#46 December 2014 - Melbourne Institute News

Melbourne Institute News December 2014

ISSN 1442-9500 (print) ISSN 1442-9519 (online)

Print Post Approved PP381667/01204 Issue 46

The Changing Australian Labour Market On 2 December at the Melbourne Institute Public Economics Forum in Canberra, three of the Institute’s leading academics spoke on the broad topic of what is happening in the Australian labour market.

The Changing Australian Labour Market Page 1

How Much Bang for a Buck?

The Returns on Government Spending Page 3

Too Big to Fail and the Push for ‘Bail Ins’ Page 4

Job Loss and the Mental Health of Family Members Page 5

Australian Economic Review Focuses on Energy Markets Page 6

Recent Grant Success Page 7

Industrial Team Departure Page 7

MABEL Research Forum Page 7

HILDA Survey Data Release and Training Page 8

Journeys Home Data Release Page 8

While Australia managed to avoid the recession that most other Western nations experienced in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), our economy was not unscathed. This is reflected most obviously in the jobs market, where the rate of employment continues to fall — currently just 60.5 per cent of all adults are in employment, which compares with almost 63 per cent in 2008 — and the rate of unemployment is, at a little over 6 per cent, uncomfortably high and showing few signs of coming down any time soon. It was against this background that the Public Economics Forum on the changing nature of the Australian labour market was held.

Professor Deborah Cobb-Clark, the Director of the Melbourne Institute, commenced proceedings, with a focus on trends in labour force participation. She began by summarising trends, showing that aggregate rates of labour force participation have held up well following the GFC and compare favourably with other OECD nations.

Recent years, however, have seen the resumption of the long-term trend decline in participation among men.

She then highlighted differences in trends in agespecific participation rates. In particular, there have been spectacular and unprecedented rises in participation rates among workers in the older age groups, and especially those in the 55 to 64 years age range. With improving health and increased longevity, together with a policy environment that encourages people to delay retirement, further large increases in participation rates among older cohorts can be expected. Nevertheless, this still will not

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The Changing Australian Labour Market (continued)

be sufficient to offset the effects of population ageing.

As more and more of the baby boomer generation enter retirement the aggregate rates of labour force participation are almost certain to fall.

One factor that could forestall this is immigration.

Professor Cobb-Clark, however, drew attention to the ever increasing reliance on temporary visas. Indeed, she claims that if all temporary visa holders were working this would amount to 7 per cent of the total Australian workforce. She also noted the largely uncapped nature of visa allocations.

Finally, she discussed the rising importance of mental illness and poor psychological health as an obstacle to employment. She showed that persons with psychological and psychiatric conditions represented a rising, and the largest, proportion of Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients. Perhaps more significantly, rates of labour force participation for this group (just 29 per cent) are much lower than among other DSP recipients. Increasing rates of employment within this group is, according to Professor Cobb-Clark, a major challenge for government.

The second speaker was Professor Mark Wooden, Director of the HILDA Survey project, who focussed on trends among those in work. He began by discussing trends in the industrial and occupational composition of employment. He emphasised the continued decline in employment in manufacturing; its share of employment almost halved in the 20 years between 1973 and 1993, almost halved again between 1993 and 2013, and he expects it to almost halve again in the next two decades (if not much sooner).

Professor Wooden also showed that changes in the occupational composition of employment have strongly favoured those in high-skill, high-pay occupations. This stands in contrast to trends in other Western nations, where growth has been polarised, favouring both the most skilled and the least skilled. Within Australia, however, the only occupation with relatively few skill requirements that has prospered has been carers (and aides). With the increasing demands generated by both population ageing and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, this trend will only intensify going forward.

Labour Market Indicators (%) 68

11

Participation rate (left-hand side)

66

10

64

9

62

8 Employment ratio (left-hand side)

60

7 6

58 56

5

Unemployment rate (right-hand side)

54 1993

1996

1999

2002

2005

4 2008

2011

2014

• While many Australians are employed on casual or fixed-term contracts, there has been no growth in the casual employment share over the last decade.

• There is no evidence that jobs are any less stable today than in the past. Apart from the expected cyclical rise in the wake of the GFC, the long-term trend in rates of fires and retrenchment has been downwards, while the annual quit rate has varied around a steady longterm average of 11 per cent.

Finally, Professor Guay Lim, Director of the Institute’s Macroeconomics program, spoke about the relationship between growth, unemployment and matching efficiency.

