governments, but also for businesses. for the private sector, though, growth in this source of funds has remained less than it was prior to the financial crisis. for the banks, that represents a shift to other sources of funds, notably deposits. moreover, it has also been reflected in the banks no longer being a conduit for capital flows into australia, in contrast to their key role before the financial crisis. for the mining sector, plenty of funding was obtained from fixed income markets, although, following the sharp fall in commodity prices, resource companies have reduced their debts. non - mining corporations haven't stepped in to fill that breach as their investment demand remains modest. however, as is the case across a range of funding sources, finance appears to be readily available to credit - worthy firms in fixed income markets at favourable prices. endnotes [ * ] i thank leon berkelmans for invaluable assistance in preparing these remarks. this is typical of many economies, though not for the united states. see ellis l ( 2016 ), ‘ financial stability and the banking sector ’, address to the sydney banking and financial stability conference, 12 july. bergmann m and a nitscke ( 2016 ), ‘ the kangaroo bond market ’, rba https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2017 / sp - ag - 2017 - 08 - 09. html bulletin, september, pp 47 – 52. 15 / 16 8 / 9 / 2017 fixed income markets and the economy | speeches | rba australian financial review banking debelle g ( 2017 ), ‘ recent trends in australian capital flows ’, address to the and wealth summit, 6 april. arsov i, b shanahan and t williams ( 2013 ), ‘ funding the australian resources investment boom ’, rba march, pp 51 – 61. bulletin, © reserve bank of australia, 2001 – 2017. all rights reserved. https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2017 / sp - ag - 2017 - 08 - 09. html 16 / 16

servers per million population july 1998 march 2000 united states australia new zealand switzerland canada scandinavia uk other eu japan korea source : www. netcraft. com and oecd so, in terms of willingness to adapt to new information technology, australia would get a very high score. this, along with the measures i mentioned earlier, helps to explain why there has recently been such a significant lift in the rate of growth of productivity. a big lift in productivity growth has a beneficial effect on many areas of the economy. a lot of it is passed through to consumers and, in the process, this makes it easier to maintain low inflation. some of it can also make businesses more profitable, which is, after all, the incentive that drives much of the efforts towards improving productivity in the first place. the two broadest measures of corporate profits as a percentage of gdp in australia have been trending up over the past decade, with profits after interest showing a much sharper rise than profits before interest, again another indirect benefit of a low inflation ( graph 2 ) decade. with good growth and good profitability, businesses have been keen to hire staff. as a result, employment has grown strongly and the unemployment rate continues to decline ( graph 3 ). again, a comparison with the united states is interesting - during our expansion, the unemployment rate has fallen by 4. 8 percentage points compared with a fall of 3. 7 percentage points for the united states. the fact that their level of the unemployment rate, at 4. 1 %, is lower than ours, at 6. 4 %, is due to their lower starting point, in part a result of the relatively mild nature of their early 1990s recession. there are two other things i wish to touch on before concluding. the first is the exchange rate, which has attracted a lot of attention and soul searching this year. it is surprising that in an economy showing the medium - term characteristics i have just outlined, the exchange rate is so weak. if we refocus our attention to the immediate period, the puzzle is, if anything, greater. we have an economy growing at well over 4 %, and probably more like 5 %, with exports rising rapidly in the context of the strongest world growth for a decade, rising commodity prices and high corporate profitability. why markets are placing such a low valuation on the australian dollar is not a question i can easily answer, any more than i can answer why valuations in some equity markets seem so high relative to normal