#35 March 2012 - Melbourne Institute News

Melbourne Institute News March 2012 ISSN 1442-9500 (print)

ISSN 1442-9519 (online)

Print Post Approved PP381667/01204

Issue 35

Let the Celebrations Begin

Let the Celebrations Begin Page 1

HILDA Survey Wave 11 Top-Up Response Rate Surpasses Expectations Page 3

Unexpected Victims: German Parents’ Unemployment Reduces Sons’ Life Satisfaction Page 4

Downing Lecture: Little Change in Household Income Distributions Due to GFC Page 5

In Memoriam Page 6

Melbourne Institute Releases Australian Economic Review Page 7

Intergen +10: 10th Anniversary of the Treasury’s Intergenerational Report Page 8

This year the Melbourne Institute celebrates its Golden Jubilee. Ronald Henderson arrived to take up the inaugural directorship of the (then) Institute of Applied Economic Research on 15 December 1962. That year had been one of feverish activity within the University of Melbourne to beat rival claims from Canberra and Sydney to establish what was seen as a national institute of applied economic research. Professor Richard Downing, who had known Henderson since they were students at Cambridge, was the driving force behind the setting up of the Institute in Melbourne. Speed was so important that there was not time to establish a professorship for Ronald Henderson; this had to wait until 1966 when the Institute was up and running. The Institute was established as a separate entity from the faculty, although it was colocated with the department of economics. It reported not to the dean but to an advisory board chaired by the Vice-Chancellor.

Ronald Henderson came to an Institute that had limited funding. The faculty and university between them cobbled together funds for the director, support staff and four other positions. But none of the funding was for more than three years. The Reserve Bank had wanted to provide core funding for an Professor Ronald Henderson independent economic research institute but its desires were torpedoed by the Commonwealth Treasury.

Given the limited university resources available, it is amazing what was achieved under Ronald Henderson’s leadership in the first decade, although he was quick to tap external sources such as the Myer and Potter

www.melbourneinstitute.com Page 1 - Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research

Let the Celebrations Begin (continued)

In 1973 the Institute underwent a number of fundamental changes. Most importantly, it formally became a division of the faculty of economics and commerce. The Institute also broadened the scope of its activities. Consumer surveys were initiated. More formal econometric modelling of the Australian economy was introduced.

The new initiatives led to an increase in the number of academic staff to 23, a rise of 50 per cent over the previous year, and a further increase to 34 in 1974.

Professor Ross Williams AM is writing a history of the Melbourne Institute.

foundations, the Reserve Bank and the forerunner of the ARC. John Deeble and Dick Scotton developed proposals for a national compulsory health scheme that was adopted by the Whitlam government as Medibank, now Medicare. John Rose, through his influential position on the Senate select committee on securities and exchange, did more than any other individual to bring about a national stock exchange and the forerunner of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.

A major survey of poverty in Melbourne carried out in 1966 alerted the public to severe pockets of poverty, led to changes in the level and design of government welfare payments, and provided the impetus for the national inquiry into poverty in the 1970s that was directed by Ronald Henderson. The Institute’s poverty line was a by-product of the Melbourne poverty project. The Institute’s move into social economics led in August 1969 to its name being changed to the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

From the beginning it was Ronald Henderson’s intention to establish a quarterly journal that contained overviews of the Australian economy, macroeconomic forecasts and other articles. The Australian Economic Review commenced publication in 1968 with Duncan Ironmonger as its editor. In its first few years the Review published trend and seasonally adjusted data series that were all constructed internally after transcribing hard copy data onto magnetic tape for feeding in to a mainframe computer. This was pioneering work, done in advance of the official statistical agencies. It was however an expensive operation and the Review absorbed about one-third of the Institute’s revenue.

In the 1970s, through its Review, the Institute became an important and often controversial contributor to the national economic policy debate. Major contributors to what became known as ‘the Institute view’ were Peter Sheehan, Duncan Ironmonger and Ronald Henderson.

