Which electorates receive targeted funding, and does targeted funding swing votes? To answer these questions, the author analyzes four discretionary programs funded by the Australian federal government during the 2001-2004 election cycle. Controlling for relevant demographic characteristics of the electorate, those electorates held by the governing coalition received a larger share of discretionary funding, and...

Improving cognitive skills of young children has been suggested as a possible strategy for equalising opportunities across racial groups. Using data on 4-5 year olds in the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children, the authors focus on two cognitive tests: the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and the ‘Who Am I?’ test (WAI). They estimate the...

This paper investigates the relationship between housing prices and the quality of public schools in the Australian Capital Territory.

Andrew Leigh and Christopher Jencks investigate whether changes in economic inequality affect mortality in rich countries. To answer this question the authors use a new source of data on income inequality: tax data on the share of pretax income going to the richest 10 percent of the population in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the...

There is a commonplace notion that full moons affect natality and mortality. To test this theory, Joshua S. Gans and Andrew Leigh obtain daily births and deaths data from Australia, covering all 10,592 days from 1 January 1975 to 31 December 2003. They find that full moons are not associated with any significant change in...