She began by noting that the importance of growth as a way to reduce cyclical unemployment was highlighted at the G20 summit in Brisbane. The assumption here is that growth would be accompanied by job creation and a commensurate reduction in unemployment. However, she drew attention to periods of jobless growth. Furthermore, drawing on data on monthly labour market flows, she showed that the unemployed are just as likely to exit the labour force as they are to move into employment.

He also presented evidence showing that many popularly held views about the nature of work in Australia are not well founded.

In general, growth would normally lead to job creation and the unemployed would find a job more easily as tightness in the labour market increases. However, the effectiveness of a growth policy to reduce unemployment depends on the types of jobs created and on the degree of matching efficiency. Export-led growth would produce different employment outcomes to consumption-led growth and the greater the degree of mismatch between job requirements and worker skills, the less likely the reduction in unemployment.

• While many Australians do work long hours, it is not true that the incidence of long hours working has been rising; indeed for the last decade it has been declining.

For a review article summarising recent changes in the Australian labour market, see Roger Wilkins and Mark Wooden (2014), ‘Two Decades of Change: The Australian Labour Market, 1993 to 2013’, Australian Economic Review, vol. 47, pp. 417–31.

Page 2 - Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research

How Much Bang for a Buck? The Returns on Government Spending G20 leaders have put growth and employment at the centre of the global agenda. To spur collective growth by more than 2 per cent over five years, they have agreed to implement structural reforms (including increasing quality investment in infrastructure, reducing barriers to trade, creating more employment opportunities and increasing market competition).

Such policies are proposed to overcome the limited effectiveness of standard monetary and fiscal policy tools. Given historically low interest rates in most G20 countries, conventional monetary policy is limited in its ability to stimulate growth. The use of fiscal policy is even more controversial and has triggered heated debates in Europe: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has steadily defended the virtues of fiscal austerity, while Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has called for expansionary fiscal spending to escape the recession.

But what do we know about the returns from fiscal spending, really? Academic researchers have found it challenging to quantify the gains from fiscal policy. What is the return from spending one dollar of taxpayers’ money? “How much bang for a buck?” The answer depends on many factors. Even the most stylised textbook macroeconomic models tell us that a country may reap different returns depending on elements such as its exchange rate regime, the health of its financial system and where it finds itself in a boom or a bust when implementing fiscal policy moves.

Consequently, the correct measurement of the impact of fiscal policy calls for carefully designed macroeconometric models that consider a myriad of interrelations. To add to the difficulty, fiscal policy decisions usually come after long (often heated) political discussions, typically implemented with some lags. This means that there are potentially two powerful and very different fiscal policy channels to consider: first, the impact of actual changes in public spending; and second, the impact of the announcements of future fiscal policies (because they can influence consumer and entrepreneurial decisions).

Despite these qualifications, some consensus has emerged on when fiscal multipliers (that is, returns from fiscal spending) may be large: recessions. Melbourne Institute researcher Associate Professor Efrem Castelnuovo (with his co-authors Associate Professor Giovanni Caggiano, Dr Valentina Colombo and Dr Gabriela Nodari) showed

that one dollar of public money spent during the 2007–09 crisis could generate 2.5 dollars of output in five years’ time. Consistent with this research, University of New South Wales Professor James Morley and his co-authors found large and persistent government spending multipliers during periods of considerable economic slack.

These empirical results — higher returns from fiscal spending in recessions — are consistent with theoretical predictions. This is because, during economic slack, a country’s central bank refrains from raising interest rates after a fiscal spending shock. Recent theoretical contributions based on modern macroeconomic frameworks tend to support this prediction. This implies that the increase in aggregate output due to such a fiscal policy move is not ‘counterbalanced’ by higher borrowing costs for consumers and firms, as interest rates remain low. So consumers and firms do not reduce their spending. Technically, no ‘crowding out’ of consumption and investment occurs. This implies that the output effect of a fiscal policy move can eventually be large.

Should policymakers push hard on the fiscal policy pedal? A warning is in order here. High returns from fiscal spending are likely to occur only in countries that have a public debt which is judged by the markets to be sustainable. If not, fiscal multipliers can be negative, as shown by some recent research. This is because countries with a very high debt-to-GDP ratio risk falling into a vicious spiral. The increase in public spending raises concerns in financial markets and this pushes up the riskpremium on the public debt issued to finance the public spending. The premium then translates into a higher debt service which increases the future debt burden, thereby reducing the ability of fiscally unsound countries to issue more government securities. Fiscal policy is potentially a very powerful instrument to boost growth in countries that are in severe economic conditions. Policymakers should be careful. At times, a one-size-fits-all approach makes a lot of sense. In the case of fiscal policy, it simply does not.

