innovation, managerial delegation, crime and corruption, sex-selective abortion. Joined: 2010.

“Stronger union may increase profit under managerial

delegation.”

L. Fiorini BA Minas Gerais, MA Sao Paulo, MA PhD Brown

Assistant Professor Fiorini’s research in Economic Theory includes modelling market imperfections and asymmetry of information using a general equilibrium approach. The analysis of choices under special circumstances that would justify a preference for commitment also interests her. Assistant Professor Fiorini has also published in Journal of Mathematical Economics. Key Interests: Incomplete markets, consistency of preferences, decision theory. Joined: 2011.

“It is natural to expect that economies in which agents

cannot insure every possible contingency do not converge to

optimal equilibria”

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J. Key BCA-Hons VUW, PhD Penn. State

Assistant Professor James Key works in the areas of international, development and education economics. He joined UWA in July 2013, and teaches second year undergraduate econometrics. He completed his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 2013. Key Interests: Dynamic exporting behaviour, mechanisms of allocating students to universities. Joined: 2013.

“Firms which rapidly expand into new markets are more likely to survive than firms that expand

slowly”

B. Li BA Nankai, PhD NU Singapore

Assistant Professor Li joined the Economics Discipline in September 2011 after graduating from the PhD program in Economics at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include public policy analysis in endogenous growth model and in deterministic endogenous cycle models. One of her working papers explores the optimal size of government debt in a tractable intergenerational model with endogenous fertility, leisure and human capital externalities. She is currently working on the application of taxes, subsidies and other public finance instruments to the deterministic endogenous cycle model and examining the subsequent welfare implications. Key Interests: Public policy, economic growth and technological change. Joined: 2011.

“Sufficient R&D subsidisation can eventually eliminate cycles.”

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L. Magnusson BA MA Sao Paulo, PhD Brown

Assistant Professor Magnusson joined UWA from Tulane University. His research interests are econometrics and applied econometrics. Assistant Professor Magnusson’s current research is focused on hypothesis testing for models with instabilities. His research has been published in the Econometrics Journal and Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

Key Interests: Hypothesis testing, weak instruments, parameter instability. Joined: 2011.

“The simplicity of this approach extends to its computational

implementation, which can be conducted using regular

statistical software packages.”

LECTURERS

A. Foo LLB BCom W. Aust., GradDipLegPrac ANU

Ms Foo teaches and assists with the co-ordination of first year undergraduate Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. She holds undergraduate degrees in Commerce and Law from the University of Western Australia, as well a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Australian National University. Joined: 2012.

I. Kristoffersen BBus-Hons MBus E. Cowan

Ms Kristoffersen teaches first-year mathematics and microeconomics as well as a range of other undergraduate units. Inga was awarded an Excellence in Teaching Award in 2008 in the category of Early Career Teacher. Her papers have been published in International Journal of Business Studies; Australian Accounting Review; Accounting, Accountability and Performance; and Economic Record. She is currently exploring the role of happiness in economics as the basis for a PhD. Joined: 2005.

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S. Pen BEc-Hons UWA

Ms Pen joined the Economics Discipline after completing her Honours degree at UWA. Her honours research focused on the pricing of illicit drugs and the issues surrounding decriminalisation of illicit drug trade and use. Parts of her honours research was published in the UWA Economics Discipline Discussion Paper Series in 2012. Susan teaches a range of undergraduate units across all year levels. Joined: 2011.

RESEARCH FELLOWS

T.S. Cheong BEng-Hons PolyU, MAF UWS, MIR GU, PhD UWA

Dr Cheong is interested in the issues of inequality, poverty and development economics. He has published in Journal of Asian Economics and three chapters in edited books. Another two journal articles are under review. He likes to combine econometric and non-parametric methods in his research. He is now working on a computable general equilibrium model that will be used to analyse the economic and trade relation between China and Australia. Key Interests: Development economics, international finance, national debt, poverty. Joined: 2011.

G. Gao BSci Peking, MSci Tsinghua, PhD W. Aust.

Dr Gao completed her PhD at UWA and has undertaken a variety of postdoctoral research work in the Economics Discipline. She has published recently in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and European Economic Review. In 2012 she received the Prize for Higher Degree by Research Achievements at UWA. Key Interests: Demand analysis, economic measurement and econometrics. Joined: 2012.

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HONORARY RESEARCH FELLOWS

M.J. Davies BA Kent, MA Adel., OAM

Mr Davies’ major research interests are associated with the history of Australian mining. He has been Secretary/Treasurer of the Australian Mining History Association since 1994, and has served as Secretary of the International Mining History Congress. He has a number of publications that include papers in Australian Economic History Review, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Australian Historical Studies, Cornish Studies, The Great Circle, Journal of Australasian Mining History and Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia. He has chapters in a number of books and has compiled a bibliography of the Mining History of Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. For the past 12 years he has been editor of the Journal of Australasian Mining History. Key Interests: Mining, history of economics, demography and development. Joined: 1976.

“an accident of fashion, proved an unconscious mode of birth

control among the middle classes in the West”

R. Gabbay BSc MA Tel Aviv, DrPolSc Geneva

Dr Gabbay specialises in contemporary Middle Eastern issues, energy and oil, development economics, and the role of culture in international marketing. He has published 19 books and 78 articles and monographs. Dr Gabbay is now working on condensing his six volumes on Australia and the Middle East 1945-2100: A socio-economic and political study. Volume 3 is being revised and updated following referees’ recommendations (pending publication). Dr Gabbay was awarded the Business School Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009. Key Interests: Socio-economic and political issues of the Middle East. Joined: 1968.

“Good governance is the key to sustainable economic

development”

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R.N. Ghosh MA Delhi, PhD Birmingham

Dr Ghosh retired from the Economics Discipline in 1994 and was appointed as a Senior Honorary Research Fellow. In recent years he has published on topics relating to a wide range of development issues, such as good governance, corruption, gender issues, the environment, and the role of tourism in initiating development in LDCs. Dr Ghosh is the current chairman of the International Institute of Development Studies Australia. He has recently published with Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, a South Asian edition of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

Key Interests: History of economic thought and development economics. Joined: 1968.

“Sustainable development assumes a process of an

extension of human rights embracing civil and political

liberties”

OTHER ACADEMIC STAFF

The Economics Discipline has benefited from the teaching assistance of the following:

Nicholas Ainsworth Karen Knight Shirin Tafazzoli Donni Anugrah Jin Boon Lew Jeremy Tan Joshua Bon Felix Lim Yashar Tarverdi John Boulter James Maddock Caitlyn Thomas Raymond Chong Caroline Moser Michelle Trevenen Zach Cole Kristi Ng Hong Ngoc (Jill) Trinh Rikard Dahle Robert Nguyen Dianne Van Rein Duim Zelda Okatch Matt Vella Parinaz (Tinoosh) Ezzati John Pawley Ganesh Viswanath Jonathan Foo Clayton Philippoz Patrick Vu Brian Gidney Catherine Podesta-Mooney Aaron Walker Vasilli Hatzis Yanqi Qiu Alan Wong Mark Heath Ilona Quahe Kirsten Wren Jennifer Hughes Konrad Robertson Longfeng Ye Stephen Ingram David Sami Amy Khuu Simrith Sidhu

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In addition, the following individuals acted as Research and/or Administration Assistants to members of staff:

Donni Anugrah Huiping Dong Thomas Simpson Wayan Arsana Stephen Ingram Jiawei Si Sefa Awaworyi Karen Knight Yashar Tarverdi Theodore Backhouse Liang Li Caitlyn Thomas Joshua Bon Haiyan Liu Ganesh Viswanath Junran Cao Ning Ma Patrick Vu Toby Coulstock Kristi Ng Aaron Walker Jasmine Chan Zelda Okatch Ying Zhang Zach Cole John Pawley Thomas Durkin David Silbert

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

The Economics Discipline has also benefited from the assistance of a small, highly professional administrative group:

Team Manager: Danielle Figg

Administration Officers: Isabela Banea

Jenny Hu

Administrative Assistants: Aya Kelly

Ha Le

Anna Wiechecki

Relief Administrative Assistant: Milica Rajkovic

Departmental Research Assistant: Joshua Bon

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3. Examples of Research

Though the Discipline is relatively small in terms of the number of academic staff, it has nonetheless managed to successfully achieve both specialisation and diversification in research expertise. Areas of specialty amongst staff range from microeconomics to macroeconomics, pure theory to applied economics, and from the most abstract history of economic thought to advanced econometrics. To give a sense of the type of research carried out in the Economics Discipline, the following section describes examples of recent projects. Other sections in this report provide information on research in the form of publications, grants, thesis topics and the like.

Quality, Quantity, Spending and Prices by Kenneth Clements and Grace Gao

Long ago, the famous American industrialist Andrew Carnegie said “capitalism is about

turning luxuries into necessities”. And so it was over the last century that income growth in

many capitalist countries led to substantial improvements in living standards, with

commodities that were previously available only to the rich now being consumed by all.

Leading examples include in-door plumbing, better health care, convenient transportation and

cheap refrigeration and air conditioning. Such changes are obviously desirable and can be

described as improvements in the quality of consumption.

Improvement in the quality of consumption is closely related to growth in real income. But

the two concepts cannot be measured independently of each other and statisticians have long

grappled with this issue. It is common to focus on physical characteristics to measure the

quality of certain goods – the fuel efficiency of cars and the speed of PCs, for example. But

as all members of Generation Y know, a MacBook Air is simply cooler than anything else, an

attraction that goes far beyond its conventionally measured computing capacity. Thus,

focusing on the physicality of goods provides a limited picture of quality. There are further

problems in measuring quality improvements in services, which now account for a dominant

part of most modern economies. When an appendectomy is performed laparoscopically

(keyhole surgery), how much better is this than one that involves a 5-centimeter wound?

