ABSTRACT

The Australian economy shares with Canada, South Africa and New Zealand a high degree of dependence upon capital inflow and primary exports, a high degree of industrialization and a generally high standard of living. Like the others the Australian economy is greatly influenced by changes in the rate of growth of world trade and in the readiness of investors in other countries to send capital to Australia; and it naturally shares this set of problems with the less developed countries of the world. On the other hand, the high degree of industrialization and absence of disguised unemployment mean that ‘Keynesian’-type full employment policies, and other types of measures to affect the level of demand and the degree of inflation are generally as applicable in Australia as in any of the ‘developed’ countries of the world; so that Australia’s experiences in the fields of monetary and budgetary policy are in most respects of interest and relevance to, say, Britain and the usa – as is the experience of these countries to Australia.