An unedited version of this article by Associate Professor Efrem Castelnuovo was recently published in The Conversation.

Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Page 3

Too Big to Fail and the Push for ‘Bail Ins’

In the last decade or so, the global financial landscape has endured two major shocks: the 2007 collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States and a major loss of confidence in the quality of debt issued by a number of European countries.

The full extent of the collapse in the mortgage-backed securities market was not immediately clear, with the financial crisis peaking over a year later in the second half of 2008. The crisis was not limited to the United States: a number of banks and building societies across Europe also sought government assistance.

Central bankers have attempted to address the financial crisis by injecting liquidity into credit markets, including extending the types of securities accepted as collateral by central banks, and allowing a wider range of institutions to deal directly with central banks. Governments have proposed a number of rescue plans revolving around the partial nationalisation of financially stricken institutions, the provision of deposit guarantees, and the delivery of assistance packages to parts of the economy heavily affected by the ensuing economic downturn.

Government bail-outs essentially involve using taxpayer funds to assist distressed institutions. This has typically been undertaken through the provision of financial assistance to the institution in return for an allocation of preference shares. Through this mechanism, taxpayers effectively become investors in a managed fund used to buy toxic or potentially toxic assets.

The rationale for this process is that it is relatively straightforward for the government to support a shaky financial institution by providing it with funds in return for capital. A potentially lengthy and complex restructure of the institution’s debt and equity structure is avoided.

This quick fix is extremely costly as a disproportionately high level of risk is shifted away from bank creditors to taxpayers. Research has suggested a number of potential problems associated with the government purchase of preferred stock in distressed banks.

Encouraging banks to participate in (fully or partially) voluntary rescue schemes typically requires governments to overpay for preferred stock. Even when governments overpay, there is no guarantee that banks will increase their lending levels — something all too readily observed during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Indeed, the probability that banks will increase their lending following a preferred stock recapitalisation appears to be proportional to the extent that governments overpay for preferred stock.

There is also the possibility of moral hazard, where larger banks are likely to accept greater risk on the basis of an implicit insurance policy formed by the understanding that they are “too big to fail”. Indeed, the issue of moral hazard is at the core of the bail-out or bail-in issue. In a bail-in, recapitalisation is internal, and results in bondholders accepting a greater level of risk. This typically involves holders of subordinated debt (holders of lower-ranking, unsecured bonds) being forced to convert some of their bonds to equity.

The Financial Stability Board’s proposal requires the world’s largest banks to hold a certain amount of capital in the form of bonds that could become equity under certain conditions. Both the capital formula and the conversion trigger points, however, are still under debate.

This capital (defined as the Gone Concern Loss Capacity or GLAC) would act as a buffer during any banking crisis, forcing bondholders to accept a higher level of responsibility for their bank’s decisions.

Is this a positive move? It would seem to be. To some extent, bank bondholders have been earning excess returns while essentially holding government bonds.

This lowers costs of capital for banks and creates an environment of cheap funding. The GFC is a prime example of the possible consequences stemming from these types of price distortions. Any increment in the cost of capital will be passed to consumers. This will be the immediately incurred cost of reducing the probability and magnitude of any future bail-out. If the GLAC measures are implemented correctly, this will result in a shift in risk (and its associated costs) away from taxpayers and towards bank debtors and creditors. The accompanying repricing of bank bonds should encourage investors to better evaluate the lending practices of banks.

Bondholders will require a greater return for lending to riskier banks, thereby increasing the cost of capital for those banks, and yielding a return for investors more commensurate with the true risks in the banking sector.

An unedited version of this article by Dr Sarantis Tsiaplias was recently published in The Conversation.

Page 4 - Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research

Job Loss and the Mental Health of Family Members Recent research from the Melbourne Institute finds that involuntary job loss can have significant negative impacts on the mental health of not just the job loser, but of other family members as well.

effective for identifying persons with mental health problems, and in particular those with mood and anxiety disorders.

With respect to spouses, their analyses suggest three major conclusions. First, impacts on spouses are genderspecific. No evidence is found that husbands’ mental health is affected by their wives’ job loss. In contrast, some wives are adversely affected by their husband’s job loss.

Second, these effects for wives are dependent on how quickly the husband finds alternative employment.

Significant negative impacts are generally only found if the husband experiences a sustained period of nonemployment.

