Robust Productivity Measurement: An Econometric Distance Function Approach. Accurate measures of productivity are required in a range of economic analyses. For example, in the assessment of the success of microeconomic reforms, or in price-cap regulation of utility and transport infrastructure firms. In this project we investigate the use of econometric distance functions as a means of obtaining improved productivity measures. This new approach addresses the main criticisms of alternative ap ....Robust Productivity Measurement: An Econometric Distance Function Approach. Accurate measures of productivity are required in a range of economic analyses. For example, in the assessment of the success of microeconomic reforms, or in price-cap regulation of utility and transport infrastructure firms. In this project we investigate the use of econometric distance functions as a means of obtaining improved productivity measures. This new approach addresses the main criticisms of alternative approaches, such as the single output restriction in the production function approach, the optimisation assumptions embedded in both the value dual approach and the Törnqvist index approach, and the statistical noise criticism of the data envelopment analysis approach.Read moreRead less
Regional Comparisons of Prices, Income and Growth in Australia. We will measure how much the cost of living and rates of inflation differ across the eight capital cities in Australia, and then test whether real per capita income levels across cities are converging or diverging over time. To make such comparisons, the ABS's databases on each capital city must first be harmonized. While doing this we will review the ABS's current procedures for data construction and quality assessment. A further a ....Regional Comparisons of Prices, Income and Growth in Australia. We will measure how much the cost of living and rates of inflation differ across the eight capital cities in Australia, and then test whether real per capita income levels across cities are converging or diverging over time. To make such comparisons, the ABS's databases on each capital city must first be harmonized. While doing this we will review the ABS's current procedures for data construction and quality assessment. A further aim is to show how statistical modelling using spanning-tree methods can resolve the conflict that arises for price indexes constructed on panel data sets between temporal and spatial consistency.Read moreRead less
Private Health Insurance and Utilisation of Health Care in Australia. The breakdown of activity between the Australian public and private health sectors is currently subject to considerable scrutiny. The combination of a comprehensive public system with minimal co-payments, but considerable waiting times for some treatment, and a private system with minimal waiting but sizeable co-payments has interesting economic implications for both consumer and provider behaviour. This research project will ....Private Health Insurance and Utilisation of Health Care in Australia. The breakdown of activity between the Australian public and private health sectors is currently subject to considerable scrutiny. The combination of a comprehensive public system with minimal co-payments, but considerable waiting times for some treatment, and a private system with minimal waiting but sizeable co-payments has interesting economic implications for both consumer and provider behaviour. This research project will explore the relationship between insurance status and utilisation of health care in Australia. Because insurance reduces the out-of-pocket price for consumers, they tend to purchase more care than they would without insurance.Read moreRead less
Measuring Hospital Performance: Outputs, Quality of Care, Competition and Efficiency. Hospitals are a critical component of the health infrastructure. An understanding of the performance of hospitals is important in shaping an overall health care strategy. Unfortunately, assessing hospital performance has been fraught with difficulties. A major obstacle is in defining and measuring the outputs and quality of hospitals. Collaborating with the Victorian Department of Human Services, and using t ....Measuring Hospital Performance: Outputs, Quality of Care, Competition and Efficiency. Hospitals are a critical component of the health infrastructure. An understanding of the performance of hospitals is important in shaping an overall health care strategy. Unfortunately, assessing hospital performance has been fraught with difficulties. A major obstacle is in defining and measuring the outputs and quality of hospitals. Collaborating with the Victorian Department of Human Services, and using the Department's VAED datasets, we aim to develop a framework within which unobservable quality dimensions can be estimated, so that hospital output and quality can be accounted for. The framework will be useful for addressing pertinent health policy issues, including hospital funding, specialisation, and competition issues.Read moreRead less