In the paper, we propose measuring quality by changes in the consumption patterns: If as a

result of income growth, the consumption basket contains more luxuries (commodities that

have income elasticities greater than unity) and less necessities (elasticities less than unity),

then quality is said to improve. This measure of quality amounts to the covariance between

the income elasticities and the change in consumption of each of the n commodities in the

basket. A positive covariance means increased quality. This approach is based on the

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observed behaviour of consumers and avoids the need to make difficult judgements about the

inherent desirability of physical attributes of commodities.

Measuring quality in this way is comprehensive as it uses the whole basket (made up of

goods and services), not just a couple of commodities. It is also an attractively simple

approach as the only additional information required is the numerical values of income

elasticities.

The paper also introduces a decomposition of spending on quality into a price and volume

components. The theoretical results are illustrated with recent data for 100+ countries and

reveal the close positive relationship between quality and income (see figure below); luxuries

are relatively more expensive in rich countries; and about three-quarters of additional

spending on quality flows into the volume component, with the remainder going to prices.

Simulations establish that the results are reliable and can be employed to enhance existing

official measures of real incomes by statistical agencies.

QUALITY AND INCOME IN 132 COUNTRIES, 2005

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000

Quality Index

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Multi-Peril Crop Insurance by Amy Khuu and Ernst Juerg Weber

Australian farmers can insure their crops against hail and fire damage but not against losses caused by drought and frost. This is despite the fact that variation in rainfall and frost are the largest causes of uncertainty in broadacre farming and may increase with future climate change.

Research by Associate Professor E. Juerg Weber and Amy Khuu into the feasibility of multi-peril crop insurance found that while demand for insurance would be high, the market for private MPCI insurance fails because insurance companies lack data about individual farm risk (Agricultural Finance Review, 73(2), 2013, pp. 345-357).

The authors collaborated with agricultural grower groups in order to survey attitudes toward risk and risk management practices of farmers in the West Australian Wheatbelt. They found that an increase in crop yield volatility of 20 per cent would raise the farmers’ willingness to pay for crop insurance one-to-one, by 20 per cent.

Despite this strong demand for insurance, insurance companies do not offer MPCI because more private information is hidden in the markets for drought and frost insurance than in the market for hail insurance. The hail risk is a given quantity that is based on historical observations, whereas the drought and frost risks change from one growing season to the next, depending on the El Niño cycle and other meteorological factors. Insurance companies do not know how skilfully an individual farmer uses seasonal weather forecasts and meteorological information, if at all.

Without MPCI, farmers manage the risk of crop losses using seasonal weather forecasts at the time of the planting decision and through prudential farm management practices, such as staggered sowing programs that reduces the risk of frost damage to wheat. The research shows that farmers reduce the crop area if they expect unfavourable conditions during the growing season. This suggests that they are able to predict weather conditions and manage the risk appropriately.

The research concludes that a future supplier of MPCI must take into consideration that the introduction of drought and frost insurance may change the risk management practices of farmers. As crop insurance shifts the risk of crop failure to the insurance company, there would be less incentive for farmers to behave prudently, resulting in unexpected losses to the insurer.

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4. Seminar Series

There are two seminar series that are presented throughout the teaching year. The first series features visitors from other universities and UWA staff with presentations delivered on papers and their research. The second series involves UWA PhD students and staff presenting their current research. Both series provide constructive ways of communicating research results and for speakers to obtain valuable criticism and comments on their work.

Research Seminar Series

Date Speaker Title

1st March Paul Jensen, Melbourne University

Patent Examination Outcomes and the National Treatment Principle

8th March David Kim, Sydney University

Do SVAR Models Justify Discarding the Technology Shock-Driven Real Business Cycle Hypothesis?

15th March Peter Robertson, University of Western Australia

Growth and the Bright City Lights: Convergence and Divergence Across Indian Districts

22nd March Thomas E. Merz, Michigan Technological University

An Experimental Design for Analyzing Risky and Safe Choices in Constant-Sum Games

12th April James Ang, Monash University

Early Development and Current Performance: The Missing Channel

26th April Paul Pezanis-Christou, Adelaide University

Asymmetric Information Quality in Multi-Unit High Bid Auctions

10th May James Morley, University of New South Wales

Likelihood-Based Confidence Sets for the Timing of Structural Breaks

17th May Ross Guest, Griffith University

Teaching Standards in Economics: Consultation Session

24th May Bei Li, University of Western Australia

Optimal debt, growth, fertility, leisure, and human capital externalities with an application to Japan

31st May Paul Raschky, Monash University

Regional Favoritism

2nd August Paul Makdiss , University of Ottawa

Freedom, Economic Resources and Wellbeing: A Stochastic Dominance Approach

9th August Peter Moffatt, University of East Anglia

The Impact of Financial and Macroeconomic Factors on Individual Risk Attitude

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Date Speaker Title

16th August Meliyanni Johar, University of Technology Sydney

Market Power and Quality of Primary Care

23rd August Chunbo Ma, University of Western Australia

Solar Capitalization in Australia

30th August Marian Vidal-Fernandez, University of New South Wales

Early Origins of Birth Order Differences

6th September Marco Faravelli, University of Queensland

(Don’t) Make My Vote Count

13th September Pushkar Maitra, Monash University

Religion, Minority Status and Trust: Evidence from a Field Experiment

20th September Stephen King, Monash University

Collective Selling by Farmers

27th September Gabriele Gratton, University of New South

The Sound of Silence: Anti-defamation Laws and Political Corruption

11th October Luis Izquierdo, University of Burgos

Leaving undesirable partners: A sufficient condition to explain the evolutionary emergence of cooperation

25th Oct Dipa Sarkar, Queensland University of Technology

Heterogeneous Effects of Preschool on Child Health Outcomes: Evidence from India

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Work-in-Progress Seminars

Date Speaker Title

6th March Ishita Chatterjee Mothers-in-law and son preference in India

Ken Clements Three Facts About World Metal Prices

13th March Judiana Manihuruk Fiscal decentralization and Corruption: cross country and panel regression analysis

Rini Priyati Growth in Indonesian Palm Oil Trade

20th March Prayudhi Azwar (Yudhi)

External Shocks and Indonesian Macroeconomic Policy

Elena Douglas Eavesdropping on Richard Whately and the Noetics who reconciled commercial society and virtue

27th March Nicolaas Groenewold

Pollution reduction in China: tax or subsidy?

10th April Lafang Wang The Impact of Population Aging on the Chinese Economy: A Dynamic Demographic CGE Analysis

1st May Liang Li Understanding Resources Investment

Vera Sun “Dutch disease”: A theoretical discussion applied to Australia

8th May Anu Rammohan Role of Local leaders in targeting social transfer programs in Indonesia

15th May Sam Tang Maids or Mentors? The Effects of Live-in Foreign Domestic Workers on School Children’s Educational Achievement in Hong Kong

22nd May Elisa Birch The Determinants of Earnings for Indigenous Australian Workers

7th August Rod Tyers International effects of China’s rise and transition: neoclassical and Keynesian perspectives

14th August Yanrui Wu Growth, Structural Change and Productivity Gaps in China’s Industrial Sector

21st August Luciana Fiorini “The opportunity criterion: consumer sovereignty without the assumption of coherent preferences”: A comment

28th August

Ishita Chatterjee Sex-Selective Abortions and Infant Mortality in India: The Role of Parents' Stated Son Preference

4th September Peter Robertson Measuring Hard Power : China’s Economic Growth and Military Capacity

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Date Speaker Title

11th September Peter Hartley Long-term LNG Contracts

9th October Sam Tang The Deep Historical Roots of Macroeconomic Volatility

23rd October Parinaz Ezzati Analysis of Volatility Spillover Effects: Two Stage Procedure Based on GARCH-Model

Karen Knight A.C. Pigou’s The Theory of Unemployment and its Corrigenda: The Letters of Maurice Allen, Arthur L. Bowley, Richard Kahn and Dennis Robertson

30rd October Ken Clements Understanding Resource Investment Projects

Liang Li Commodity Currency Theory and Application to Mining

6th November Inga Kristoffersen The Education-Happiness Puzzle

Growth Zone Seminar Program

The Growth Zone Seminar Program is an initiative of the Business School supported by the Futures Fund. It has attracted a number of high profile economists from within “the Zone” whose research interests relate to the rapidly growing South and East Asian corner of the World Economy. The Growth Zone visitors have presented seminars or lectures relating to their research and economic policy experience to staff and students in the Business School as well as from around the campus. It has been a valuable enrichment program for PhD students in economics in particular and has strengthened important academic networks between UWA and the Asian region.

This year, Yao Yang and Guonan Ma were supported by the Growth Zone Program to present at the UWA Workshop on the Chinese Economy in April (see Section 7). Paul Lau visited in October to present on human capital and the retirement age (see Section 9).

Growth Zone Seminars

Date Speaker Title 3rd April Yao Yang, Peking University Elitism and Returns to CPC Membership in China 3rd April Guonan Ma, Bank for

International Settlements, Hong Kong

Is China or India more financially open?

