Reserve Bank of Australia

Recent catastrophic climate events in Australia that have impacted millions of animals across a range of landscapes have initiated a need for planned and coordinated rescue responses. The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is one of Australia’s most iconic and biologically significant species. At a workshop held at Healesville Sanctuary, Victoria, Australia in 2023, species experts discussed the greatest threats, scenarios where intervention may be required and the types of intervention options that may be suitable for platypuses. We consider drought to be the most concerning event for the species, along with the impact of cumulative events on their habitat over time. Here, we discuss how intervention criteria should consider the degree of habitat impact, the recovery time frame, the genetic importance and local extinction risk of a population, risks to animal welfare, and the capacity requirements and feasibility of resourcing any action. Suitable interventions are weighed against potential risks and include the rescue and rehabilitation of displaced individuals, in situ habitat support, and translocation to either temporary ex situ care or inter or intra catchment. Further research is required to address how the platypus responds during and after different climate events, to different interventions and to determine which populations are most at risk. The outcomes discussed here and the framework provided should aid in management response decision making after natural disasters that may impact platypus populations.

The article is a reproduction of a speech to mark the centenary of the Economics Society of Australia at the Australian Conference of Economists given in Sydney on 9 July 2025.

We document a pecking order of transaction costs in the interdealer market for German sovereign bonds, where three trading protocols coexist. Dealers can trade over the counter (OTC), either bilaterally or via brokers, as well as on an exchange. Trading on the exchange is more expensive than OTC, and broker-intermediated trades are more costly than bilateral OTC trades. The existence of an OTC discount is difficult to square with theories centered around search-and-bargaining frictions but is in line with models of hybrid markets based on information frictions. Consistently, we show that dealers’ information impacts their choice of trading protocol and that the pecking order of transaction costs is aligned with the informational content of order flows across protocols. Search and bargaining as well as information proxies explain differences in OTC discount within protocols. A realistic description of hybrid markets thus requires both types of frictions. This paper was accepted by Agostino Capponi, finance. Funding: L. Pelizzon and M. Schneider acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [Grant 329107530]. L. Pelizzon thanks the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE for financially sponsoring this research. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.00194 .

This paper investigates the counterfactual impact of an alternative monetary regime on regional income and disparity within Denmark and Sweden—two EU countries that opted out of the euro at its introduction in 1999—using the synthetic control method. Our findings reveal that counterfactual income trajectories would have been highly heterogeneous: while most Danish regions would have experienced modest losses or gains, some Swedish regions might have recorded lower income levels under the counterfactual, although the evidence is mixed and concentrated in a small number of non-capital regions. We further analyze these outcomes in light of standard theories of monetary unions, finding that regions more open to trade and with greater capital intensity would have been more likely to benefit. Finally, we assess the implications for regional inequality, showing that the current monetary regime was associated with reduced regional income disparities in Denmark and produced mixed effects in Sweden.

The consequences of the pandemic for potential output will partly hinge on its impact on productivity‐enhancing reallocation. While recessions can accelerate this process, the more ‘random’ nature of the COVID‐19 shock coupled with policy responses that prioritised preservation could disrupt productivity‐enhancing reallocation. Our analysis based on novel high‐frequency employment data for Australia shows that labour reallocation (and firm exit) remained connected to firm productivity over 2020 and 2021. However, outside of the initial acute phase of the shock, the relationship weakened significantly compared to history. Australia's job retention scheme (JobKeeper) initially reinforced the connection between growth and productivity, supporting more productive firms. But it became more distortive over time and as the economy recovered.

This study investigates the shear strength of pretension bolted steel-concrete-steel connections, which are critical components in many composite structure members such as powerline sandwich poles. Push-out tests were conducted to evaluate the shear strength, stiffness, failure modes, and relative slippage characteristics of the connections. The effects of pretension force, bolt diameter. compressive strength of concrete, yield strength of bolts, and dimensions of steel profiles on connection behavior were also investigated. A finite element model was developed and validated to predict the ultimate shear capacity, load-slip curves, and failure modes of the connections. Using the FEM, the role of the pretension forces in these connections was investigated. It was concluded that the inclusion of the pretension forces in the bolts can lead to the improvement of the capacity of the connection in case of the higher diameter bolt connections (M16 and M20), while increasing of the pretension force in the lower-diameter bolt connections (M12) degraded their capacity. Finally, the shear strength capacity of the studied bolted connections was compared to the available design code provisions. It was concluded that the Eurocode 4 can be adopted safely to design such connections with regard to both concrete failure, and bolt failure, and that the AISC equations can be used safely in the design of these connections except in the case of the higher-diameter bolts (M20).

Imitation learning (IL) aims to extract knowledge from human experts' demonstrations or artificially created agents to replicate their behaviors. It promotes interdisciplinary communication and real-world automation applications. However, the process of replicating behaviors still exhibits various problems, such as the performance is highly dependent on the demonstration quality, and most trained agents are limited to perform well in task-specific environments. In this survey, we provide an insightful review on IL. We first introduce the background knowledge from development history and preliminaries, followed by presenting different taxonomies within IL and key milestones of the field. We then detail challenges in learning strategies and present research opportunities with learning policy from suboptimal demonstration, voice instructions, and other associated optimization schemes.

Severe flooding in early 2020 and 2021 necessitated major desedimentation works at the iconic Blue Lake in the Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve (JKCR). Movements and behaviour of platypuses were monitored before, during and after these works, using direct observations, remote cameras and environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling. Platypuses were observed along a 3 km reach of the Jenolan River, including the areas where works occurred, although in low numbers. In their use of the available waterways, platypuses negotiated artificial barriers, including a 10 m high dam, two smaller weirs and natural waterfalls and cascades. Overland movements were detected through vegetation tunnels, drainage pipes and culverts, and individuals were seen entering the cave system, where eDNA was also detected. Platypuses responded to the works activity by foraging outside the affected areas but also continued to traverse these areas from time to time. We describe movements around and through instream infrastructure and past natural barriers and report on other species detected by remote cameras. These observations could help planning and deployment of bypasses suitable for movement of platypuses around anthropogenic barriers and provide insights into impediments to dispersal and gene flow within stream systems.