Doug from Amerika asks:
>Subj: [PEN-L:2909] a question about Austrailia
>
Well i live in a place called Australia so i am not sure if that is close to
Austrailia but it sounds near enough.
>
>I sent out the following request about a month ago and got no response. I'm
>thinking it never went thru, so I am trying again.
it did not come through or i missed it.
>___________________________
>I am hoping our friends in OZ can answer a question. In macro, I was doing the
>standard rap on how the measure of GDP ignores HH production and one of my
>students raised an interesting point. She has a sister who lives in OZ,
>and she claims her sister receives a pmt from the gov't to stay home and
>take care of her kids.
>
>Is this really true? If so, since the gov't is apparently putting a dollar
>value on raising the kids, are these pmts included in the measured GDP?
>
There are payments under our welfare system to families based on children:
(a) child endowment - per kid up to a certain age - fairly modest
(b) Family income supplement - means tested, expands with family size and quite
significant.
(c) single parent pensions - same as unemployment benefit - survivable in its
own right. but just.
(d) a raft of concessions such as exemption from medicare levy - significant.
all of them would be treated in the same way as any transfer for national
accounting purposes. they show up only when they are spent. of-course, they act
to bolster agg. demand b/c most of the transfers go to people with an MPC of
one, and are funded disproportionately (given tax evasion at the top) by people
like me who have lower MPCs.
i don't know if this is what you wanted to know doug.
kind regards
bill
--
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