The expansion was in externally funded projects.

Consequently, the proportion of revenue provided by the university fell to a third. It remained at around that level for the rest of the decade. The Institute Multi-Purpose Model (IMP) led by Peter Brain was a large ongoing project financed by subscribers from the private sector and government. It provided the basis for regular medium and longer term forecasting conferences, but failed to win the support of the academic community. Quarterly household surveys commenced in 1973. The Index of Consumer Sentiment has been published continuously from this date. The surveys used methodology borrowed from the experience of the Survey Research Centre at the University of Michigan. The pioneer of household polling, Dr George Gallup, attended an international conference organised by the Institute in March 1979.

Ronald Henderson retired as director of the Institute and from the University of Melbourne in September 1979.

In retirement he became a consultant to the Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) and retained links with the Institute as an honorary senior associate. Of the many tributes, the following, taken from the academic board’s minute of appreciation, most succinctly sums up his attributes as director of the Institute: The value of the institute’s work is today recognized by the State and Commonwealth governments and by the business and general community. That this is so is a tribute to Henderson’s contagious enthusiasm and skill as a leader of research, as an indefatigable campaigner for funds and above all as an economist who combines the highest skills of his discipline with a determination to work toward those social reforms which he believes to be both practicable and equitable.

Future editions of the newsletter will contain further snapshots of the Melbourne Institute’s history. A full history of the Melbourne Institute is being written by Professor Ross Williams AM. It is to be published later in the year by Melbourne University Press. Other events will include a conference as well as a dinner in December.

If you would like to receive information and updates about forthcoming 50th Anniversary events, please contact us at <melbconf@unimelb.edu.au> and we will place you on our mailing list.

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HILDA Survey Wave 11 Top-Up Response Rate Surpasses Expectations Over 2,000 new households joined the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey in wave 11 as part of a highly successful expansion of the sample.

Followers of the Melbourne Institute should now be very aware that we manage, on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services, and Indigenous Affairs, the HILDA Survey â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s major household panel survey.

On all indicators the HILDA Survey has been a major success. It has been running for over a decade with the Australian Government committed to supporting the study until at least wave 16 (that is, 2016). Annual retention rates exceed 96 per cent, there is a flourishing data user community numbering in excess of 1,500 persons, and the data have supported well over 300 articles in academic journals spread across the social sciences, and countless other papers and reports.

The study began in 2001 and follows a nationally representative sample of persons living in Australia in 2001 and their descendants. A major challenge for surveys with this indefinite life design is that they potentially become less representative of the population over time due to the inability to capture immigrants arriving after the study commenced. To redress this problem the HILDA Survey introduced a new representative subsample as part of its 2011 survey wave, which would result in the expansion of the total HILDA Survey sample by about 30 per cent. This was a major logistical exercise for the study, and especially the fieldwork company, Roy Morgan Research, necessitating a lengthening in the fieldwork period and an increase in the interviewer workforce.

Fieldwork was completed in February, and we are delighted to report that the response outcomes have 100

exceeded expectations. A total of 3,117 households spread across Australia were selected for inclusion in the top-up sample and identified as in-scope. Contact was successfully made with 94 per cent of these households, with cooperation obtained from almost 70 per cent. This is noticeably higher than for wave 1 when a household response rate of just 65.7 per cent was obtained.

Given the accumulated experience of both the survey managers and interviewers, this improvement in response rates should, perhaps, not be surprising. Nevertheless, it contrasts with the international experience from both repeated cross-sections and other household panel studies, where the claim is regularly made that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get the population interested in participating in yet another survey.