16th October Paul Lau, University of Hong Kong

The Impact of Longevity Improvement on Human Capital and Retirement Age

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5. The Shann Memorial Lecture

The annual Shann Memorial Lecture is held in memory of the Foundation Professor of Economics at the University of Western Australia, Edward Owen Giblin Shann. Edward Shann has been regarded as the pioneer of the academic development of economics and traditional Australian economic history and he was a strong advocate of individual intellectual freedom and developing a sense of social responsibilities. He penned several books and essays on the economic history of Australia and was a major influence in formulating financial and fiscal policies in Australia. Edward Shann was born in 1884 and graduated with first-class honours in history and political economics from Queens’ College, University of Melbourne. He won several scholarships and went on for higher studies at the London School of Economics. He returned to Australia from England in 1910 and was lecturer-in-charge of history and economics at the University of Queensland from June 1911 to December 1912. He joined the University of Western Australia in its inaugural year of 1913 as the Foundation Professor of history and economics. He then went on to work at the University for a total of 22 years and was Vice-Chancellor from 1921 to 1923. Edward Shann’s life was cut tragically short when he died at the age of 51, in 1935.

The Shann Memorial lecture is organised jointly by the UWA Business School and the West Australian Branch of the Economic Society of Australia and is widely regarded as a premier public economics lecture in Australia. It has earned an enviable reputation for a high standard of scholarship and it has made a substantial contribution to economic debate in Australia.

To celebrate the University of Western Australia’s 100th Birthday, the 52nd Shann Memorial Lecture was given by the Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia, His Excellency Professor Dr Boediono. Professor Dr Boediono graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1967 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. He received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Economics from the University in 2011. Professor Dr Boediono became the Vice-President of Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy in 2009. He is widely acknowledged as a reform-minded Minister who played a key role in restoring post-crisis macroeconomic stability in Indonesia. He has long and extensive links to Australia and is widely respected in the business community for his many achievements in government and academia.

Held at the State Reception Centre, Fraser’s Kings Park, the 52nd Shann Memorial Lecture was attended by an invited audience of Perth business leaders including the former Federal Minister of Defence, Stephen Smith and the former Western Australian Premier, Richard Court. Edward Shann’s grandnephew, Ed flew from the United Kingdom to hear Professor Dr Boediono speak. The lecture was also attended by a large Indonesian delegation including His Excellency Nadjib Riphat Kesoema, the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia and the Minister of Education and Culture of Indonesia, Muhammad Nuh.

Professor Dr Boediono’s speech at the Shann Lecture was entitled ‘The Challenges of Policy Making in a Young Democracy: The Case of Indonesia’. In the lecture, he said education was

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“the golden key to improvements in all aspects of national life”. He discussed the challenges of policy-making in a developing country with a young democracy and said high-quality policy-making was more likely if there were anchors of rationality and common sense across institutions, as well as improvements in the standards of political, legal and bureaucratic institutions. “While the practice of democracy might eventually raise the standards of governance through better transparency of processes and the operations of checks and balances, it may be much too long and too risky to rely on such ‘natural’ processes,” Professor Dr Boediono said. “The process could and should be synchronised and accelerated through the implementation of purposeful and systematic plans to improve governance in all relevant institutions. The dilemma is the difficulty of finding a balance between rationalism and populism in the formation of policy; between an effective government and a representational government; and between technocracy and democracy. There is no single model appropriate for all countries and for all time.”

Following Professor Dr Boediono’s address, he was presented with a collection of photos of the University of Western Australia taken while he was a student at the University. He then visited the University and spoke with Indonesian students at the UWA Business School.

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6. History of Economic Thought Society of Australia Conference

The 26th conference of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia was convened between the 4th and 6th July at the University Club of the University of Western Australia and at Trinity College. The event was sponsored by The University of Western Australia Business School; Curtin University School of Accounting, Accounting History Initiative; the 2013 Freedom to Choose Conference; and the 2013 Australian Conference of Economists.

The Conference was opened by Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson, and attendees were fortunate to have three eminent speakers make insightful presentations. Professor Geoffrey Brennan (ANU and Duke University) presented on “Disinterring Adam Smith's Economic Demography”; Professor Steven Medema (University of Colorado Denver) addressed “The Coase Theorem and the (Re)Birth of ‘Law and Economics’”; and Professor Robert Sugden (University of East Anglia) spoke about “Reclaiming virtue ethics for economics”.

The event was well attended with over thirty presenters (and over fifty participants) at the conference, from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the USA, Canada, South America, and Japan. There were ten thematic sessions, which included: “Coase and Chicago”, “Cambridge Economics”, “Enlightenment and Classical Political Economy”, “Econophysics, Finance and Trade”, “Religion, Ethics; Virtue and Economics”, “Virtue Ethics and Mont Pelerin” and “Prices, Welfare and Innovation”. In addition to participation by many senior scholars, it was also very pleasing to see a number of younger scholars presenting their research. The combination of experience and youth worked well at the Conference once again, with high quality presentations complemented by some excellent discussions.

Professor Bob Gregory (Australian National University), a special guest of the Conference, presented an entertaining and interesting speech on “Some Reflections on the History of Australian Economics” at the Conference Dinner. In the course of the evening a number of prizes were also awarded: Professor John King was made a ‘life fellow’ of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia. Dr Alex Millmow was awarded the Peter D. Groenewegen prize (for best article published in the History of Economics Review between 2011 and 2012) for his article “Colin Clark in Australia”. UWA student Philip Metaxas won the HETSA prize for the best honours thesis in the field of History of Economic Thought for his dissertation on “Australia’s Contribution to International Trade Theory: The Dependent Economy Model” (supervised by Juerg Weber). The HETSA prize for the best doctorate in the history of economic thought as awarded jointly to Arnaldo Barone, for his thesis on ‘Veblen and public support for the arts’ (supervised by Professor John King, La Trobe University), and Edward Mariyani Squire, for his thesis on ‘Opacity and Rhetoric’ (supervised by Dick Bryan and Evan Jones, University of Sydney).

The Conference Committee, chaired by Michael McLure (UWA), was comprised of Harry Bloch (Curtin University), Elena Douglas (UWA), Robin Ghosh (UWA), David Gilchrist (Curtin University) and Karen Knight (UWA); administrative support was provided by Danielle Figg and Isabela Banea; and abstracts submitted to the conference were reviewed by Harry Bloch, Michael McLure and Ray Pedridis.

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7. UWA Workshop on the Chinese Economy

Australia’s extraordinary economic strength through the “great recession” has been sustained primarily by the spectacular rise of the Chinese economy and its demand for resource based imports. Future prospects for the two economies are therefore interlinked. Recent concern that the Chinese economy could slow down significantly or even stagnate in the near future is therefore of considerable importance in both economies. The oft-cited reasons for this include rising costs as local environmental costs increase and the supply of surplus rural labour wanes, the expectation that China’s overall labour force will soon begin to contract, placing further upward pressure on costs and resistance to China’s export expansion in stagnating European and North American markets.

The response of China’s government has been to change the source of its future growth to that which has underlain most global growth in the last two decades; namely its own economy. It has decided to “look inward” for further growth. Yet this is known to be more difficult politically; and moreover, because it requires major improvements in productivity in services, the skill composition of China’s labour force will require a major upgrade to achieve it. The Chinese economy and government has surmounted greater obstacles in recent decades but these are daunting and they have implications not only for China’s economic performance but also for the global economy and that of Australia in particular.

The UWA Business School’s research group on the Chinese economy is undertaking research on elements of these key issues that includes global and national modeling to help understand how alternative growth scenarios for China, and the numerous looming roadblocks to this growth, will affect the international economy and the performance of China’s trading partners.

The 2013 UWA Workshop on the Chinese Economy proceeded over the 3rd and 4th of April, concluding with a public forum on Chinese economic prospects as part of the Business School's "Breakfast by the Bay" series. Two of the senior Chinese scholars visiting for the workshop, Dr. Xiaobo Zhang from Peking University and Dr. Guonan Ma from the Bank for International Settlements, joined a panel that included John Atkins, Chairman WA of the ANZ Banking Group and George Jones, Chairman Gindalbie Metals and Sundance Resources, moderated by Winthrop Professor Rod Tyers. The Chinese visitors offered entertaining presentations and the overall discussion was enjoyed by 250 paying guests, laying a foundation for the future combination of scholarly workshops with public events that inform the community of the work of the school and its public implications.

In the Workshop, papers were presented by six prominent visitors from abroad and six academic staff members from the Business School. These were generally highly polished papers and the objective of the workshop was to help polish these papers for submission to strong scholarly journals. The papers are listed in the following table.

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Presenter Institute Paper presented Xiaobo Zhang IFPRI, Washington DC and

China Center for Economic Research, Peking U.

Immiserizing Growth: Some Evidence (from China with Hope for Love)

Harry X Wu Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi U.

China's Growth and Productivity Performance Debate Revisited

Yao Yang Director, National School of Development, Peking U.

Elitism and Returns to CPC Membership in China

Miaojie Yu China Center for Economic Research, Peking U.

Export Intensity and Input Trade Liberalization: Evidence from Chinese Firms

Guonan Ma Bank for International Settlements, Hong Kong

Is China or India more financially open?

