This paper seeks to look at the underlying framework of the New Consensus models of macroeconomic policy for inflation and unemployment, providing a post-Keynesian critique. In the light of this critique, the model is reformulated, with its basic structure intact, but with alternate post-Keynesian specifications of the Phillips curve being considered. It is shown that such modifications, either allow a long run trade-off between the rate of inflation and the level of output, the rate of capacity utilisation and, therefore, unemployment, or, in our preferred specification, changes in output and capacity have no implications for inflation over a large range of capacity utilisation. In either case, macroeconomic policy is restored to its role in maintaining full employment.

A meaningful discussion of the role and effectiveness of fiscal policy is not possible within the context of the antiquated textbook models, which in their current and likely future form (the ‘New Neo-Classical Synthesis) have been used to endorse the deflationary bias in macroeconomic policy formulation during recent decades. This paper present a critique of the ‘mainstream’ textbook modelling of fiscal policy, and suggests a more meaningful framework in which to consider the role of fiscal policy; a framework which in particular recognises the realities of endogenous money and interest rate targeting by central banks.

This paper attempts to assess the relative performance of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Coalition governments in their management of the Australian macroeconomy. Given the problem of defining an appropriate counter/actual, we make comparisons using a number of different methods. Firstly we compare the averages of the key macroeconomic variables for the period of each government and then compare changes over the tenure of each government. Secondly, we use the method of ‘difference in differences’; that is, we compare the performance of the Australian economy with the US economy. This allows us to control for any features of the world economy that may be driving all the economies. A crude comparison suggests that the Labor party performed better on inflation and the real rate of interest while the Coalition performed better on growth and unemployment. However, there is no clear cut answer.

There have been a number of labour market programs that have attempted to increase rates of employment of Indigenous Australians by influencing job search behaviour. This paper provides the first ever baseline of data on the job search behaviour of Indigenous job seekers and how it compares to the job search of non-Indigenous job seekers. Clear differences between the job search behaviours of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians are apparent. Indigenous Australians rely disproportionately on friends and relatives as a source of information about jobs, although their networks tend to have less employed members, and therefore are less effective than non-Indigenous networks in securing employment. Non-Indigenous job seekers are also more likely to use more proactive search methods than are Indigenous job seekers.

The amendments to Schedule 1B of the Workplace Relations Act have given the government substantially new means of controlling the internal affairs of industrial organisations. At the government's behest, the Review of Current Arrangements for Governance of Industrial Organisation (the review), used concepts borrowed from the Corporations Act as a basis for recommendations regarding union accounts, accounting procedures, fiduciary obligations of office-holders and organisational rules. This study is a critique of the review and the consequent amendments. It argues that notions borrowed from the Corporations Act are inappropriate for unions and will cause problems for them. The amendments also contradict the government's avowed policy of deregulation of labour market institutions.

This paper considers an aspect of the assessment of net gains from outsourcing, which has received, it is argued, inadequate attention in the analytical and empirical literature: This aspect is the analysis of team productivity, the essential element for the existence of ‘the firm’ in economic theory. The simple model presented here derives from the labour market literature of internal labour markets and insider-outsider models. The net gains from outsourcing within this framework are assessed by comparing the cost saving from production synergies within the administrated internal labour market, with cost savings from exploiting relative wage differentials in the external labour market. This analysis seeks to identify the determinants of the magnitude of these cost savings and provide a framework to allow their assessment to contribute as one facet of the ‘make or buy’ decision.

Much as it has occurred in the United States, over the last two decades the household saving rate in Canada has fallen sharply to unprecedented levels, as it now hovers essentially about the zero rate. Accompanying this fall, we have witnessed a parallel rise in household debt ratios — a phenomenon that some have dubbed a state of “affluenza”. The object of this article is to provide an explanation of this phenomenon by pointing especially to the role played by fiscal policy in shifting the burden of debt from the government to the household sector. Moreover, the article raises serious concern about the sustainability of this particular growth process.