The introduction of nation-wide COVID-19 social and economic measures in Australia had significant regional impacts including the performance of regional employment. While all regions were impacted in some way, many showed significant resistance and recovery to the, while others performed poorly. This paper is set in this context and presents an analysis of the factors that were associated with different regional employment resilience outcomes. Industry diversity together with industry type were important, with more diversified regions and those less reliant on the vulnerable jobs, particularly hospitality and tourism or sectors characterised by face-to-face contact in close quarters proved more resilient. The political-institutional landscape was also important in shaping resilience, with national level fiscal support aiding in resilience, while public health measures in regions with strict public health measures acted as a drag on resilience.

Abstract The 2023 Australian Voice to Parliament Referendum presented a pivotal moment in the nation's democratic landscape, aiming to enshrine indigenous voices in the constitutional fabric through the establishment of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Despite widespread support for indigenous well-being, the referendum did not secure the necessary approval, prompting extensive analysis of its outcome. This paper employs an ecological approach to scrutinize the referendum's dynamics, exploring six hypotheses derived from public discourse. Findings reveal multifaceted influences on voting behavior. Economic concerns, exemplified by the cost-of-living crisis, seemingly diverted attention from constitutional reform, potentially swaying votes towards maintaining the status quo. Conversely, culturally diverse communities demonstrated heightened empathy towards indigenous issues, aligning with the yes vote. Lower levels of education correlated with support for the no vote, highlighting the impact of political knowledge on decision-making. Moreover, religious conservatism and political partisanship emerged as influential factors, with Christian values and party affiliations shaping voting patterns. These findings underscore the complexity of referendum dynamics, emphasizing the importance of effective messaging and understanding diverse socio-political contexts in shaping public opinion. The defeat of the referendum marks a setback in indigenous relations, prompting critical reflection on messaging strategies and the broader socio-political landscape. This analysis provides a foundational empirical framework for understanding the referendum outcome, offering insights crucial for informed discourse and future democratic endeavours.

This chapter will examine the importance of trade and finance in macroeconomics. We will consider the implications for nations of the "Nixon Shock" in August 1971 and show that this shifted the focus from financial constraints on government spending to real resource constraints. We will examine the advantages of flexible exchange rates. Consistent with that shift, the MMT approach to trade focuses on the real terms of trade, which constructs exports as an opportunity cost that nations incur to gain the material advantages embodied in imports. We examine the implications of external deficits and the associated financial flows, including the accumulation of financial claims denominated in a nation's currency by foreign exporters. We will demonstrate that governments can always thwart currency speculators. Finally, we examine the case for increased self-sufficiency in manufacturing in the face of trends in deindustrialisation and the capacity of governments to attenuate global shifts in production.

This paper provides a response to the recently published critique of modern monetary theory (MMT) by Drumetz/Pfister, which is based on a superficial representation of the body of knowledge and follows a familiar script: MMT is about printing money to solve all problems and will cause accelerating inflation, a plethora of unproductive jobs, and a bond-market revolt. The paper demonstrates that if the authors had consulted the published academic literature, they would have realised that many of the assertions they make are simply without foundation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on regional economies and, in particular, has been reflected in the ability of some regions to perform better in the face of an economic downturn than others. Set in the context of regional economic resilience and resistance, this paper presents an exploratory analysis of the impact of a national COVID-related shut-down in Australia on employment resilience across regions. Using data on the changes in payroll jobs, the paper identifies clusters of areas that can be differentiated according to their resilience during this period. The paper explores a range of possible determinants of regional resilience differences and suggests an agenda for a more extensive research endeavour.

In Australia, as elsewhere, there has been continuing interest in understanding questions regarding unequal employment opportunities. While aggregate patterns provide a useful overview, it is insightful to consider employment outcomes across segmented markets. One such segmented market is between men and women, where it is widely understood that labour market engagement opportunities will differ. This paper provides an investigation of these uneven labour market outcomes. It presents an analysis of labour underutilisation for men and women using panel data, taking account of both individual-level supply-side factors together with the strength of the local labour market (demand side) and the performance of the broader macroeconomic environment. The result is an analysis that accounts for the impact of changing macroeconomy, local labour market conditions and men and women's employability assets.

COVID-19 has triggered the most severe economic crisis since the 1930s. The resulting policy shift is diametric to what mainstream macroeconomists have been advocating for decades. We argue that their framework underestimates the fiscal space available to governments and cannot provide an understanding of the consequences of these policy extremes. We introduce modern monetary theory (MMT), which disabuses us of the claims that deficits and debt are to be avoided. MMT defines fiscal space in functional terms, in relation to available real resources that can be brought back into productive use, rather than focusing on irrelevant questions of government insolvency.

