Xiao-guang Zhang

Global Gains from Liberalising Trade in Telecommunications and Financial Services

This paper uses a general equilibrium model to assess the effects of liberalising trade in telecommunications and financial services for 19 regions of the world. Results suggest that economies gain from removing barriers to the establishment of new operations (domestic or foreign), and by liberalising the operations of existing operators. For the world as a whole, the one-off gains are estimated to be at least 0.2 per cent of combined GNP, or about US

The distributional effects of the Hilmer reforms on the Australian gas industry

50 billion.

Providing Duty-Free Access to Australian Markets for Least-Developed Countries: A General Equilibrium Analysis

We analyse changes in the Australian gas industry during 1990s that were motivated by the Hilmer Reforms. We estimate the effects on real household income of the changes by combining a computable general equilibrium model with a microsimulation model. Although the structural changes were significant in their effects on the gas industry, they are estimated to have had minor effects on real household income in all Australian regions owing to the small size of the gas industry and household gas consumption at that time, and low importance of gas as an input to other industries. The changes are estimated to have slightly increased income inequality owing to the redistribution of income from labour to other primary factors.

Structural change and income distribution: the case of Australian telecommunications

The Doha ministerial declaration commits WTO members to liberalising access to their markets for least-developed countries (LDCs). Preferential trade policies have diverse impacts on the initiating country and its trading partners. These effects are of concern to scholars and policy makers. We use Australia as a case study to quantify the direct and indirect effects of providing preferential access to LDC imports entering Australian markets, using a general equilibrium model of the world economy. LDCs are projected to benefit and Australia is predicted to lose, reflecting adverse terms of trade effects. However, the magnitude of the adverse effect on Australia is small. If one was to view this initiative as an exercise in foreign aid, it suggests that Australia can provide a significant benefit to the poorest nations with which it trades, at almost no cost to itself.

Reform of Australian Urban Transport: A CGE-Microsimulation Analysis of the Effects on Income Distribution

ABSTRACT The Australian telecommunications sector experienced substantial structural change during the 1990s, a change that increased productivity and reduced costs. At this time, telecommunications was already an important item of household expenditure and input to production. We estimate the effect of the structural change on households depending on their location in the distribution of income and expenditure. Our estimates are calculated by applying a computable general equilibrium model incorporating microsimulation behaviour with top-down and bottom-up links. We estimate significant increases in real income and small increases in inequality from the changes; the pattern of effects is largely uniform across regions. Sensitivity analysis indicates that our results are insensitive to variations in model parameters.