New tool to help transition from JobKeeper

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) and UNSW Sydney have shown how the Federal Government's JobKeeper scheme could be phased down as the economy re-opens and recovery takes shape. In a recent study , economists Bruce Chapman (ANU) and John Piggott (UNSW Sydney) propose a government-controlled revenue-contingent loan (RCL) scheme for businesses to ease the transition from the JobKeeper scheme. According to the researchers, the suggested scheme facilitates continued financial support and stability for organisations through the recovery period without causing substantial financial disruption to businesses while also containing additional fiscal liability. "RCL has a repayment schedule that has the capacity of the business to repay the loan as the key feature," said John Piggott, Scientia Professor of Economics at UNSW Sydney and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR). "And it works by having repayments conditioned by future revenue. "The best-known policy of this kind is the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) which was introduced in the 1980s. An RCL provides the same sort of insurance and income-smoothing prosperities as HECS, only that it is revenue-based.