Qingyuan Du Monash University, Melbourne

Roads and the Real Exchange Rate

Nic Groenewold, An Ping Chen

Economics, UWA Regional Effects of an Emissions-Reduction Policy in China: Taxes, Subsidies and the Method of Financing

Peter Robertson

Economics, UWA Human Capital and the Hukou Constraint: Implications for China's Growth

Yanrui Wu Economics, UWA Productivity, Economic Growth and Middle Income Traps: Implications for China

Rod Tyers Economics, UWA Looking Inward for Transformative Growth in China

Zhaoyong Zhang

Edith Cowan University The RMB Exchange Rate and its Impact on the Trade Balance

In addition to these, remote contributions were offered by Associate Professor Ligang Song, Director, China Economy Program, Crawford School, ANU; and Dr Jane Golley, Associate Director, Centre for China in the World, ANU.

The workshop convenors were Rod Tyers, Peter Robertson, Yanrui Wu and Nic Groenewold with administrative assistance from Danielle Figg and the Economics Discipline Administration team.

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8. PhD Conference in Economics and Business

More than thirty students from Australia and New Zealand gathered at the Australian National University’s Research School of Economics for the 26th Annual PhD Conference in Economics and Business. The conference was held from the 7th to the 9th of November 2013. The invited speakers at the conference were Professor Jan van Ours and the Honorable Andrew Leigh.

The annual Conference is a joint venture between UWA, the Australian National University, the University of Queensland and Monash University. It gives PhD students the opportunity to meet their peers and senior academics with similar interests, to engage in high level debate and discussion, and to network with prospective employers.

Over the past 26 years the Conference had opened up a range of new opportunities to PhD students from across Australia. Since its inception in 1987, the PhD Conference in Economics and Business has involved well over 600 students from all major Australian universities and some overseas universities.

Also in attendance at this year's Conference were 30 distinguished scholars in economics and finance from Australia and overseas, as well as representatives from key employers of PhD graduates, including the Reserve Bank, the Productivity Commission, and major Australian universities. The Conference is sponsored by government organisations, corporations and individuals, including the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Productivity Commission, The Commonwealth Treasury, the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance, and Frontier Economics.

Social events included a welcome barbecue in the gardens of University House and a conference dinner in the Great Hall. The academic events took place in the Manning Clark Theatres.

Two prizes were determined by a secret ballot of all participants and the winners were:

• Best Student Presentation: Jamie Hall, UNSW

• Best Discussant: Professor Ranjan Ray, Monash University

The 2013 PhD Conference in Economics and Business was convened by Professor Alison Booth from ANU’s Research School of Economics, with the able assistance of Ms Chris Treadwell and her team.

Further information on the Conference, including a copy of the Conference brochure, is available at http://rse.anu.edu.au/news_events/PDFs/PhD_Conference_Report_Nov2013.pdf.

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9. Visitors

The Economics Discipline was pleased to welcome several official visitors during 2013. During their visits, they presented seminars and collaborated with members of the Discipline on research. Guests included:

Dr Dongling Chen completed his PhD in ‘World Consumption Economics’ at UWA in 1992. He later became a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Chicago and held an appointment at The University of Florida, Gainesville. He is now with the Shanghai Municipal Authority. He has published books and articles on consumer demand and contributed to many of the discussion papers in the UWA Economics Discussion Paper Series. Dr Chen visited UWA to carry out research on cross-country consumption comparisons with Ken Clements in September of this year.

Dr Sam-Ho Lee completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004 and is currently an Associate Professor at the Korea University. He was an Assistant Professor in Economics at UWA from 2009 to 2012. His current research interest lies in the economic effects of cultural attributes – in particular investigating an explanation for how some persistent cultural differences can be larger than non-acquirable attributes such as race. His longer term research goal is to understand the evolution of cultures and their interaction with economic features. He was a visitor with the Economics Discipline this year until February.

Xing Shi took up his visiting position in economics in February 2012 and returned to China in September 2013. He is expected to complete his doctoral degree in the School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). The latter is a member of the prestigious C9 universities in China. During his visit, he has been collaborating with Professor Yanrui Wu and met with many economics PhD students and staff members. His work, co-authored with Professor Wu, “Knowledge Intensive Business Services and Their Impact on Innovation in China” has been accepted for publication in Service Business (a refereed journal). They are now working on a second joint paper.

Dr Siew Ling Yew is currently a lecturer at Monash University, Australia. She joined Monash University in December 2009, after completing her PhD in Economics at the National University of Singapore. Her PhD thesis focused on social security and welfare. She has two papers related to social security published or forthcoming in A* journals (ARC journal ranking) since 2009. Her research work employs popular techniques in Macroeconomics such as Dynamic programming and Hamiltonian, and computational tools such as Matlab and Maple. She visited the Economics Discipline in early July to work with Bei Li on a project assessing the impact of rural-urban migration policy on the welfare of rural residents in developing countries.

Dr Sau-Him Paul Lau is a full professor at the School and Economics and Finance, University of Hong Kong and received his PhD from Stanford. His research interests combine macroeconomics, growth, applied game theory and time series econometrics. In recent years, Paul has extended his research interests in economic growth to issues related to population aging, saving, retirement age and human capital investment. Paul has published

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widely in leading journals such as Journal of Economic Dynamics and Controls, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Economic Theory, and the Economic Journal. Whilst he was at UWA in October he presented a seminar entitled; “The Impact of Longevity Improvement on Human Capital and Retirement Age” as part of the Growth Zone Seminar Series.

Dr Dahai Fu is an assistant professor in the School of International Trade at the Central University of Finance and Economics, China. He studied economics at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, the University of International Business and Economics, and the University of Western Australia. His research interests are mainly in the area of international trade. He has thus far published articles in China Economic Review, Asian Economic Papers and Frontiers of Economics in China. During his short visit during July and August, he collaborated with Professor Yanrui Wu and completed the draft of a joint paper entitled “Foreign Entry and Markups: Firm-Level Evidence from China”. The paper is currently being reviewed.

Dr Baoyu Peng is an associate professor in the College of Environment and Planning at Henan University, China. She specialises in regional economics. Her research interests cover regional economic development, rural economy, economic geography and financial studies. During her visit to the UWA Business School from October 2013 to September 2014, she will collaborate with Professor Yanrui Wu. They are currently working on a project investigating rural finance and regional disparity in China.

Dr Rahul Sen is a senior lecturer in Economics at the Auckland University of Technology. He completed his BA (Hons) and MA in Economics at the University of Delhi before proceeding to the National University of Singapore to complete his PhD. He then joined the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore as a Research Fellow where he worked from 2003-2007, He joined the AUT in 2008. He is an expert in economic integration in the Asia-Pacific, particularly related to Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), having extensively published scholarly articles and papers in well-recognised journals including The World Economy and the Journal of World Trade . In recent years, he has been involved in applied general equilibrium modelling of trade policy issues by becoming a member of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) based at Purdue University, Indiana, USA. During his visit to the Business School he collaborated with Associate Professor Abu Siddique on a joint project entitled, “Thailand’s FTAs with Australia and New Zealand: A Comparative Analysis”.

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10. Research Grants

The following is information on research grants won by staff in Economics.

Recipient Project Title Amount (p.a.)

Australian Research Council: Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards E. Birch New Household Economics & the Earnings & Labour

Supply of Indigenous Australians $125,000

Australian Research Council: Continuing Discovery Grants K. W. Clements Analysing Global Consumption Patterns with a Large

Number of Goods

$87,709

K. W. Clements and R. Tyers

Commodity Booms & Busts - Implications for the Australian Economy

$90,000

A. Rammohan Institutions for Food Security - Global Lessons from

Rural India $26,874

P. Robertson and P.C. Athukorala

Sustaining India’s Economic Transformation - Challenges Prospects & Implications for Australia & the Pacific Region

$60,000

R. Tyers with S. Dowrick and H. Anderson

Economic Growth and Real Exchange Rates $104,667

Y. Wu and D.V. Marinova

Energy efficiency, economic growth and the environment in China

$125,000

Perth USAsia Centre Seed Funding Research Grants R. Tyers with P. Hartley, K.W. Clements and T. Hertel

Economic Interdependency between Asia, the US and Australia

$10,000

Y. Wu Australia – China – US Economic Triangle:

Complementarity and Competitiveness $10,000

Other Research Grants A. Rammohan Impact of Decentralization on Public Goods Provision,

Participation and Development in Indonesia (AusAID) $124,894

E. Birch with WUN colleagues

Widening Participation: ‘First in the Family’ Students Succeeding at University

£20,387

P. McLeod Governance, social and economic sustainability of WA's lobster and finfish industries (Fisheries Research & Development Corporation)

$75,422

R. Tyers with J. Corbett Modelling Japanese economic performance –

implications for Australia (Australia-Japan Foundation Grant)

$38,155

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11. Teaching

A list of units offered by the Discipline in 2013, together with course coordinators and enrolments follows.

