Impact stories
Explore our stories
We produce influential, policy-relevant research with a specific focus on the economics of inclusion, living standards, productivity and innovation. Our work builds bridges between academic research, government and community organisations to strengthen evidence-based policy making, in Australia and overseas.
The true cost of caring for vulnerable children in NSW
To support IPART, our health economists have conducted a rigorous quantification of foster‑carer household costs. This work formed the foundation for the principal recommendations to enhance foster care allowances in NSW, delivering crucial support to children in need.
Medicare: The creation of Australia's most significant health policy
Medicare, once Medibank, is Australia’s public health insurance scheme. Publicly funded, it ensures that all Australian citizens and permanent residents in the country are covered for at least a substantive part of any healthcare costs they might need to pay.
HILDA: Understanding Australian families for more than 20 years
When Professor Ross Williams released The Policy Providers: A History of the Melbourne Institute in 2012, he described HILDA as “one of the most important and influential projects in economics, and more generally in the social sciences, in Australia in the last 50 years.”