Regional visas are a growing part of Australia’s skilled migration system. They are intended to support regional economies and ease pressure on major cities. However this analysis finds many regional visa holders are not in places the public may think of as 'regional'. It concludes that regional policy may not be having its desired effect.

This note on the capital gains tax (CGT) discount focuses on leverage distortions by investigating data on housing investments. By examining the individual rental income and capital gains returns for 900,000 housing investments held over 2008 to 2025, the note demonstrates how and why the CGT discount encourages investors to borrow more than they otherwise...

One objective of Australia’s capital gains tax (CGT) discount is to approximate inflation and tax real gains. But because real returns vary widely across investors, a flat discount systematically misses the mark. Using data on 1.5 million property investments (2008–2025), this paper shows real returns range from losses to strong gains.

From 1996 to 2021, Australia’s rate of housing mobility declined from 18% to 15%. This paper assesses the implications of this shift and outlines the underlying drivers. Past work links this to Australia’s decline in job mobility, but this paper finds at most weak links. The findings challenge a number of common narratives.

Rising cost-of-living pressures continue to strain household budgets across Australia and policymakers require timely and reliable measures of financial hardship. This paper introduces a new high-frequency indicator of financial stress derived from failed direct debit payments in bank transaction data. This indicator could offer policymakers an early warning indicator of financial stress and inform targeted...