Unit Code Unit Name Semester Coordinator(s) Enrolments ECON1101 Microeconomics: Prices and Markets 1,2 A. Williams

A. Foo I. Kristoffersen

1665

ECON1102 Macroeconomics: Money and Finance 1,2 B. Li I. Chatterjee

699

L. Fiorini ECON1111 Quantitative Methods for Business and

Economics 1,2 I. Kristoffersen

S. Tang 158

ECON2105 Rise of the Global Economy 1 P. Crompton 195 ECON2210 Monetary Economics 1 K. Clements 198 ECON2233 Microeconomics: Policy and Applications 1 B. Li 368 ECON2234 Macroeconomics: Policy and Applications 2 S. Tang 347 ECON2235 International Trade 2 P. Robertson 143 ECON2236 International Finance 1 N. Groenewold 336 ECON2245 Business Economics 2 B. Lei 247 ECON2271 Business Econometrics 1,2 Y. Wu

J. Key 315

ECON2272 Intermediate Mathematics for Economists 2 E.J. Weber 93 ECON3302 Applied Microeconomics 1 A. Rammohan

P. McLeod 277

ECON3303 Applied Macroeconomics 1 R. Tyers 140 ECON3310 History of Economic Ideas 1 K. Knight

R. Ghosh 28

ECON3350 Money, Banking and Financial Markets 2 L. Fiorini 158 ECON3371 Econometrics 2 L. Magnusson 28 ECON3372 Advanced Mathematics for Economists 1 G. Gao 29 ECON4402 Microeconomic Theory 1 P. McLeod 26 ECON4405 Public Economics 2 P. McLeod 17 ECON4413 Applied Advanced Econometrics 1 L. Magnusson 10 ECON4415 International Finance and Markets 2 K. Clements 18 ECON4418 Macroeconomic Theory 2 E.J. Weber 21 ECON4503 Advanced Economic Analysis 2 P. Robertson 18 ECON4507 History of Economic Thought 1 K. Knight

R. Ghosh 19

ECON5502 International Finance and Markets 2 K. Clements 11 ECON5503 Economic Management and Strategy 1,2 I. Chatterjee

A. Rammohan 106

ECON5540 Economic Analysis and Policy 2 S. Tang 21

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12. PhD Student Topics

During 2013, the Economics Discipline had 21 students enrolled in the PhD program. Details on the students, their topics and arrangements for supervision are as follows.

Student Supervisor(s) Thesis Title

Akbar, Riznaldi

Y. Wu B. Li

Early Warning System for Debt Crisis: A Case Study of Indonesia

Anugrah, Donni Fajar

A. Rammohan S. Tang

The Differential Regional Impact of Monetary Policy: Indonesia as a Case Study

Arsana, Wayan Y. Wu

Efficiency, Technical Change and Productivity Growth in Indonesian Regions

Azwar, Prayudhi R. Tyers P. Robertson

External Shocks and Economic Performance in Indonesia

Collins, Jason E.J. Weber B. Baer

Essays on Human Evolution and Economic Growth

Douglas, Elena

M. McLure P. Flatau

Eavesdropping on a Virtuous Circle: Richard Whately and the Oriel Noetics

Ezzati, Parinaz N. Groenewold Financial Markets Integration and Volatility: Monetary Policy Implications

Hendrie, Delia P. McLeod Economic Analysis of Health Sponsorship in Australia

Knight, Karen M. McLure R. Ghosh

A Cambridge Thought Collective: The Philosophical Traditions of Marshallian Economics

Kristoffersen, Ingebjorg

P. Robertson D. Butler P. Gerrans

Economic Analysis of Happiness and Satisfaction: Selected methodological issues and applications

Li, Liang K.W. Clements

Understanding Resources Investment

Manihuruk, Judiana

M.A.B. Siddique A. Williams

Fiscal Decentralisation and Corruption: A cross country analysis and special reference to Indonesia

Okatch, Zelda Achieng

M.A.B. Siddique A. Rammohan

The Impact of Taxes and Social Safety Nets on Poverty and Inequality in Botswana

Priyati, Rini P. Robertson R. Tyers

Palm Oil and Economic Performance in Indonesia

Ren, Weiwei

A. Rammohan Y. Wu

Four essays on labour economics: gender, education and health in China

Rumayya, Rumayya

A. Rammohan S. Tang

Decentralisation and Quality of Governance in Indonesia

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Student Supervisor(s) Thesis Title

Sun, Yi Vera P. Robertson Human Capital Formation & Economic Growth in China: Skills Shortage Issues

Tarverdi, Yashar A. Rammohan S. Tang

The Relationship Between the MDG and Good Governance Policy

Ye, Longfeng P. Robertson Middle Income Trap and Implications for China

Yu, Fei Y. Wu The Economics of Patents: Examination, Discrimination and Knowledge Transfer

Zhang, Ying R. Tyers Real Exchange Rate Realignments and their Determinants

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13. Master of Economics Program

The Economics Discipline had 21 students enrolled in the Master of Economics program in 2013:

Ariyadasa, Gamarachchige

Bauskis, Alicia

Bloomfield, Joanne

Fitzsimmons, Courtney

Gollach, Amos

Heng, Hubert

Jelinek, Peter

Khan, Zaeem

Koh, Ryan

Lapworth, Stuart

Mambane, Gillmahr

Myers, Anthony

Ngambi, Mufingwe

O’Brien, Lizzie

Odong, Francis

Oon, Annie

Spasic, Natasa

Susanto, Julius

Trevaskis, Mark

Wagao, Halima

White, Rebecca

Of these, the following 7 students completed all or part of their Master of Economics dissertation in 2013. Details on the students, their topics and arrangements for supervision are as follows.

Student Supervisor(s) Thesis Title

Bloomfield, Joanne P. McLeod Economic Analysis of Subsidies in the Australian Solar Hot Water Market

Heng, Hubert M.A.B. Siddique

The Foreign Labour – Economic Growth Nexus: A Singaporean Case Study

Koh, Ryan Y. Wu Understanding the Drivers of Energy Consumption and Energy Intensity in China’s Provincial Manufacturing Sector

Myers, Anthony M.A.B. Siddique

The Impact of Public Infrastructure on Economic Growth: Application to Liberia’s Growth Strategy

Ngambi, Mufingwe

Y. Wu

The Impact of a Reduction in External Debt on Economic Growth in Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) with Special Focus on Zambia

Trevaskis, Mark P. McLeod Australian Superannuation Fund Investment in Infrastructure

Wagao, Halima A. Rammohan Factors Influencing the Demand for Microfinance in East Africa

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14. Honours Program

The Economics Discipline had 19 students enrolled in the Honours program in 2013. Details on the students, their dissertation titles and arrangements for supervision are below.

Sadly, one of the Discipline’s promising honours students, Jin-Boon Lew, passed away in September. Jin was a Hackett Scholarship recipient and an outstanding tutor for the Discipline. He will be missed dearly by the staff and students of the UWA Business School.

Atkins, E. How Should We Tax Recreational Drugs?, supervised by K.W. Clements.

Ausma, K. Is the Home Where the Heart is? Home-ownership, Net-worth and US Household Asset Allocation Behaviour, supervised by L. Magnusson.

Boulter, J. What GFC? Was Australia's Performance China Dependent?, supervised by N. Groenewold.

Brennan, M. An Empirical Inquiry into the Spatial Metrics of Social Exclusion, supervised by B. Smith and P. McLeod.

Hockings, J. The Potential Role for Auctions in the Management of Australia's Infrastructure Access Regime, supervised by P. McLeod.

Ingram, S. Commodity Price Cycles: Theory and Measurement, supervised by K.W. Clements.

Legendre, N. An Analysis of Maternal Mortality in Indonesia, supervised by A. Williams and L. Parker.

Metaxas, P. Australia's Contribution to International Trade Theory: The Dependent Economy Model, supervised by E.J. Weber

Milton, S. Trade Creation and Diversion under the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), supervised by M.A.B. Siddique.

Owi Idoko, V. Changing Emission Intensity in the World: A Decomposition Analysis, supervised by Y. Wu.

Parker, T. The Asymmetry of Booms and Busts, supervised by Rod Tyers.

Robinson, C. The Natural Gas revolution: Pricing and Regulation in Australia, supervised by P. McLeod.

Sami, D. Strategic Monetary Policy and the Global Economic Game, co-supervised by R. Tyers and L. Fiorini.

Sin, A. The International Pricing of Military Expenditure, supervised by P. Robertson.

Soresi, J. The Gender Wage Gap: Does Industry of Employment Make a Difference?, supervised by E. Birch.

Viswanath Natraj, G. The Science of Monetary Policy: An Optimal Control Approach, supervised by K.W. Clements.

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Vu, P. Gender Inequality in Education, Kinship Norms, and Economic Development: A District-level Analysis of India, supervised by A. Rammohan.

Wang, Y.C. The “True” Rate of Inflation, supervised by K.W. Clements.

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15. Prizes and Scholarships

Prizes

There are a number of prizes awarded to students in Economics and the Discipline is very grateful to the donors. The following is a list of prizes awarded in 2013.

Prize Awarded to Convocation, the UWA Graduates Association Prize in Economics – Third Year Student who achieves highest aggregate mark in their third year of BEc

Duke Cole

Economic Society of Australia Honours Prize Student with highest average mark having completed BEc-Hons

Ganesh Viswanath

W.E.G. Salter Prize in Economics Student who achieves highest average mark in their final year of BEc

Duke Cole

Vargovic Memorial Fund

Mr Christopher A. Vargovic left a generous bequest to the University to support research students in economics when he died in 1987. The interest earnings from the estate have been used over much of the past decade to financially assist honours, masters and PhD students to complete their research by providing them with bursaries ranging from $2,000 to $8,000. The Economics Discipline, as well as the students involved, greatly values the generosity and foresight shown by Mr Vargovic in establishing this fund, which has had the effect of substantially boosting the Discipline’s ability to attract and nurture promising young researchers in economics.

The Vargovic Fund financed bursaries to the following students from 2011 to 2013:

2013 2012 2011 Stephen Ingram Michael Brennan Jason Holman David Sami Daniel Toleman Adriarne Gatty Patrick Vu Ganesh Viswanath Andrew Melville Yongsheng Clement Wang Caroline Moser Alan Wong Andrew Lau

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16. Publications

During 2013 the staff of the Economics Discipline published work in a substantial number of books, journals, and other media. A list of these publications is presented below.