The Medicare Safety Net and its effect on efficiency, equity and welfare. This project aims to measure the welfare implications of social health insurance reforms. It will use the introduction of the Extended Medicare Safety Net to examine the effect of social insurance reforms on the efficiency and equity of Australia's health care system. The project expects to produce evidence on the partial and aggregate effects of the Medicare Safety Net and knowledge on the relationship between social insu ....The Medicare Safety Net and its effect on efficiency, equity and welfare. This project aims to measure the welfare implications of social health insurance reforms. It will use the introduction of the Extended Medicare Safety Net to examine the effect of social insurance reforms on the efficiency and equity of Australia's health care system. The project expects to produce evidence on the partial and aggregate effects of the Medicare Safety Net and knowledge on the relationship between social insurance and health system performance. In doing so, the research seeks to help policy makers to improve the design of social health insurance programmes to make the system more sustainable and equitable.Read moreRead less
Consistent Space-Time Comparisons of Real Income. The project will result in internationally comparable macroeconomic data, spanning all years since 1950 and covering in excess of 120 countries. The Australian government, private sector and academic researchers will find from this project a wealth of economic information on Australia, its geographical neighbours and trading partners which can be used in assessing Australia's economic performance and role in a global context. Results from this pr ....Consistent Space-Time Comparisons of Real Income. The project will result in internationally comparable macroeconomic data, spanning all years since 1950 and covering in excess of 120 countries. The Australian government, private sector and academic researchers will find from this project a wealth of economic information on Australia, its geographical neighbours and trading partners which can be used in assessing Australia's economic performance and role in a global context. Results from this project will provide international organisations, multinationals and researchers with a much improved data set, to those currently available, thus enhancing the reputation of the research team, the University of Queensland and Australia. Read moreRead less
Construction of Consistent Panels of Real Gross Domestic Product and its Components at Current and Constant Prices. The Australian government, international organizations, private sector and academic researchers will find from this project a wealth of economic information on Australia, its geographical neighbours and trading partners which can be used in assessing Australia's economic performance and role in a global context. This project will result in internationally comparable real income, co ....Construction of Consistent Panels of Real Gross Domestic Product and its Components at Current and Constant Prices. The Australian government, international organizations, private sector and academic researchers will find from this project a wealth of economic information on Australia, its geographical neighbours and trading partners which can be used in assessing Australia's economic performance and role in a global context. This project will result in internationally comparable real income, consumption, investment and government expenditures spanning all years since 1950 and covering over 180 countries based on an econometric methodology that is superior to those currently in use. Successful completion of the project will place the research team, the University of Queensland and Australia on the international map.Read moreRead less
Understanding the Labour Market for Professional Nurses: An Economic Analysis of Skill Shortages, Nurse Retention and Turnover. There is currently a worldwide shortage of nurses. This shortage is particularly acute in a number of publicly dominated health care systems including the Australian, British and Canadian systems. Given that nurses are a key input in the production of health care and therefore health, the need to address this issue by increasing the number of school-leavers entering the ....Understanding the Labour Market for Professional Nurses: An Economic Analysis of Skill Shortages, Nurse Retention and Turnover. There is currently a worldwide shortage of nurses. This shortage is particularly acute in a number of publicly dominated health care systems including the Australian, British and Canadian systems. Given that nurses are a key input in the production of health care and therefore health, the need to address this issue by increasing the number of school-leavers entering the profession and/or improving the retention of training nurses is of paramount importance. This project will use high quality cross-sectional and longitudinal data on nurses to provide a detailed investigation of the retention and turnover behaviour of nurses and inform the policy debate.Read moreRead less
Econometric model building and estimation. This project aims to tackle issues in econometric model building and estimation under cross sectional dependence, heterogeneity and nonlinearity. This project will seek to establish flexible econometric models associated with estimation methods and user-friendly computational techniques to try to solve real world problems. The research outcomes are expected to be useful to empirical researchers in evaluating and improving model building and forecasting ....Econometric model building and estimation. This project aims to tackle issues in econometric model building and estimation under cross sectional dependence, heterogeneity and nonlinearity. This project will seek to establish flexible econometric models associated with estimation methods and user-friendly computational techniques to try to solve real world problems. The research outcomes are expected to be useful to empirical researchers in evaluating and improving model building and forecasting from better models in climatology, demography, economics, environment, finance, machine learning and neural networks.Read moreRead less