Robust Optimal Asset Liability Management via Stochastic Control Theory. The Australian federal and state governments are strongly exposed to the Australian and international investment markets, either directly or through entities such as the Future Fund, state-owned insurers and superannuation schemes. Additionally, the investment pool represented by individual Australian's superannuation savings managed by non-government organisations is significant. Robust and effective management of these ....Robust Optimal Asset Liability Management via Stochastic Control Theory. The Australian federal and state governments are strongly exposed to the Australian and international investment markets, either directly or through entities such as the Future Fund, state-owned insurers and superannuation schemes. Additionally, the investment pool represented by individual Australian's superannuation savings managed by non-government organisations is significant. Robust and effective management of these assets in order to meet future liabilities of these funds are essential to a stable Australian economy. This research has the potential to be a key component of reliable investment management, helping make Australia an important investment hub.Read moreRead less
Estimation of School Cost Functions. The main objective of the project is to determine the efficient school size for government schools. To achieve this cost functions for WA government schools will be estimated. Knowledge of the cost functions will shed light on whether regional non-government schools are disadvantaged by Federal and Sate funding models, the impact of school size and expenditure on outcomes and the extent of savings or costs as the enrolment shares of private and public schools ....Estimation of School Cost Functions. The main objective of the project is to determine the efficient school size for government schools. To achieve this cost functions for WA government schools will be estimated. Knowledge of the cost functions will shed light on whether regional non-government schools are disadvantaged by Federal and Sate funding models, the impact of school size and expenditure on outcomes and the extent of savings or costs as the enrolment shares of private and public schools changes. Knowledge of the latter is critical to the proper functioning of the Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment (EBA) used to address cost-shifting in Commonwealth-State education funding arrangements.Read moreRead less
Business Profitability and Long Term Industrial Change in Twentieth-Century Australia. This project will establish Australia as a pioneer in longitudinal research into business profitability in terms of assembling new data and its use to analyse the relationship of profitability with capital formation and structural change in the economy. It will extend our knowledge of long-term returns to equity investment, a category of savings and pension funding now common to most Australians, and contribut ....Business Profitability and Long Term Industrial Change in Twentieth-Century Australia. This project will establish Australia as a pioneer in longitudinal research into business profitability in terms of assembling new data and its use to analyse the relationship of profitability with capital formation and structural change in the economy. It will extend our knowledge of long-term returns to equity investment, a category of savings and pension funding now common to most Australians, and contribute to our understanding of Australia's comparative business performance in light of current debates regarding the alleged limited global competitiveness and corporate governance shortcomings of leading Australian corporations.Read moreRead less
New Approaches to the Analysis of Count Time Series. The focus of this proposal is on the analysis of data that enumerate events over time. Occurrences of such count data abound in economics and business, examples being observations on insurance claims, loan defaults and individual product demand. This project develops a suite of innovative methods for modelling and predicting event counts. The methods explicitly accommodate both the discreteness of the data and possible complexities in its evo ....New Approaches to the Analysis of Count Time Series. The focus of this proposal is on the analysis of data that enumerate events over time. Occurrences of such count data abound in economics and business, examples being observations on insurance claims, loan defaults and individual product demand. This project develops a suite of innovative methods for modelling and predicting event counts. The methods explicitly accommodate both the discreteness of the data and possible complexities in its evolution over time. In so doing, they enable both accurate inferences regarding the dynamic structure of the data to be drawn and accurate forecasts of future event counts to be produced.Read moreRead less
Understanding cycles in mineral commodity price, a market model with uncertainty. Mining accounts for more than 8% of Australia's GDP, and almost 50% of Australia's total merchandise exports. Understanding phenomenological mechanisms for price fluctuations and using our dynamic price model can help determine better timing of investments in mining infrastructure. This knowledge will help Australia benefit from the upside of commodity 'cycles', super or not. The market model that will be develope ....Understanding cycles in mineral commodity price, a market model with uncertainty. Mining accounts for more than 8% of Australia's GDP, and almost 50% of Australia's total merchandise exports. Understanding phenomenological mechanisms for price fluctuations and using our dynamic price model can help determine better timing of investments in mining infrastructure. This knowledge will help Australia benefit from the upside of commodity 'cycles', super or not. The market model that will be developed in this project can be used to assist in better planning for commodity cycle upside, improving the overall efficiency of capital utilisation in the long term.Read moreRead less
