This paper by Dean Parham was released on 9 June 1999. The paper offers a new look at Australia's productivity performance in two senses. First, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS ) has upgraded its methodology for estimating productivity and has extended the time horizon of estimates by two years to 1997-98. The ABS estimates provide the foundation for this paper and enable an update of the earlier work in Assessing Australia's Productivity Performance, a research paper published by the Industry Commission. Second, a new methodology is developed to assess the implications of Australia's productivity performance for growth in output and living standards.

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The New Economy? A New Look at Australia's Productivity Performance (PDF 209.1 KB)

Contents

Preliminaries
Cover, Copyright, Preface, Contents, Key Points

1 Introduction
1.1 Talk of 'the new economy'

2 Enhancements in the ABS productivity estimation methods
2.1 Changes in estimation of MFP
2.2 Comparasion of old and new estimates

3 An assessment of productivity trends
3.1 The major trends
3.2 What underlies the recent trends?
3.3 Some implications

4 Evidence on the new economy and some implications
4.1 A break with the past
4.2 Some implications

5 Interpreting the trends in capital productivity

Appendix A International comparisons of growth paths

References