The new UK household panel, Understanding Society, which succeeds and subsumes the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), for example, only obtained a household response rate of 57.2 per cent for its first wave, conducted during 2009 and 2010. By comparison, the equivalent response rate for wave 1 of the BHPS, conducted in 1991, was 74 per cent. A similarly marked decline in initial wave response is also evident in the successive refreshment samples that have been added to the German Socio-Economic Panel. For the 1998, 2000, and 2006 refreshments these were 54 per cent, 51 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. By comparison, for the original West German sample, and despite the exclusion of all partially responding households, a noticeably higher response rate of 61 per cent was reported for its first survey wave in 1984.

The HILDA Survey may thus be the first major survey of its kind conducted anywhere in the world over the last decade or two to have actually become more successful in obtaining cooperation from sample members.

For more information, visit <www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda>.

Household Panel Surveys, Wave 1 Response Rates, International Comparisons

90 80 70 %

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 HILDA Wave 11 Top-Up, 2011

HILDA Wave 1, 2001

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Understanding Society (UK), 2009â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10

German SOEP, Sample H, 2006

Unexpected Victims: German Parents’ Unemployment Reduces Sons’ Life Satisfaction The unemployment experience of German parents can have adverse effects on their children’s wellbeing, according to a study from the Melbourne Institute.

The study found that fathers who enter unemployment due to reasons not of their own choosing, such as through company closure, adversely affect their sons’ subjective wellbeing. However, the study found that there were no significant effects on the daughters of unemployed parents.

The research drew on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and covered sons and daughters aged between 17 and 25 who still lived with their parents. The study was co-written by Professor John P. Haisken-DeNew from the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne and PhD student Michael Kind from the Ruhr Graduate School in Economics, Essen, Germany.

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series

Working Paper No. 2/12

Unexpected Victims: How Parents’ Unemployment Affects Their Children’s Life Satisfaction Michael Kind and John P. Haisken-DeNew

certainly many young Germans can relate directly to the issue of employment at this particular time of their lives.”

In previous studies, economists have focused on the effects of unemployment from a largely individual perspective, finding that the unemployed not only suffer loss of income but also a loss of self-esteem and social identification. According to Professor Haisken-DeNew, the children of the unemployed experienced similar effects.

“This unemployment experience can cause a ripple effect, and particularly in the case of the father–son relationship, the negative effects of the father’s unemployment on the son are of the same magnitude as what the son would experience if he himself were unemployed. This is over and above the negative impact of reduced household income — it affects both generations’ self-esteem, their social contacts and the like.”

Professor Haisken-DeNew said that “the sons traditionally have a stronger attachment to the labour market than their female counterparts, who may not be as directly affected, as the daughters might have additional family planning considerations.”

For the authors, this effect leads to some significant policy implications. “This sort of intergenerational impact is a big deal, as we can now clearly speak of a domino effect of unemployment in a family context, meaning the non-financial costs of unemployment are even higher than previously thought … These are the real costs of traditionally high levels of unemployment in Europe.

Reducing unemployment through more flexible wages and work arrangements must be made one of the policy makers’ prime goals,” said Professor Haisken-DeNew.

This particular age group was selected due to its impending employment decisions, said Professor HaiskenDeNew. “Those who are not on an academic track generally enter the workforce from the age of 16, and

Working Paper No. 2/12 can be downloaded from our website, <www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/publications/default.html>.

For more information, contact Professor John P. Haisken-DeNew on (03) 9035 3811 or email <johnhd@unimelb.edu.au>.

PanelWhiz Supports MABEL Dataset The MABEL dataset (waves 1 to 3) has been prepared for the first time to work with the data extraction tool written for Stata called ‘PanelWhiz’ (www.panelwhiz.eu), authored by the Melbourne Institute’s Professor John P. Haisken-DeNew and Markus Hahn. PanelWhiz supports most of the world’s largest household panel datasets, including the German SOEP, British BHPS, Australian HILDA, American PSID and American CPS, and currently has several hundred users.

Users of the Melbourne Institute’s Australian household panel dataset, HILDA (www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda), will immediately recognise an identical graphical user interface, allowing users to extract data easily from the panel dataset in ready-to-use long format, with survey persons matched up automatically over time.