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
Web Services Reputation Management. This project directly supports the National Research Priority 4: Safeguarding Australia. More specifically, it aims at creating mechanisms that will make it more difficult to use the Internet as a platform for launching attacks against the business processes of Australian organisations that provide and consume Web services. At the same time this will stimulate the establishment of high quality WS markets. As direct social benefit of this research, Australian o ....Web Services Reputation Management. This project directly supports the National Research Priority 4: Safeguarding Australia. More specifically, it aims at creating mechanisms that will make it more difficult to use the Internet as a platform for launching attacks against the business processes of Australian organisations that provide and consume Web services. At the same time this will stimulate the establishment of high quality WS markets. As direct social benefit of this research, Australian organisations will be able to integrate the best quality Web services as part of their business processes, and thereby avoid being negatively impacted by low quality and deceptive Web services. Read moreRead less
An International Comparison of Corporate Financial Policy. Our research contributes to the finance discipline, corporate decision making and public policy. Existing empirical literature provides managers with insights on the impact of firm characteristics on corporate financial decisions. However, beyond suggesting that well-functioning banks, equity and bond markets are an integral part of corporate financing, no insight is provided as to the role played by the public policy, legal structures a ....An International Comparison of Corporate Financial Policy. Our research contributes to the finance discipline, corporate decision making and public policy. Existing empirical literature provides managers with insights on the impact of firm characteristics on corporate financial decisions. However, beyond suggesting that well-functioning banks, equity and bond markets are an integral part of corporate financing, no insight is provided as to the role played by the public policy, legal structures and the suppliers of capital. In a market such as Australia, where superannuation is a large and increasing part of corporate funding, this is a glaring omission. This study seeks to examine the impact of public policy, legal and institutional structures on these financial choices.Read moreRead less
Survival of Australia's Family Farms: Capital Raising and Credit Access. Family-run farms are an integral part of rural Australia. Given the evolving global financial crisis and the expanding complexity of managing a family farm in Australia due to increasing competition from large incorporated holdings and overseas producers, a persisting drought, rising climate variability, and constraining carbon markets, one critical issue for the sustainability of family farms is their ability to access an ....Survival of Australia's Family Farms: Capital Raising and Credit Access. Family-run farms are an integral part of rural Australia. Given the evolving global financial crisis and the expanding complexity of managing a family farm in Australia due to increasing competition from large incorporated holdings and overseas producers, a persisting drought, rising climate variability, and constraining carbon markets, one critical issue for the sustainability of family farms is their ability to access and manage successfully competitive sources of credit. This study examines the extent to which family farms are currently at a disadvantage, and what policies could be implemented to ensure their sustainability into the future via access to competitive lines of credit and appropriate financial management practices.Read moreRead less
Mechanism design under bounded rationality: The optimal contracts in the complex world. The research will help to clarify the nature of optimal contracts in real life environments. An important feature of such environments is that they are complex so that actors cannot be assumed to behave fully rationally. We propose to address the question of optimal contract design under bounded rationality. Determining the incidence of costs of boundedly rational behaviour may provide foundations for some p ....Mechanism design under bounded rationality: The optimal contracts in the complex world. The research will help to clarify the nature of optimal contracts in real life environments. An important feature of such environments is that they are complex so that actors cannot be assumed to behave fully rationally. We propose to address the question of optimal contract design under bounded rationality. Determining the incidence of costs of boundedly rational behaviour may provide foundations for some policy proposals in areas as diverse as industrial relations and income taxation in Australian settings.
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