This paper presents the Employment Vulnerable Index 3.0 (EVI 3.0), an indicator that identifies those suburbs and localities that have higher proportions of the types of jobs thought to be at risk during the current Covid-19 lead economic slowdown. The EVI (Version 1.0) was first devised at the onset of the Global Financial Crisis in response to the concerns of the potential for widespread disruption to the Australian labour markets. This paper updates the EVI (to Version 3.0) to take into account the current conditions relating to the coronavirus pandemic. It ranks localities according to their risk of experiencing significant job losses in the event of a further contraction of the Australian economy. In particular, high risk red alert localities, identified as those at greatest risk of major job losses, are further analysed as either existing or emerging places of disadvantage.

Many of the major debates in macroeconomics are conducted within the Phillips Curve framework. The debate has moved over time from the policy menu tradeoff between inflation and unemployment to the natural rate world, where unemployment is considered voluntary and there is no discretionary role for aggregate demand management. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) takes a different approach and identifies two buffer stock approaches to maintaining price stability in a fiat monetary system: (a) unemployment buffer stocks; (b) employment buffer stocks (Job Guarantee). We show that the former is very costly in terms of foregone output and income. Conversely, the Job Guarantee flattens the conventional Phillips Curve by allowing a nation to maintain (loose) full employment with price stability.

As Australia moves through its second decade of the 21st century, there is an eerie sameness about the uneven distributional outcomes of the country’s economic and social advances. This sameness relates to the fact that across all levels of analysis, there is a continued realisation that the rising tide of economic and social progress does not lift all boats and that there are certain segments of society that continue to be left behind in social and economic terms. Researchers talk in terms of a society divided with divisions driven by endogenous and exogenous economic, social and policy changes that result in broadly defined winners and losers. The divisions can be seen at the scale of individuals, but also at broader spatial or geographical scales. The geographies of inequality are clear to see in the mosaic of outcomes that are laid out in any large or medium sized city or urban area. While some locations or communities and the people residing in them remain prosperous and resilient in the face of negative shocks, others are pushed further into disadvantage and distress. Referring to these patterns O’Connor, Stimson and Daly (2001, p. 1) argue that “a nation’s economic geography is volatile, and the impacts of that volatility can be both profound and uneven as it differentially affects both people and places.” Presenting an Australian wide evidence base pertaining to this spatial volatility is the main focus of this paper. Using a methodology proposed by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG, 2017) in the United States, spatially aggregated data is used to develop an Index of Prosperity and Distress in Australian localities (PDI). The main methodology for the PDI is presented in this paper and can also be reviewed on our web site.

Patterns of spatial differentiation in endogenous regional employment performance across Australia's Functional Regions over the decade 2001 to 2011 are mapped and analysed. A range of spatial econometric models taking account of the spatial autocorrelation issue are used to investigate the factors which might explain that variation in performance, using the same approach as in previous studies of decadal inter-census periods. Implications for regional development policy are canvassed.

This paper considers the patterns of inequality in wage and salaries across labour markets in Australia. Using data sourced from the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the paper develops several measures of wage and salary inequality and considers both the regional differences in, and the potential drivers of, inequality at the regional level. The research reported illustrates the uneven nature of the wage inequality issue across Australian regions, illustrating the regional winners and losers in terms of inequality outcomes, and suggests that a number of regional level factors may be important in understanding the differences in inequality outcomes reported.

This article argues that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has struggled to gain traction in wider economic and political debates due to: (1) An incomplete understanding of key macroeconomic terms among economic commentators, especially journalists, and the wider community (lack of education); and (2) The deployment of key macroeconomic terms (incorrectly) in the context of pervasive cultural metaphors to support policy interventions that effectively benefit a privileged few at the expense of the majority. We provide a conceptual basis for understanding how the language we use constrains our thinking and we examine some of the key metaphors used to reinforce the flawed message of orthodox economics. We examine key ideas of modern monetary theoryan apolitical model of macroeconomic operationsand propose effective ways of expressing those key ideas in a progressive social and economic framework.

Analysing spatial variations in regional economic performance is a common focus for research by regional scientists. Typically such investigations suffer from using de jure regions (such as Local Government Areas) as the spatial base because data tend to be readily available for such administrative areas to derive the variables that researchers use in econometric modelling. But using those de jure regions means we encounter the modifiable area unit problem (MAUP) which necessitates making adjustments to address spatial autocorrelation issues. It is preferable to use functional regions as the spatial base for such investigations, but that is often difficult to achieve. This paper outlines how, in Australia, we have undertaken research to derive functional economic regions (FERs) to provide an improved spatial data base that is functional and not de jure-based to address the autocorrelation issue. To do that we employ the Intramax procedure applied to journey-to-work (JTW) commuting flows data that is available from the 2011 census. The research has generated not only a national framework of FERs based on aggregate employment but also a series of regionalisations of FERs differentiated by occupational categories, employment by gender and mode of travel to work. As expected the strength and reach of commuting is reflected in the size of regions for each of the demarcations.