Extraction scripts are created and run dynamically to extract only those variables of user interest. All words found in variable labels are used to create a total dataset keyword list, allowing users to search the entire data distribution for all known keywords. PanelWhiz requires Stata version 10.1 or better for Windows, Mac and UNIX to extract data from the MABEL dataset. Data can also be exported to SPSS or SAS without the need for any additional commercial software. The functionality of the software is described in detail in Haisken-DeNew and Hahn (2010).1 For more information, contact Professor John P. Haisken-DeNew on (03) 9035 3811 or email <johnhd@unimelb.edu.au>.

Haisken-DeNew, J. P. and Hahn, M. H. 2010, ‘PanelWhiz: Efficient data extraction of complex panel data sets – An example using the German SOEP’, Journal of Applied Social Science Studies, vol. 130, pp. 643–54.

1

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©benews.unimelb.edu.au

Downing Lecture: Little Change in Household Income Distributions Due to GFC

Professor Margaret Abernethy (Dean, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne), Professor Deborah Cobb-Clark (Director, Melbourne Institute) and Professor John Micklewright

In his indomitable style Professor John Micklewright, Head of the Department of Quantitative Social Science at the Institute of Education, University of London, presented an engaging lecture on the ‘Great Recession and the Distribution of Household Income’ for the 2012 Downing Lecture at the Spot.

The lecture drew on a study of 21 countries, using data from national accounts, household surveys, and other sources. Besides a broad multi-country analysis, there was a detailed investigation for Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The headline findings were that for most countries, there was little change in household income distributions in the two years following the downturn (2007–09), but in the subsequent five to ten years, much greater change is likely,

as a result of governments’ fiscal consolidation and the slow pace of economic recovery. The social safety nets developed since the Great Depression have therefore played an important cushioning role in the short term.

The Downing Lecture series is in recognition of a giant in the field of economics. Richard Downing was the Ritchie Chair Professor of Research in Economics at the University of Melbourne from 1954 until 1975. He made a significant contribution to economic research and guided and mentored the research interests of other staff and his students. For 20 years he edited the Economic Record and played a prominent part in the founding of the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. During this time Professor Downing also served as assistant Vice Chancellor and as Chairman of Ormond College Council. Professor Downing wrote about a wide range of economic topics, from theory to practical day-to-day matters. Much of his significant work, however, was in the area which could be described as social economics — his work at the International Labour Organization and his writings on wages policy in Australia, on taxation with the emphasis on fairness, on housing, on poverty, and on the provision of adequate pensions for the aged. He had a remarkable impact within the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne and those interested in this should read Professor Ross Williams’ history of the department.

During his visit to the Melbourne Institute as the Downing Fellow, Professor Micklewright also presented a two-day course on ‘Methods of Evaluating Programme Impacts’ for the Melbourne Institute at the University of Canberra. The two-day course considered methods for quantifying the causal impacts of social and economic programs in both the government and non-government sectors.

Fifth Annual Health Economics Workshop The Health Economics research program at the Melbourne Institute and the Microeconometrics Unit of the Department of Economics jointly organised the Annual Health Economics Workshop on 29 February 2012 at the University of Melbourne. The fifth in its series, the workshop provides a forum for researchers within the university to exchange ideas and research on the latest developments in the economics of health and health care.

The keynote address was given by Professor Hugh Gravelle from the University of York. The program consisted of six papers by staff and students from the Melbourne Institute, Department of Economics, and the School of Population Health. The collection of papers spans across a variety of topics and issues that are important for Australia and internationally, such as long-term disability among Australian Vietnam War veterans; cost and efficiency of public and private hospital care in Australia and the United Kingdom; and pharmaceutical formulary listing choices in Canada.

For more information, contact Dr Terence Cheng on (03) 8344 2124 or by email <techeng@unimelb.edu.au>.

