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Using official data from the Australian Bureau of Economic Statistics and a formal growth accounting framework, this paper shows that the rapid accumulation of information processing and communication technology (ICT) capital over the last two decades in Australia has played a significant role in explaining the impressive, structural acceleration of labor productivity. The following statistical data are also included: household income, expenditure and savings, labor market, fiscal indicators, credit aggregates, capital and financial account, external assets and liabilities, export by commodity group, and so on.
This paper discusses quantitative indicators that measure such macroeconomic variables as the growth of national product, inflation. The importance of considering several indicators in a dynamic context becomes particularly relevant during periods when needed economic and financial adjustment measures are undertaken. Rationales given for maintaining negative real interest rates in developing countries range from keeping down the cost of servicing the public sector’s debt, or of investment, to avoiding the consequences of other policies.
This paper reviews the increasing private capital flows to less developed countries. The share of developing countries in the foreign direct investment is small, perhaps less than 30 percent of the total. The effects of this decline in the volume of foreign investment and the continued problem of capital flight have been aggravated by the serious fall in commercial bank lending to developing countries as a group and by a decline in official development assistance.
Unit value export and import indices compiled from returns to customs authorities are often used as surrogates for price indices in the analysis of inflation transmission, terms of trade (effects), and to deflate import and export value series to derive volume series. Their widespread use is mainly due to their low cost relative to establishment price surveys. This paper provides evidence of substantial errors and bias in their representation of such price changes. Their continued use would mislead economic analysis. The paper considers the efficacy of alternative strategies for their improvement, and argues for a move to establishment-based price surveys.