Voter behaviour and polarisation: The role of social preferences. This project aims to investigate how peer pressure and other social concerns affect voter participation, vote choice, and political polarisation. It will marry behavioural experimental economics with political economics and make use of complementary experimental methods that will allow for the study of carefully controlled elections, followed by a large-scale real-world test of the results. Expected outcomes include improved under ....Voter behaviour and polarisation: The role of social preferences. This project aims to investigate how peer pressure and other social concerns affect voter participation, vote choice, and political polarisation. It will marry behavioural experimental economics with political economics and make use of complementary experimental methods that will allow for the study of carefully controlled elections, followed by a large-scale real-world test of the results. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of how social media and other social factors, and political institutions such as compulsory voting, distort election representation and outcomes. Major benefits include the ability to advise policies to reduce polarisation and improve political institutions to ensure they reflect true societal preferences.Read moreRead less
Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and pr ....Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and protocols will improve our ability to generate better data and better understand how social and incentive mechanisms can constructively interact to facilitate collaborative environmental action. Results will help make the achievement of environmental targets and the use of public funds more cost-effective. Read moreRead less
Managing Carbon Offsets to Improve Australian Climate Policy Effectiveness. This project aims to evaluate the Emissions Reduction Fund-Australia’s flagship climate policy-by using a combination of state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental economic methods. This project expects to generate new knowledge by investigating how the use of aggregators (intermediaries) and contract design impact the current regulation. Expected outcomes of this project include a clear scholarly understanding of how ....Managing Carbon Offsets to Improve Australian Climate Policy Effectiveness. This project aims to evaluate the Emissions Reduction Fund-Australia’s flagship climate policy-by using a combination of state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental economic methods. This project expects to generate new knowledge by investigating how the use of aggregators (intermediaries) and contract design impact the current regulation. Expected outcomes of this project include a clear scholarly understanding of how to redesign the regulatory system to deliver better environmental outcomes for less public funds. The insights gained should provide significant benefits to both Federal and State Australian policymakers (as well as policymakers worldwide) on the design and implementation of carbon offsetting mechanisms.Read moreRead less
Information acquisition and voting behaviour. This project aims to understand citizens’ decisions to acquire information about different policy proposals within a democracy and how such information affects their voting behaviour. Proper democracies rely on the informed participation of their citizens in the political debate and political institutions. The project intends to provide formal theories of information acquisition together with empirical evidence on how voting decisions are shaped by t ....Information acquisition and voting behaviour. This project aims to understand citizens’ decisions to acquire information about different policy proposals within a democracy and how such information affects their voting behaviour. Proper democracies rely on the informed participation of their citizens in the political debate and political institutions. The project intends to provide formal theories of information acquisition together with empirical evidence on how voting decisions are shaped by the quantity and quality of information. Understanding how citizens decide to acquire information would help devise policies to reduce polarisation and improve the quality of the political debate and the democracy.Read moreRead less
Benefits and costs of non-market valuation for environmental management. Benefits from environmental policies are often unpriced “non-market values” (NMVs). Environmental agencies struggle to know how best to measure these relatively intangible benefits, but doing so is important to ensure value for money from public investments. Environmental economists have developed and applied a wide range of methods for estimating NMVs. The methods vary in their comprehensiveness, accuracy and cost. Yet no ....Benefits and costs of non-market valuation for environmental management. Benefits from environmental policies are often unpriced “non-market values” (NMVs). Environmental agencies struggle to know how best to measure these relatively intangible benefits, but doing so is important to ensure value for money from public investments. Environmental economists have developed and applied a wide range of methods for estimating NMVs. The methods vary in their comprehensiveness, accuracy and cost. Yet no rigorous tool is available to assess (a) which NMV method is best to implement, accounting for its cost and its potential to improve decisions, or (b) whether any NMV method improves decisions enough to warrant its cost. In creating such a tool, this project will deliver a key breakthrough in environmental economics.Read moreRead less