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In Memoriam Sadly, three former staff members of the Institute died recently. Each played an important role in the Institute in different eras and made lasting contributions.

Peter Kenyon, who died in February 2012, was educated at Monash University, the University of Adelaide and the University of Virginia. He spent three years in the Institute from 1993 as a senior research fellow on secondment from Murdoch University. It was a difficult time for the Institute following the movement of most staff to Monash University. With few academic colleagues, Peter was required to undertake a great range of activities. He was a joint editor of the Australian Economic Review, directed the IBIS Collaborative Research Program in Enterprise Dynamics, advised government on labour market trends, provided research papers on aspects of the labour market for the Full Employment Project and assisted with innumerable consultancy projects. Peter’s affability and breadth of interests meant that he did much to strengthen links between the Institute and other departments in the faculty. At the end of his secondment, he returned to Curtin University and was subsequently promoted to a professorship.

Mark Rogers, who died in July 2011, joined the Institute in 1997 on completion of a PhD at the Australian National University. He directed the Institute’s Industrial Economics research program and led the major collaborative project on the performance of Australian enterprises. He was the major contributor in the development of an Innovation Scoreboard which ranked large Australian enterprises on their innovations. This continued to be produced in the Institute as the R&D and Intellectual Property Scoreboard until 2010. Mark left the Institute in 1999 to take a position at Oxford University,

but he continued to be associated with the Institute as an associate of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA). During this time, he made regular visits to IPRIA and the Melbourne Institute and was active in speaking at their conferences and seminars.

It is fitting that Mark’s last article, on trade marks and performance, was published in the March 2012 issue of the Australian Economic Review. Mark was noted for his dry sense of humour, modesty, reliability and hard work.

Alf Smith died in January 2012 after a short illness. A Melbourne honours graduate, Alf joined the Institute in 1968 as an editorial assistant on the newly launched Australian Economic Review. This was a joint appointment with the Department of Economics where he was a tutor. After taking two years leave for postgraduate studies at the University of Southampton, Alf returned to the Institute in 1973 as a research fellow to work on a study of the longer term demand for telephone services under a contract with Australia Post, which was then still responsible for telecommunications. This project developed into the Institute’s Multi-Purpose Model (IMP) that was used until 1983 for medium and longer term forecasting. Alf was jointly responsible for the agricultural sector of this model. At the end of 1979 Alf was appointed director of short-term forecasting, with responsibilities to provide the forecasts that appeared in the Australian Economic Review. After two rounds of forecasts he left the Institute to accept the position of chief economist in the Victorian Premier’s Department.

Alf continued to have a distinguished career in the Victorian public service until his death, often having to deal with complex infrastructure projects. A defining characteristic of Alf ’s time in the Institute was his ever readiness to cheerfully assist other researchers and to help out on projects that needed more support.

Melbourne Institute Public Economic Forums The following Melbourne Institute Public Economic Forums will be held in Canberra in 2012.

A High Exchange Rate: Should We Be Concerned and What Should Be Done?

Date: 19 April 2012. Time: 12.00–1.45pm. Venue: National Ballroom 3, Hotel Realm, 18 National Circuit, Barton, ACT Chair: Mr Gary Banks AO. Speakers: The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP and Professor Max Corden Australia: Still the Land of the Fair Go? Date: 24 July 2012. Time: 12.00–1.45pm. Venue: Hotel Realm, 18 National Circuit, Barton, ACT Speakers: Dr Andrew Leigh MP, Mr Michael Perusco and Associate Professor Roger Wilkins Paid Parental Leave Date: 6 September 2012. Time: 12.00–1.45pm. Venue: Hotel Realm, 18 National Circuit, Barton, ACT Speakers: Professor Bill Martin, Ms Jane Dickenson and Associate Professor Guyonne Kalb For more information, visit <www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/events/economic_forums/economic_forum_details.html>.