BOOKS

Clements, K.W., 2013, Currencies, Commodities and Consumption. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gabbay, R. and Ogunmokun, G.O. (eds.), 2013, Marketing, Management and International Business: Contemporary Issues and Research in Selected Countries. Perth: Global Publishing House.

Pritchard, B., Rammohan, A., Sekher, M., Parasuraman, S. and Choithani, C., 2013, Feeding India: Livelihoods, Entitlements and Capabilities. London: Routledge.

Siddique, M.A.B. and Quaddus, M.A. (eds.), 2013, Handbook Of Sustainable Development Planning: Studies in Modelling and Decision Support. London: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2nd Edition.

Turkington, D., 2013, Generalized Vectorization, Cross-Products, and Matrix Calculus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wu, Y. (ed.), 2013, Regional Development and Economic Growth in China, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Awofeso, N., Rammohan, A., and Iqbal, K., 2013, ‘Age-appropriate vaccination against measles and DPT-3 in India-closing the gaps’, BMC Public Health, 13(358), pp. 1–7.

Birch, E., Williams, A., 2013, ‘The Impact of Supplementary On-Line Resources on Academic Performance: A Study of First-Year University Students Studying Economics’, International Education Studies, 6(1), pp. 95-103.

Chatterjee, I. and Saha, B., 2013, ‘Bilateral Delegation in Wage and Employment Bargaining in Monopoly’, Economics Letters, 120(2), pp. 280-283.

Chen, A. and Groenewold, N., 2013, ‘Does investment allocation affect the inter-regional output gap in China? A time-series investigation’, China Economic Review, 26, pp. 197–206.

Chen, A., Groenewold, N., and Hagger, A.J., 2013, ‘The Regional Economics Effects of a Reduction in Carbon Emissions’, Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 57(4), pp. 159-170.

Chen, A., and Groenewold, N., 2013, ‘The National and Regional Effects of Fiscal Decentralisation in China’, Annals of Regional Science, 51(3), pp. 731-760.

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Cheong, T.S. and Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Regional Disparity, Transitional Dynamics and Convergence in China’, Journal of Asian Economics, 29, pp.1-14.

Clements, K.W., Izan, H.Y. and Lan, Y., 2013, ‘Volatility and Stock Price Indexes’, Applied Economics, 45(22), pp. 3255–3262.

Collins, J., Baer, B., and Weber, E.J., 2013, ‘Economic Growth and Evolution: Parental Preference for Quality and Quantity of Offspring’, Macroeconomic Dynamics, FirstView, pp. 1-24.

Flynn, Z. and Magnusson, L., 2013, ‘Parametric Inference Using Structural Break Tests’, The Stata Journal, 13(4), pp. 836-861.

Fu, D. and Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Export Wage Premium in China's Manufacturing Sector: A Firm Level Analysis’, China Economic Review, 26, pp. 182-96.

Fu, D. and Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Foreign Entry and Profitability of Domestic Firms: Evidence from China’, Asian Economic Papers, 12(2), pp. 34-60.

Groenewold, N., and Patterson, J., 2013, ‘Stock Prices and Exchange Rates in Australia: Are Commodity Prices the Missing Link?’, Australian Economic Papers, 52(3-4), pp. 159-170.

Harris, R.G. and Robertson, P.E., 2013, ‘Trade, Wages and Skill Accumulation in the Emerging Giants’, Journal of International Economics, 89(XX), pp. 407-421.

Hartley, P. and Medlock III, K.B., 2013, ‘Changes in the Operational Efficiency of National Oil Companies’, The Energy Journal, 34 (2), pp. 27–57.

Khuu, A. and Weber, E.J., 2013, ‘How Australian Farmers Deal with Risk’, Agricultural Finance Review, 73(2), pp.345 – 357.

Kwan, F., Wu, Y., and Zhuo, X., 2013, ‘Re-examination of the Surplus Agricultural Labour in China’, China Agricultural Economic Review, 5(2), pp. 197-212.

Maitra, P., Rammohan, A., Ray, R., & Robitaille-Blanchet, M.C., 2013, ‘Food consumption patterns and malnourished Indian children: Is there a link?’, Food Policy, 38, pp. 70–81.

Marinova, D., Guo, X., and Wu, Y., 2013, ‘China’s Transformation towards A Global Green System of Innovation’, Journal of Science and Technology Policy in China, 4(2), pp. 76-98.

McLure, M., 2013, ‘Assessments of A. C. Pigou’s Fellowship Theses’, History of Political Economy, 45(2), pp. 255-285.

McLure, M., 2013, ‘A. C. Pigou’s Assessment of Pareto’s Law’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 37(4), pp. 775-789.

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McLure, M., 2013, ‘Reflections on the Quantity Theory: Pigou in 1917 and Pareto in 1920-21’, Revue Européenne des Sciences Sociales, 51(2), pp. 173-192.

Pritchard, B., Rammohan, A. and Sekher, M., 2013, ‘Food Security as a Lagging Component of India’s Human Development: A Function of Interacting Entitlement Failures’, South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies, 36(2), pp. 213-228.

Rammohan, A., Iqbal, K. and Awofeso, N., 2013, ‘Neonatal Mortality in India: The Critical Role of Access to Emergency Obstetric Care’, PLoSONE, 8(3), pp. 1-8.

Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Electricity Market Integration: Global Trends and Implications for the EAS region’, Energy Strategy Reviews, 2(2), pp. 138-145.

Yang, S., Zhao, D., Wu, Y., and Fan, J., 2013, ‘Regional Variation in Carbon Emissions and Its Driving Forces in China: An Index Decomposition Analysis”, Energy and Environment, 24(7/8), pp. 1249-1270.

Yu, W., Hong, J., Wu, Y., and Zhao, D., 2013, ‘Emerging Geography of Creativity and Labor Productivity Effect in China’, China and the World Economy, 21(5), pp. 78-99.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Awofeso, N., Mills, E. and Rammohan, A., 2013, ‘A Complex Epidemiological Transition: AIDS, Aging and Healthy Life Expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa’. In Y.B. Li Global Aging Issues and Policies, Springfield: Charles C Thomas Publisher, pp. 5-31.

Cheong, T.S., 2013, ‘New Evidence of Regional Inequality in Regional Development and Economic Growth in China’. In Y. Wu (ed.) Regional Development and Economic Growth in China, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 15-46.

Clements, K.W. and Fry, R., 2013, ‘Commodity Currencies and Currency Commodities’. In M.P. Taylor and M. Manzur (eds.) Recent Developments in Exchange-Rate Economics. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, pp. 700-718.

Robertson, P.E., 2013, ‘Measuring the Impact of the Chinese Economy’, In X. Huang and R.G. Patman (eds.) China and the International System: Becoming a World Power, London: Routledge, pp. 143-153.

Siddique, M.A.B., 2013, ‘Trade and Migration’. In (ed.) Ness, I. The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp. 2938-2943.

Tyers, R., Zhang, Y. and Cheong, T.S., 2013, ‘China’s Saving and Global Economic Performance’. In R. Garnaut, C. Fang and L. Song (eds.) China: A New Model for Growth and Development. Canberra: ANU E Press, and Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press , pp. 97-124.

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Wang, B. and Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Environmental Regulation and Productivity Growth in APEC Economies’. In Y. Wu (ed.) Regional Development and Economic Growth in China, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 253-283.

Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Regional Economies and Growth: An Introduction’. In Y. Wu (ed.) Regional Development and Economic Growth in China, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 1-11.

Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Comparing Productivity Growth among the Regions’. In Y. Wu (ed.) Regional Development and Economic Growth in China, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 97-114.

Wu, Y., 2013, ‘China’s Research and Development’. In G. Wang and Y. Zheng (eds.) China: Development and Governance, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 227-236.

PUBLICATIONS NOT PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED

Peng, J., Cui, J., Groenewold, N. and Qin, F., 2012, ‘Stock Prices and the Macro Economy in China’, Asia-Pacific Journal of Economics and Business, 16(1&2), pp. 1–16.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Pritchard, B. and Rammohan, A., 2013, ‘Not palatable for the poor’, Newspaper Opinion Article, Hindustan Times, October 16th, p. 8.

Mohanty, I. and Rammohan, A., 2013, ‘Child Schooling in India: Is there any evidence of a gender bias?’. No. 13/21. University of Canberra, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, 2013.

Wu, Y., 2013, ‘Consumer Society’, in T. Wright (ed.) Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies, New York: Oxford University Press.

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17. Discussion Papers

The Economics Discipline has published working papers in its Discussion Paper series since 1980. These papers are authored by staff members and visitors, and are an ideal platform for research, collaboration and discussion. The editor of the Series is E.J. Weber.

To celebrate the release of the 750th discussion paper of the Series in 2012, UWA Discussion Papers in Economics: The First 750 by Joshua Bon is due to be released in 2014. It will include the major contributors, the networks created by collaborating authors, thematic content analysis and a look at where some of the discussion papers are ultimately published.

The Economics Discussion Papers can be downloaded from RePEc2. This year the process to digitalise and upload all Discussion Papers in Economics since 1980 on RePEc was undertaken by the Discipline. At the time of printing all papers in the Series were now digitalised and were soon to be uploaded to RePEc.