Third, these adverse effects on wives’ mental well-being are also more pronounced if the couple experienced financial hardship or relationship strain prior to the husband losing his job.

It has long been recognised that unemployment is not just a significant event for those directly experiencing it, but also for the family members of the job loser. Most obviously, the subsequent reduction in family income can be a major source of stress within the household.

Further, there may be spill-overs between the mental health states of family members. As a result, we might expect the onset of unemployment to be associated with a deterioration in the psychological well-being of not only the job loser, but of other family members as well.

However, there has been surprisingly little research that has directly examined how involuntary job loss affects the mental health of both spouses and children in the family, and certainly nothing of significance in Australia. New research undertaken at the Melbourne Institute, by Melisa Bubonya, Professor Deborah Cobb-Clark and Professor Mark Wooden, has sought to redress this deficiency.

Using the longitudinal data collected in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey over the period 2001 to 2012, they test whether the involuntary job loss of one family member is associated with subsequent declines in the mental health of both the spouse and co-resident adolescent children (aged 15 to 20 years).

Mental health is measured with the Mental Health Inventory, a sub-scale of the Short Form (SF-36) Health Survey. It has been shown in other research to be highly

With respect to impacts on children, again effects are gender-specific and depend on whether the parent found alternative employment. Perhaps surprisingly, the mental health of co-resident adolescent children’s mental health is found, on average, to be unaffected by their fathers’ job loss. Adolescents’ mental health declines, however, after their mothers’ job loss, but only if they experience a period of sustained non-employment. Finally, it is adolescent girls, rather than boys, who are most sensitive to their mothers’ job loss.

According to co-author Professor Mark Wooden, the most important finding is the diversity of estimated effects. “For many groups — notably husbands — the average effect is essentially zero. But for other groups the implied effects are substantial.”

Professor Wooden points in particular to female spouses in families where the husband is unable to find alternative employment quickly and where financial or relationship stress was already present. “In these families, the magnitude of these negative effects — in the order of 2.5 points — is large relative to other influences on psychological well-being.”

Melbourne Institute Working Paper No. 23/14, ‘A Family Affair: Job Loss and the Mental Health of Spouses and Adolescents’, can be downloaded from the Melbourne Institute’s website. For more information about this HILDA research, email Professor Mark Wooden at <m.wooden@unimelb.edu.au>.

*AH>KQNJA &JOPEPQPA 4KNGEJC -=LAN 0ANEAO Working Paper No. 23/14 A Family Affair: Job Loss and the Mental Health of Spouses and Adolescents Melisa Bubonya, Deborah A. Cobb-Clark and Mark Wooden

Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Page 5

Australian Economic Review Focuses on Energy Markets The December 2014 issue of the Australian Economic Review contains interesting articles on a range of economic and social topics.

In a survey article, Associate Professor Roger Wilkins and Professor Mark Wooden describe the strong performance of the Australian labour market over the past two decades in participation, employment and earnings but note that earnings inequality increased substantially, in part reflecting changes in labour demand that favoured the most skilled and educated. Going forward they see the major challenge is maintaining a labour force that is capable of supporting an ageing population. They conclude that without a major expansion in immigration, this will require an increase in the productivity of the workforce, pointing to the critical importance of ongoing investment in education and training. The decline of the self-employment rate in Australia is investigated by Dr Kadir Atalay, Dr Woo-Yung Kim and Dr Stephen Whelan. The analysis indicates that a propensity for older female workers to remain longer in paid employment has driven this decline.

In another survey article, Dr Malcolm Abbott and Dr Bruce Cohen evaluate the efficiency gains of privatisation of government-owned enterprises over the past few decades. They show that privatisation of itself can lead to efficiency gains as was the case for airports. In some cases, such as electricity, increased competition drove efficiency gains; in other cases it is difficult to unscramble the efficiency gains from privatisation, regulatory reform and increased competition. They conclude that where gains were achieved, generally the costs and benefits were disproportionally either borne or enjoyed by employees, consumers and shareholders.

In a contributed article, Professor Ansgar Belke and Tobias Böing provide new estimates of the sacrifice ratio of 11 Euro countries, where the sacrifice ratio measures the annualised cumulative loss in output that is a consequence of a one percentage point reduction in inflation. They come up with what they deem to be ‘modest ratios’ of less than 2 per cent of real GDP. The Policy Forum is devoted to energy markets. The lead article is by Professor Ross Garnaut and is a revised version of his 2014 Freebairn Lecture. He examines the interrelationships between the various energy markets and sets the Australian experience and likely future in an international context. Professor Garnaut emphasises the influence of industrialisation in China and other developing countries on energy prices in the decade that ended with the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. In

recent years, coal prices have fallen as China’s growth has eased and its policy has shifted to increasing the share of renewables and nuclear energy. Professor Garnaut sees the return to relatively low cost energy in Australia as depending on greater utilisation of endowments of nonfossil energy, concomitant with reform of the regulatory environment and macroeconomic adjustment.

The Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector is reviewed in an article by Professor Quentin Grafton and Dr Ross Lambie. Australia is now the third-largest exporter of LNG in the world, with 80 per cent going to Japan; exports are expected to increase threefold by 2018– 19. They argue that development of the industry would be markedly assisted by greater cooperation between government and private developers. Assistant Professor David Byrne looks at the Australian petroleum industry and explains why in recent years retail prices have followed international prices even more closely than in the past. He then provides an insightful account of short-term retail price dynamics in the Australian market and the impact of shopper dockets issued by Coles and Woolworths.

In the final Energy Forum article, Professor Paul Simshauser provides a detailed technical critique of the electricity market. He shows that in the decade following the introduction of the National Energy Market in 1998 capacity oversupply was largely cleared and electricity prices fell. Since 2007, however, the increase in electricity prices in Australia has been amongst the highest in the world. The increase in prices occurred through increases in network costs (the costs of poles and wires) which Professor Simshauser attributes to policy errors which he discusses.

Linking to the Policy Forum, the Data Survey by Professor Kenneth Clements, Jiawei Si and Thomas Simpson is a guide to information on Australian resource projects. Three sources are described in detail and some examples of how they can be used in economic analysis are mentioned. Finally, in an article that is sure to be heavily downloaded by advanced economics students, Rachael Meager provides advice on how to get into a top 10 economics PhD program in the United States.

To access this latest issue of the Australian Economic Review, visit the Wiley website at <wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/aere>.

Page 6 - Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research

Recent Grant Success for the Melbourne Institute Two ARC Discovery Grants have recently been awarded to our staff to investigate important current issues.

Professor Anthony Scott and Associate Professor Jongsay Yong with Dr Peter Sivey (School of Economics, La Trobe University), Professor Hugh Gravelle (Centre for Health Economics, University of York) and Dr David Byrne (Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne) received an ARC Discovery Grant of $387,100 over four years to investigate ‘Competition in Medical Labour Markets’.

The aim of this project is to examine the impact of competition and increased supply on the prices charged, the quality of care provided, and the health status of patients. The research also aims to examine the location choices of medical practitioners and is expected to generate new and important evidence using unique longitudinal data.

Associate Professor Roger Wilkins and Professor Richard Burkhauser with Professor Stephen Jenkins (London School of Economics and Political Science) received an ARC Discovery Grant of $353,515 over three years to investigate ‘Income Inequality and Mobility in Australia, Great Britain and the US’.

This project will use a cross-national framework to investigate income inequality and mobility in Australia, Britain and the United States. It will re-evaluate the tax-based evidence and reconcile it with household survey evidence. Using household panel data, it will comprehensively examine income mobility patterns, using a variety of mobility measures. It aims to show the sensitivity of income inequality and mobility patterns and trends to broader income measures. The project also aims to provide policymakers with a more accurate and complete understanding of Australian income inequality and mobility trends and their drivers within an international context.

Industrial Team Departure At the end of December, most members of the Melbourne Institute’s Industrial Economics Research Program will be leaving the Melbourne Institute and moving to Swinburne University of Technology.

Professor Beth Webster (pictured right) has accepted a position as Director of the Centre for Transformative Innovation, one of two multi-disciplinary research centres within Swinburne’s Faculty of Business and Law. Dr Russell Thomson, Dr Alfons Palangkaraya and T’mir Julius will be joining Professor Webster at Swinburne from 2015, while Dr Gaétan de Rassenfosse will be moving to École

Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and Zina Bogomolova is away on maternity leave.

The Industrial team has made a huge contribution to the Melbourne Institute over a number of years. They have been very successful here and we wish them well as they move on to take advantage of these new opportunities.

A farewell function was held in December to recognise and celebrate the contributions of Professor Webster and the Industrial team to the Melbourne Institute and the University of Melbourne.

MABEL Research Forum The Centre for Research Excellence in Medical Workforce Dynamics, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, is pleased to announce that the third MABEL Research Forum will be held on 24 April 2015 in Melbourne.