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Melbourne Institute Releases Australian Economic Review The Melbourne Institute has recently released the March edition (vol. 45, no. 1) of the Australian Economic Review, the peak economic policy journal in the country.

notes that compensation to households is extremely generous and reduces the effectiveness of carbon pricing. Neither the emission-trading scheme of the European Union nor that of New Zealand compensates households.

Professor Harry Clarke and Dr Robert Waschik from La Trobe University note that while there is a theoretical case for insulating the most emission-intensive, trade-exposed industries from unsought effects of a unilateral carbon tax, their empirical study finds that compensation is warranted only for the non-ferrous metal industry, including aluminium. Dr David Pearce from the Centre for International Economics looks at the empirical challenges that will arise in implementing the scheme.

The

Australian

Economic Review Volume 45

Number 1

March 2012

Review of the Australian Economy 2011–12: A Case of Déjà Vu Guay C. Lim, Chew Lian Chua, Edda Claus and Viet H. Nguyen Contributed Articles

The first article in this issue of the journal is the annual review of the Australian economy by the Melbourne Institute’s Macroeconomics research team which is led

by Professor Guay Lim. The authors argue for coherent monetary and fiscal policies in the short run to deal with distributional issues arising from the two-speed economy.

But they also contend that ‘it would not be too early to plan for the day when commodity prices fall’, which would give some respite to manufacturing industry.

A highlight of this edition is the Policy Forum on carbon pricing. Five articles include discussions on optimal policy design and evaluations of the efficacy of the federal government’s chosen approach. Professor John Freebairn of the University of Melbourne agrees that a price-based mechanism is a lower cost way of reducing pollution than regulation or subsidies, but he is critical of the noncarbon-pricing components of the government’s package.

In his view, a broader base coupled with the elimination of subsidies to new technologies would have lowered the cost of emissions abatement, lowered business costs and increased public acceptance of the package. Dr Henry Ergas of Deloitte Access Economics and the University of Wollongong, however, argues that climate change policies should be restricted to adaptation, not mitigation.

Professor Peter Lloyd of the University of Melbourne Estimated Carbon Tax Impact on the Cost of Living for Selected Demographic Groups 1.0 0.8

Electricity

Food

Gas

Other

%

0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Age Employees Other Self-funded Pensioner pensioners government retirees and transfer beneficiary recipients households

Note: Analysis by the Macroeconomics research team shows that the demographic group most affected by the carbon tax would be age pensioners (0.74 per cent) and the group least affected would be employees (0.54 per cent).

Regulating Synthetic Securitisation Following the Global Financial Crisis Edward J. Podolski Immigration and School Choice in Australia Astghik Mavisakalyan

Trade Marks and Performance in Services and Manufacturing Firms: Evidence of Schumpeterian Competition through Innovation Christine Greenhalgh and Mark Rogers Policy Forum: Designing a Carbon Price Policy Peter Lloyd Henry Ergas John Freebairn Harry Clarke and Robert Waschik David Pearce

Data Survey Developing the Statistical Longitudinal Census Dataset and Identifying Its Potential Uses Guangyu Zhang and Paul Campbell For the Student Matching and Economic Design Georgy Artemov, Sven Feldmann and Simon Loertscher Editors’ Report 2011

In an article on school choice, Dr Astghik Mavisakalyan from the Australian National University finds that private school attendance among Australian-born students is higher in localities with high immigrant populations.

However, private school attendance by immigrants is lower in areas where there are concentrations of like-type immigrants. Overall, the results suggest the possibility of a ‘flight’ from unfamiliar cultures in the Australian school system.

Edward Podolski from Monash University examines whether Australian regulatory response to synthetic securitisation following the Global Financial Crisis is adequate. In a posthumous article by Dr Mark Rogers with Professor Christine Greenhalgh from the University of Oxford, trade-mark applications, patents and R&D are used to monitor Schumpeterian competition via innovation.