No. Author(s) Title 13.01 M-H. Chen, K.W. Clements

and G. Gao Three Facts About World Metal Prices

13.02 J. Collins and O. Richards Evolution, Fertility and the Ageing Population

13.03 K.W. Clements, H.Genberg, A. Harberger, J. Lothian, R. Mundell, H. Sonnenschein and G. Tolley

Larry Sjaastad, 1934 - 2012

13.04 M-C. Robitaille and I. Chatterjee

Mother-In-Law and Son Preference in India

13.05 K.W. Clements and Izan H Y Izan

Report on the 25th PhD Conference in Economics and Business

13.06 A. Walker and R.Tyers Quantifying Australia's "Three Speed" Boom

13.07 F. Yu and Y. Wu Patent Examination and Disguised Protection

13.08 F. Yu and Y. Wu Patent Citations and Knowledge Spillovers: An Analysis of Chinese Patents Registered in the US

13.09 I. Chatterjee and B. Saha Bargaining Delegation in Monopoly

13.10 T.S. Cheong and Y. Wu Globalization and Regional Inequality

13.11 T.S. Cheong and Y. Wu Globalization and Regional Inequality in China

13.12 P.E. Robertson and L. Ye On the Existence of a Middle Income Trap

13.13 P.E. Robertson The Global Impact of China's Growth

13.14 N. Hanaki, N. Jacquemet, S. Luchini and A. Zylbersztejn

Bounded Rationality and Strategic Uncertainty in a Simple Dominance Solvable Game

13.15 Z. Okatch, M.A.B. Siddique, and A. Rammohan

Determinants of Income Inequality in Botswana

2 http://ideas.repec.org/s/uwa/wpaper.html 50

No. Author(s) Title 13.16 K.W. Clements and G. Gao A Multi-Market Approach to Measuring the Cycle

13.17 I. Chatterjee and R. Ray The Role of Institutions in the Incidence of Crime and Corruption

13.18 D. Fu and Y. Wu Export Survival Pattern and Determinants of Chinese Manufacturing Firms

13.19 X. Shi, Y. Wu, and D. Zhao Knowledge Intensive Business Services and their Impact on Innovation in China

13.20 R. Tyers, Y. Zhang and T.S. Cheong

China’s Saving and Global Economic Performance

13.21 J. Collins, B. Baer and E.J. Weber

Population, Technological Progress And the Evolution of Innovative Potential

13.22 P.R. Hartley The Future of Long-term LNG Contracts

13.23 R. Tyers A Simple Model to Study Global Macroeconomic Interdependence

13.24 M.T. McLure Reflections on the Quantity Theory: Pigou in 1917 and Pareto in 1920-21

13.25 A. Chen and N. Groenewold Regional Effects of an Emissions-Reduction Policy in China: The Importance of the Government Financing Method

13.26 M.A.B. Siddique Trade Relations Between Australia and Thailand: 1990 to 2011

13.27 B. Li and J. Zhang Government Debt in an Intergenerational Model of Economic Growth, Endogenous Fertility, and Elastic Labor With an Application to Japan

13.28 M. Robitaille and I. Chatterjee Sex-selective Abortions and Infant Mortality in India: The Role of Parents’ Stated Son Preference

13.29 P. Ezzati Analysis of Volatility Spillover Effects: Two-Stage Procedure Based on a Modified GARCH-M

13.30 P.E. Robertson Does a Free Market Economy Make Australia More or Less Secure in a Globalised World?

13.31 S. Das, C. Ghate and P.E. Robertson

Remoteness and Unbalanced Growth: Understanding Divergence Across Indian Districts

13.32 P.E. Robertson and A. Sin Measuring Hard Power: China’s Economic Growth and Military Capacity

13.33 Y. Wu Trends and Prospects for the Renewable Energy Sector in the EAS Region

13.34 S. Yang, D. Zhao, Y. Wu, and J. Fan

Regional Variation in Carbon Emissions and its Driving Forces in China: An Index Decomposition Analysis

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18. Seminar and Conference Presentations by Staff

Staff of the Economics Discipline made numerous presentations of their research and participated as discussants during 2013. Below are details of these presentations.

Presenter Seminar/Conference Date, Location Topic E. Birch UWA Centenary

Celebrations February, UWA “New Household Economics

and the Outcomes of Indigenous Australians – Example of Early Career Research”

Western Economic Association International 10th Biennial Pacific Rim Conference

March, Keio University

“The Determinants of Obesity for Indigenous Australians”

Singapore Economic Review Conference

August, Mandarin Hotel Orchard

“A Quantile Regression Approach Examining the Determinants of the Body Mass Index in Australia”

42nd Australian Conference of Economists

July, Murdoch University

“The Determinants of Earnings for Indigenous Australian Workers”

HILDA Survey Research Conference 2013

October, Melbourne

“The Determinants of Obesity in Australia”

I. Chatterjee Australian Conference of Economists 2013

July, Murdoch University

“Sales Orientation and Wage-Employment Contracts”

Econometric Society Australasian Meeting 2013

July, University of Sydney

“Mothers-in-law and Son Preference in India”

K.W. Clements

UWA Centenary Celebrations

February, UWA “UWA Economics”

(with J. Si and T. Simpson)

Economic Measurement Group Workshop

November, University of New South Wales

“Understanding Resource Investment Projects”

(with M-H. Chen and G. Gao)

UWA Economics Seminar March, UWA “Three Facts About World Metal Prices”

L. Fiorini 9th Spain-Italy-Netherlands Game Theory

July, Universida de Vigo

“Common Priors, Cycles and Self-Consistency in Non-Partitional Knowledge Models”

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N. Groenewold

UWA Workshop on the Chinese Economy

April, UWA “Regional Effects of an Emissions-Reduction Policy in China: Taxes, Subsidies and the Method of Financing”

Second International Workshop on Regional, Urban and Spatial Economics in China

June, Peking University

“Regional Effects of an Emissions-Reduction Policy in China: Taxes, Subsidies and the Method of Financing”

2013 Joint SWUFE and CAS Workshop on Energy and Environmental Economics

July, South West University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu

“Regional Effects of an Emissions-Reduction Policy in China: Taxes, Subsidies and the Method of Financing”

October, University of Tasmania

“Regional Effects of an Emissions-Reduction Policy in China: Taxes, Subsidies and the Method of Financing”

CESA-JNU Joint International Conference on Industrial Upgrading and Sustainable Economic Growth in China

December, Jinan University

“The Effects of Macroeconomic Shocks on Inter-Provincial GDP Disparities in China: Estimates from a Restricted VAR Model”

P. Hartley Department of State Development Seminar

June, Perth “Some implications of shale gas development in North America”

International Association for Energy Economics International Conference

June, Daegu, South Korea

“US LNG Exports and the Global Implications of US Shale”

International Association for Energy Economics International Conference

June, Daegu, South Korea

“Long-term LNG Contracts”

Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Seminar

June, Daejeon “Evolution of World Natural Gas Markets”

North American Conference of the US Association for Energy Economics

July, Anchorage, Alaska

“Australian Natural Gas Developments in a Global Context”

Macquarie University Applied Finance Center

August, Sydney “Some implications of shale gas development in North America”

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P. Hartley European meetings of the International Association for Energy Economics

August, Düsseldorf, Germany

“Some implications of shale gas development Peter Hartley in North America”

Energy in WA Conference August, Australian Institute of Energy, Perth

“Turning Cheap Resources into Expensive Energy Revisited”

Australia Korea Business Council Breakfast,

August, “Some implications of shale gas development in North America”

Grattan Institute Seminar: From offshore to onshore - the future of WA”s gas market?

October, Energy and Minerals Institute, UWA

“Some implications of shale gas development in North America”

Deakin Policy Forum October, Deakin University

“Some implications of shale gas development in North America”

UWA Business School Breakfast by the Bay

October, UWA “What makes the mining industry different?”

Singapore International Energy Week

November, Energy Studies Institute, NUS

“Some implications of shale gas development in North America”

Energy Studies Institute Seminar

November, NUS “Long-term LNG Contracts”

ASFA National Conference and Super Expo

November, Perth “Some implications of shale gas development in North America”

I. Kristofferson

Australian Conference of Economists

July, Murdoch University

“The Happiness-Education Puzzle”

HILDA Survey Research Conference

October, University of Melbourne

“The Age-Happiness Puzzle”

HILDA Survey Research Conference

October, University of Melbourne

“The Education-Happiness Puzzle”

B. Li Southern Workshop in Macroeconomics

April, Victoria University

“Optimal debt, fertility, leisure, and human capital externalities with an application to Japan”

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B. Li 42nd Australian Conference of Economists

June, Murdoch University

“Optimal debt, fertility, leisure, and human capital externalities with an application to Japan”

Asian Meeting of Econometric Society

August, National University of Singapore

“Elastic labor with growth through cycles and applications to public finance”

L. Magnusson Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society 2013

August, National University of Singapore

“Bootstrap Methods for Inference with Cluster-Sample IV Models”

M. McLure 17th Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought

May, Kingston University, London

“The Elusive A. C. Pigou”

Annual conference of the History of Economics Society

June, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

“The Elusive A. C. Pigou”

‘Keynes Seminar’, Post Keynesian Economics Study Group

November, Robinson College, Cambridge University

“Reflections on the Quantity Theory: Pigou 1917 and Pareto 1920-21”

History and Philosophy of Political Economy Seminar

November, London School of Economics

“Reflections on the Quantity Theory: Pigou 1917 and Pareto 1920-21”

Mini-Pigou Conference November, Robinson College, Cambridge University

“A. C. Pigou’s Membership of the Chamberlain-Bradbury Committee: Part 1”