Anyone wishing to be added to the email list for updates about the forum should send their request to Michelle Best at <mbest@unimelb.edu.au>. Updates will also be added to the forum web page at <www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/ events/special%20events/Forum_MABEL_2015/forum_ MABEL_2015_default.html>.

The MABEL Research Forum will focus on a discussion of research using the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Further information about the MABEL survey and the Centre for Research Excellence in Medical Workforce Dynamics can be found at Employment and Life (MABEL) data in a form that is accessible to academics, policymakers and other stakeholders. <www.mabel.org.au>.

The forum will include presentations from researchers who use the MABEL data as well as introductions provided by Centre for Research Excellence policymakers and stakeholders. More information regarding Medical Workforce Dynamics Melbourne inInstitute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Page 7 Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) abstract submission and registration will be available shortly.

Recent Melbourne Institute Working Papers 20/14 ‘A Journey Home: What Drives How Long People Are Homeless?’ Deborah A. Cobb-Clark, Nicolas Herault, Rosanna Scutella and Yi-Ping Tseng 21/14 ‘When General Skills Are Not Enough: The Influence of Recent Shifts in Australian Skilled Migration Policy on Migrant Employment Outcomes’ Justin van de Ven, Sarah Voitchovsky and Hielke Buddelmeyer 22/14 ‘NAPLAN Scores as Predictors of Access to Higher Education in Victoria’ Brendan Houng and Moshe Justman 23/14 ‘A Family Affair: Job Loss and the Mental Health of Spouses and Adolescents’ Melisa Bubonya, Deborah A. Cobb-Clark and Mark Wooden 24/14 ‘Evidence on Credit Constraints, University Attendance and Income Contingent Loans’ Buly A. Cardak and Chris Ryan 25/14 ‘Locus of Control and the Labor Market’ Deborah A. Cobb-Clark 26/14 ‘Estimating Fiscal Multipliers: News from a Nonlinear World’ Giovanni Caggiano, Efrem Castelnuovo, Valentina Colombo and Gabriela Nodari 27/14 ‘A Bayesian Approach to Modelling Bivariate Time-Varying Cointegration and Cointegrating Rank’ Chew Lian Chua and Sarantis Tsiaplias 28/14 ‘The Importance of Economic Expectations for Retirement Entry’ Barbara Broadway and John P. Haisken-DeNew Working Papers can be downloaded for free from <www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/publications/default.html>. If you would like to receive an email notification when new issues become available, contact the Melbourne Institute at <melb-inst@unimelb.edu.au>.

HILDA Survey Data Release and Training Release 13 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data, which includes Waves 1 to 13, is now available.

Features of this release are the inclusion of new data items, collected in Wave 13, on physical activity, sleep and waist measurement. The release DVD includes Stata, SAS and SPSS datasets with extensive documentation. For further information on ordering and the new fact sheets, please visit our website at <www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/data/>.

There are also some training opportunities scheduled over the next few months.

Introductory Level Training — Getting Started: Analysing HILDA with Stata (Melbourne 25–27 February 2015) This three-day hands-on training course is designed for people interested in using the HILDA Survey data but who have not yet done so or have only used the data a little. This course is organised by the Melbourne Institute. For more details or to register go to <www. melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/training>.

Advanced Level Training — Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis (Melbourne 9–13 February 2015) This five-day intensive course aims to provide participants with a range of skills for the analysis of longitudinal data. This course is part of the ACSPRI (Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated) Summer Program. For more details see <www.acspri.org.au/node/1434>.

Journeys Home Data Release The microdata for Waves 5 and 6 of Journeys Home: A Longitudinal Study of Factors Affecting Housing Stability are now available for researchers. Journeys Home is an important national survey about the living and housing challenges that people may be facing. The study allows for the analysis of diverse social, economic and personal factors that are related to housing stability. More information on the study, including details about how to access the data, is available at <www.melbourneinstitute.com/journeys_home/index.html>.

Melbourne Institute News Views expressed by the contributors to Melbourne Institute News are not necessarily endorsed or approved by the Melbourne Institute. Neither the Melbourne Institute nor the Editor of Melbourne Institute News accepts any responsibility for the content or accuracy of information contained in this publication. Editor: Rachel Derham, tel: (03) 8344 2158, email: r.derham@unimelb.edu.au. Sub-Editor: Nellie Lentini. Contributors: Associate Professor Efrem Castelnuovo, Professor Tony Scott, Dr Rosanna Scutella, Dr Sarantis Tsiaplias, Professor Ross Williams, Professor Mark Wooden.

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