The Data Survey article by Dr Guangyu Zhang and Paul Campbell from the Australian Bureau of Statistics outlines the ABS’s longitudinal census dataset. In the For the Student section, Dr Georgy Artemov, Associate Professor Sven Feldmann and Dr Simon Loertscher from the University of Melbourne survey key results and applications of matching theory.

The March edition of the Australian Economic Review is available from <www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/aere>. For more information, contact Professor Ross Williams AM: telephone (03) 8344 2125, email <rossaw@unimelb.edu.au>.

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Recent Melbourne Institute Working Papers 27/11 ‘The Sources of Gender Differences in Rates of Job Dismissal’ Roger Wilkins and Mark Wooden 1/12 ‘Did the 2007 Welfare Reforms for Low Income Parents in Australia Increase Welfare Exits?’ Yin King Fok and Duncan McVicar 2/12 ‘Unexpected Victims: How Parents’ Unemployment Affects Their Children’s Life Satisfaction’ Michael Kind and John P. Haisken-DeNew 3/12 ‘A Dominance Criterion for Measuring Income Inequality from a Centrist View: The Case of Australia’ Francisco Azpitarte and Olga Alonso-Villar 4/12 ‘Parents’ Economic Support of Young-Adult Children: Do Socioeconomic Circumstances Matter?’

Deborah Cobb-Clark and Tue Gørgens 5/12 ‘The Dutch Disease in Australia: Policy Options for a Three-Speed Economy’ W. Max Corden 6/12 ‘Experimental Change from Paper-Based Interviewing to Computer-Assisted Interviewing in the HILDA Survey’ Nicole Watson and Roger Wilkins 7/12 ‘Cross Country Estimates of Peer Effects in Adolescent Smoking Using IV and School Fixed Effects’ Duncan McVicar 8/12 ‘Peer Effects in UK Adolescent Substance Use: Never Mind the Classmates?’ Duncan McVicar and Arnold Polanski 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 Working Papers become available, contact the Melbourne Institute at <melb-inst@unimelb.edu.au>.

Intergen +10: 10th Anniversary of the Treasury’s Intergenerational Report The Melbourne Institute will be hosting a one-day workshop at the Shine Dome in Canberra on Friday 11 May 2012 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Treasury’s first Intergenerational Report. The Intergenerational Report has had an important role in shaping the public discourse and policy debate on population ageing in Australia. The 10th anniversary of its release is a fortuitous moment to reflect on its predictions and to consider the road going forward.

Confirmed presenters include: Dr David Gruen, Executive Director, Macroeconomic Group, Department of the Treasury Dr Ralph Lattimore, Assistant Commissioner, Productivity Commission Professor Adrian Pagan, Professor of Economics, School of Economics, The University of Sydney Professor Peter McDonald, Director, Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University Professor Phillip Clarke, School of Public Health, The University of Sydney Mr Mark Cully, Chief Economist, Department of Immigration and Citizenship Mr Henry Ergas, Senior Economic Adviser, Deloitte Economics and Professor of Infrastructure Economics, SMART Infrastructure Facility, University of Wollongong Professor John Piggott, Australian Professorial Fellow and UNSW Scientia Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, The University of New South Wales Professor Beth Webster, Professorial Research Fellow and Director, Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, Melbourne Institute, The University of Melbourne More information can be obtained by visiting <www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/events/workshops/workshop_intergen_2012.html>.

Enquiries can be made by contacting the Melbourne Institute on (03) 8344 2100 or by email <melb-conf@unimelb.edu.au>.

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, fax: (03) 8344 2111, email: r.derham@unimelb.edu.au. Sub-Editor: Nellie Lentini.

Contributors: Dr Terence Cheng, Eoin Hahessy, Professor John P. Haisken-DeNew, Penelope Hope, Professor Guay Lim, Professor Ross Williams AM, Professor Mark Wooden

Level 7, Alan Gilbert Building, The University of Melbourne P: +61 3 8344 2100 F: +61 3 8344 2111 www.melbourneinstitute.com