Microeconomic reform dominated Australian economic policy from the early 1980s until the end of the 20th century. Despite strong claims of success, focusing on the economic expansion since 1992, and rapid productivity growth between 1993–94 and 1998–99, evidence of improvements in the performance of the economy as a whole is weak and inconclusive. For an adequate evaluation of the microeconomic reform period, it is necessary to distinguish several different phases of reform and to evaluate reforms on a case-by-case basis.

Regulatory agencies, the financial community and the investing public need to be aware that more effective investment recommendations and decisions require human capital analysis. It is important to the work of securities analysts, their clients and their industry. Bassi, Lev, Mcmurrer and Sissfield (2001) suggest that non-financial insights, particularly human capital related insights, make up a large proportion of investment decisions. More rigorous qualitative human capital analysis can illuminate the working of an organisation in a way that primary financial data on its own cannot achieve need. A model for outlining the human resource drivers of sustainable human capital is introduced and discussed in response to this need. In essence, an integrated approach is needed for the purpose of making more transparent investment recommendations. In Australia the Regulatory Agency, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission can assist in the adoption of this integrated investment process through the Training of Financial Product Advisors, Licensing Policy Statement 146.

This paper analyses recently released ABS data on the distribution of income and examines how inequality has changed since 1994–95 and since the election of the Howard Government in 1995–96. While real disposable incomes increased across the distribution, income inequality has also increased since 1994–95, particularly between 1996–97 and 1999–2000. Over the entire period from 1994–95 to 2000–01, mean income in the top quintile increased by $111 a week, more than eight times the increase of $13 a week in the lowest quintile. Since the Howard government came to office, the estimates indicate that almost half (47.3 per cent) of the total increase in disposable income was received by those in the top quintile — implying that half of the income generated by economic growth has been of no benefit to the bottom four-fifths (in income terms) of the population. Comparison with earlier research also shows that income inequality has, in some respects, increased more rapidly since the mid-1990s than during the 1980s.

This paper presents the key findings from a small qualitative survey of the main factors associated with the creation and usage of five industrial capabilities in leading Victorian sectors. The capabilities included advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT), design, information and communications technology (ICT), biotechnology and environment technologies. Eighty-eight companies and organisations were interviewed for the study. It was found that the main requirements for the successful creation of a capability was the ability of the company to recruit and retain the best graduates from universities and technical schools, the ability to offer training to these graduates and the ability to financially support high and consistent levels of R&D over time. The main requirement for the successful use of a capability was effective company networking, work cultures conducive to excellence, supportive government regulations and the provision of complementary specialised training.

This article compares the productivity and employment performance of the Australian and Irish economies over the 1990s, with particular emphasis on the different approaches to the role of information and communications technologies (ICT). Whereas Australia’s performance is characterised by the application and diffusion of ICT across a number of sectors, with indirect productivity and employment effects, Ireland has become a major producer of ICT products and services in its own right. The article traces the implications of these approaches for the pattern of growth and employment in both economies and also indicates their limitations. Ireland’s approach is limited by dependence on foreign investment, embodying externally generated technologies, though this is now being addressed by a policy interest in R&D support and the development of industry clusters and networks. On the other hand, Australia faces growing and possibly unsustainable deficits in its current account, driven by imports of knowledge-intensive goods and services, notwithstanding recent improvements in the terms of trade associated with higher prices for primary commodity exports.

Decentralisation of bargaining poses particular challenges for employer associations. It reduces the sense of collective identity among members, decreases the attraction of associations’ traditional collective goods and increases the urgency and array of individual member needs while increasing the costs of servicing them. Decentralisation also threatens revenue as large companies, the financial backbone of associations, shift employment relations activities in-house. This weakens the attractions of membership with the risk that employer associations will retain only smaller, heavily dependent members. We discuss employer association attempts to meet these challenges while competing with commercial service businesses. Their strategic choices lie on a continuum between traditional membership-based organisational identity, with its roots in movement as well as organisation, and one that more closely approximates a business services firm. Associations experiment along this continuum as they develop strategy iteratively and the article identifies factors that help determine their choices.