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Financial Deregulation in Australia in the 1980s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Ann Nevile
Ann Nevile*
Affiliation:
Public Policy Program, Australian National University
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Abstract

This article examines the process of financial deregulation in Australia during the decade when Australia’s financial system changed from a highly regulated system to a system with few quantitative or qualitative controls, a freely floating exchange rate and a deficit fully financed by the market. While existing accounts have tended to focus on a single explanatory variable (such as an ideological shift or economic pressures), this article argues that policy outcomes were the result of a more complex interaction of ideology, economic forces, institutional structures and political interests. In analyzing the effect of these significant influences, the article provides a more complete picture of the deregulatory process and places the Wallis Report in context.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , December 1997 , pp. 273 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1997

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Footnotes

*

My thanks are due to the Reserve. Bank officials, senior bureaucrats, ministerial advisors and politians who generously found time in their busy work schuldes to give me interviews. Details of names and relevant positions are given in the appendix.

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