Financial decision making in late adulthood. The project aims to examine links between cognitive changes and financial decision-making in late adulthood and also to assess the preparedness of the elderly to combat financial risks due to age-related cognitive decline. Further, it intends to examine how age, education, wealth, health, and other environmental factors influence transfer of financial decision-making responsibilities to spouses or others. It is expected that the research will provide ....Financial decision making in late adulthood. The project aims to examine links between cognitive changes and financial decision-making in late adulthood and also to assess the preparedness of the elderly to combat financial risks due to age-related cognitive decline. Further, it intends to examine how age, education, wealth, health, and other environmental factors influence transfer of financial decision-making responsibilities to spouses or others. It is expected that the research will provide a greater understanding of how cognitive functioning and other factors affect older adults’ financial capacity and willingness to delegate decision-making responsibilities. This understanding could be used to inform policy initiatives to protect elderly individuals and their family members from the risk of financial mismanagement.Read moreRead less
Measuring the Commercial Real Estate Sector in Australia. This project aims to address a significant gap in our understanding of the Australian commercial real estate sector. It will use detailed data to develop sophisticated models of the prices of commercial buildings. Expected outcomes include a suite of commercial real estate price indexes for Australia, by region and property type, and a comprehensive and transparent examination of the methods used to construct them. This will shed light on ....Measuring the Commercial Real Estate Sector in Australia. This project aims to address a significant gap in our understanding of the Australian commercial real estate sector. It will use detailed data to develop sophisticated models of the prices of commercial buildings. Expected outcomes include a suite of commercial real estate price indexes for Australia, by region and property type, and a comprehensive and transparent examination of the methods used to construct them. This will shed light on a hitherto poorly measured sector and provide significant benefits by better informing market participants, guiding statistical agencies in developing such measures and better-enabling policymakers, banks, superfunds and macroprudential authorities to understand the risk profile of the sector.Read moreRead less
Understanding macroeconomic fluctuations with unobserved networks. Whilst empirical evidence suggests that firm-level shocks can have large aggregate effects, via network connections, macroeconomic policies have mostly an aggregate nature. This project aims to build a new framework to disentangle aggregate shocks from shocks to individual units. The major innovations are i) to infer the network from the data and ii) to jointly estimate aggregate factors and network effects. Expected outcomes are ....Understanding macroeconomic fluctuations with unobserved networks. Whilst empirical evidence suggests that firm-level shocks can have large aggregate effects, via network connections, macroeconomic policies have mostly an aggregate nature. This project aims to build a new framework to disentangle aggregate shocks from shocks to individual units. The major innovations are i) to infer the network from the data and ii) to jointly estimate aggregate factors and network effects. Expected outcomes are i) measures of systemic risk and ii) a theoretical framework to study the optimality of aggregate versus sectoral stabilization policies. Benefits include a better understanding of macroeconomic fluctuations in Australia and proposed economic policies to mitigate large and persistent declines in employment and GDP.Read moreRead less
Incorporating the gains from healthy ageing in health system planning. This project aims to develop evidence-based fit-for-purpose economic models for planning future capacity for public health programmes by developing new methodological approaches incorporating dynamic changes in health and health risks over time. The project expects to generate new knowledge on the impact of improvements in physical and mental well-being on funding and capacity requirements for public programmes to meet tomorr ....Incorporating the gains from healthy ageing in health system planning. This project aims to develop evidence-based fit-for-purpose economic models for planning future capacity for public health programmes by developing new methodological approaches incorporating dynamic changes in health and health risks over time. The project expects to generate new knowledge on the impact of improvements in physical and mental well-being on funding and capacity requirements for public programmes to meet tomorrow’s needs for care instead of projecting yesterday’s use of care. Expected outcomes include new economic models responsive to changes in population characteristics, conditions and contexts. The proposed research should provide significant benefits through improving efficiency of public investments in health.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101503
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$357,996.00
Summary
Using improved markets to reduce over-extraction of groundwater. This project aims to investigate the key aspects needed for a successful groundwater market, including extraction limits, innovative trading systems and reasonable transaction costs. The outcomes of the project can contribute to environmental benefits that minimise short-term financial losses to irrigators. The project also expects to enhance the capacity of water agencies to implement cap and trade systems that can reduce over-ext ....Using improved markets to reduce over-extraction of groundwater. This project aims to investigate the key aspects needed for a successful groundwater market, including extraction limits, innovative trading systems and reasonable transaction costs. The outcomes of the project can contribute to environmental benefits that minimise short-term financial losses to irrigators. The project also expects to enhance the capacity of water agencies to implement cap and trade systems that can reduce over-extraction.Read moreRead less