A. Rammohan Global Public Health Challenge Conference, Worldwide Universities Network

May, Washington DC

“A health economist’s perspective: household distribution of resources- impact of biology and risk of diseases”

Australasian Development Economics Workshop

June, Australian University of Canberra

“Dietary Diversity and Food Insecurity in Rural Burma”

Otago University Development Economics Workshop

November, Otago University

“Income Inequality and Crime in rural Indonesia”

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A. Rammohan Health Systems in Asia Conference

December, Singapore

“District variations in childhood immunizations in India: The critical role of access to health infrastructure”

P. Robertson Asia Pacific Trade Seminars June, Southeast University

“The Gravity of Resources: How Location Effects World Commodity Trade”

S.Tang Centre for Research in Applied Economics Seminar Series

August, Curtin University

Maids or Mentors? The Effects of Live-in Foreign Domestic Workers on School Children’s Educational Achievement in Hong Kong

R.Tyers 16th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis

June, Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade

“Looking inward for growth”

Australian Conference of Economists

July, Murdoch University

“Quantifying Australia’s ‘Three Speed’ Boom”

China Update Conference July, ANU “China’s saving and global economic performance”

Global Trade Analysis Project

September, Purdue University, Lafayette Indiana

“Looking inward for growth in China”

International Monetary Fund September, Washington DC

“International effects of China’s rise and transition: neoclassical and Keynesian perspectives”

Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research Seminar

December, Hong Kong Monetary Authority

“Implications of declines in excess saving in China and Japan”

A.Williams European Conference on Technology in the Classroom

July, Brighton, UK

“Who goes to lectures? And does it matter?”

Developments in Economics Education Conference

September, University of Exter

“Who goes to lectures? And does it matter?”

Y.Wu Energy Market Integration in East Asia

May, ERIA Office

“Renewable Energy Sector in the East Asia region”

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Y. Wu Australian Conference of Economists

July, Murdoch University

“Comparing Regional Productivity Growth and Its Determinants in Indonesia and China”

International Conference on China Inequality: Growth and the Middle-Income Trap

July, Peking University

“Productivity, Economic Growth and Middle Income Traps: Implications for China”

Quest beyond the middle Income Status: International Experience and China’s Prospect

July, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

“Productivity, Economic Growth and Middle Income Traps: Implications for China”

8th Annual Conference of the Consortium for Western China Development Studies

July, Sichuan University

“Industrial Growth, Structural Change, and Productivity Gap in Western China”

Workshop October, Aix-en-Provence

“Growth, Structural Change and Productivity Gaps in China’s Industrial Sector”

9th International Conference on the Chinese Economy

October, University of Auvergne

“Foreign Entry and Markups: Firm-level Evidence from China”

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19. Other Professional Activities

Staff members of the Economics Discipline have been very active in taking part in various additional professional activities. A selection of these activities follows.

Elisa Birch is a member of the UWA Business School Teaching and Learning Committee, as well as UWA’s Academic Board. She has refereed papers for journals including The Economic Record, Australian Economic Papers, Australian Journal of Labour Economics, Studies in Higher Education, and Economic Inquiry. She is also part of the University of Western Australia’s Worldwide University Network (WUN) and was an assessor for the Australian Research Council.

Ishita Chatterjee is a member of the UWA Business School Planning, Budget and Resources Committee; Executive Council Member of the Economic Society of Australia (WA); Member of the Econometric Society; Member of the American Economic Association; Member of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory; Member of the Economics Design Network (University of Melbourne). She has acted as a journal referee for the following journals: Economic Record, Research Policy, Indian Growth and Development Review, Journal of Economic Education, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Applied Economics, and Economics of Governance.

Ken Clements is a member of the Editorial Boards for Economic Papers, the International Economics and Finance Journal, and the Australian Journal of Economics Education. He was a member of the External Review Panel, Department of Economics, University of Adelaide, 2013; a discussant of the paper “Income and Education Effects on Different Measures of Diet Diversity” by Dung Doan at the PhD Conference in Economics and Business, Australian National University, November 2013; and a Judge for the UWA Graduate School Publication Prize, Humanities and Social Sciences (Quantitative) Panel, 2013.

Paul Crompton is the Director of Postgraduate Programs within the UWA Business School.

Mel Davies is responsible for producing a quarterly newsletter and organising Annual Association Conferences. He is the editor of the Journal of Australian Mining History. In the international sphere, he was a member of both the Program and Organising Committees for the 7th International Mining History Congress at Bhubaneswar, India, as well as serving as Secretary and coordinator of the 9th Congress, held in Redruth. He has acted as co-ordinator for the 19th Conference of the Australasian Mining History Association, held at Beechworth, Victoria in September 2013, where he acted as a session chairperson. He was re-elected as Secretary and Treasurer of that organisation, positions he has held since the formation of the organisation.

Luciana Fiorini is a member of the Econometric Society.

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Robin Ghosh is on the Editorial Board of two journals, the International Journal of Development Issues published from Sydney University, and the Atlantic Journal of World Affairs published by Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. Robin Ghosh is also the current chairman of the Institute of Development Studies (Australia). Currently, Ghosh is editing (jointly with Abu Siddique) a volume of papers on “Good Governance, Corruption and Economic Growth” from the proceedings of two international conferences held at UWA Perth in June, 2009 and then followed by another in Kolkata (India) in December, 2009.

Nic Groenewold was a referee for the Regional Studies, Urban Studies, the Economic Record, Emerging Markets, Finance and Trade, Papers in Regional Science, Journal of Regional Science and China Economic Review. He was also a member of the editorial board for the Economic Record.

Peter Hartley is the Immediate Past President and Member of Council for the US Association for Energy Economics and Vice President of Communications and Member of Council for the International Association for Energy Economics.

Inga Kristoffersen is a PhD candidate at UWA, researching well-being, satisfaction and happiness, and economics. She is a member of the Economist Society of Australia (WA branch) and Australian Centre on Quality of Life (ACQOL), and has acted as a referee for the Economic Record.

Bei Li has acted as a referee for the journal, the Economic Record. She is also a member of the Econometric Society.

Leandro Magnusson is a member of the Econometric Society.

Paul McLeod acted as a referee for the Australian Journal of Agriculture and Resource Economics and as an assessor for research grant project outcomes for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research Membership of Node 4.5 (Socioeconomics) of the Western Australian Marine Sciences Institute. Dr McLeod was also a member of the Economics Panel of the Economic Regulation Authority. He participated as a member of the expert research panel in the FRDC’s Delphi study to determine future research funding priorities.

Michael McLure is currently an editorial board member of the History of Economics Review and the History of Economic Thought and Policy; a member of the advisory council of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia; and a member of the Board for the Centre for Labour Market Research. This year he served as a referee for the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought and the History of Economics Review. Michael was on sabbatical leave for 2013, working as a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College Cambridge during the Easter Term and as a Bye Fellow at Robinson College Cambridge during the Michaelmas Term.

Anu Rammohan is a member of the Institute of Agriculture, UWA. In 2013, she served as the guest editor for the 2013 conference volume of the Economic Record. She is an expert

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referee on several international research funding organisations, including the UK’s NHIR Health Technology Assessment Program (on-going since 2007), Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council grants (since 2010), and the Qatar Research Grant Development Scheme (on-going since 2010). In addition, she was invited to be an expert referee for the Productivity Commission’s Early Childhood Education Report and the Round Table on enquiry into Child Care; and she was invited panel discussant at the WUN network’s Conference on Global Public Health. She is also a member of the DFAT-sponsored Australian Development Economics Secretariat. In 2013, she examined the PhD theses of students from the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, and the University of Canberra. Additionally, she has acted as a referee for a number of journals, including Health Economics, European Journal of Development Economics, Food Policy, Journal of Development Economics, Economic Record, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Demographic Research, and Journal of Asian Economics.

Peter Robertson has served as a Consultant for the Department of Innovation, Industry Science and Research and the Productivity Commission. He was a member of the Review Panel, Department of Economics, Otago University, 2012 and an external examiner for the Monash University, ANU and Sydney University. He is a member of the Scientific Committee for the Australian International Trade Workshop, the Executive for the Australian Development Economics Workshop, and an INTReader for the ARC.

Abu Siddique is a member of AusAID’s Joint Selection Team (JST) for its ADS and APS postgraduate scholarships. He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Business Studies as well as the Association of the Study of Australasia in Asia (ASAA). He is also an elected member of the Faculty Board of the UWA Business School.

Sam Tang has acted as an anonymous referee for several journals; Asian Economic Journal, Australian Economic Paper and Economic Record.

Rod Tyers holds the following honorary appointments: GTAP Research Fellow of the Centre for Global Trade Analysis, Purdue University, and Research Associate of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA), ANU. This year he also taught a short course in Modelling the Open Economy for the Macroeconomic Modelling and Development Unit, Australian Treasury, intensive over 5 days in March.

Juerg Weber is a team member at the Centre for Integrative Bee Research (CIBER), ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, University of Western Australia. He is a member of several societies, including the Economic Society of Australia, the American Economic Association, the Swiss-Australian Academic Network (SAAN), the Swiss-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI). Juerg also serves as the Honorary Consul for Switzerland in Western Australia.

Yanrui Wu has acted as an anonymous referee for several international journals; China Economic Review, China Agricultural Economic Review, Journal of the Asian Pacific Economy, Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign

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Trade Studies, R&D Management, ADB Development Review, Applied Energy, China and World Economy, Ecological Economics and Journal of Contemporary China. He was a reader for the ARC Futures fellowship applications.

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