Step 1
Micro-level evidence
Australian tax records, household surveys, and related data are used to understand heterogeneity across income, demographics, wealth, and the lifecycle.
Mission
Academic rigour with institutional relevance
The lab develops quantitative research that is analytically serious, empirically grounded, and useful for understanding real fiscal policy choices.
The Macro Public Finance Lab @ ANU conducts research at the intersection of macroeconomics and public finance. Its work asks how government choices over taxation, transfers, pensions, and spending shape behaviour, inequality, and long-run welfare.
The lab combines structural modelling with empirical evidence from high-quality microdata. That combination is intended to connect abstract theory to policy institutions, observed behaviour, and applied evaluation.
Training and collaboration are also central to the lab's purpose. Alongside research output, the lab supports the development of economists who can work effectively across academic and policy settings.
Based at the ANU Research School of Economics
The lab is embedded in an academic environment with strong links to economic policy analysis.
Research network
Research links to leading research networks, including the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) and the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute (TTPI), and engages with a broad set of policy-relevant questions.
Government engagement
The lab's modelling and research questions are designed to speak directly to practical fiscal policy evaluation.
International collaboration
Research partnerships extend across Australia, North America, and other institutions connected to the field.
Research approach
Micro data and macro models
The lab's work is organised around a consistent applied workflow: use detailed data, build disciplined models, and evaluate policy counterfactuals.
Step 2
Structural modelling
Lifecycle and overlapping-generations models are built to capture behaviour, constraints, and macroeconomic interactions over time.
Step 3
Policy evaluation
Counterfactual reforms are used to quantify distributional, welfare, and aggregate trade-offs between efficiency and equity.
Institutional connections
Research setting and partnerships
The lab's public-facing credibility depends not only on its research topics, but also on the institutional environment in which those topics are studied.
Australian National University
Research School of Economics
ARC Centre of Excellence
Population Ageing Research
Australian Treasury
Macroeconomic modelling and policy engagement
Indiana University
International research collaboration
Towson University
International research collaboration
Wider research network
Collaborations across macroeconomics and public finance
See the research program in context
The homepage now summarises the lab's priorities, while the research, publications, models, and training pages provide more detailed entry points.