The predictions are in stark contrast to official Treasury modelling, which predicts real GDP growth of 3 per cent in 2014-15 and the next two financial years.

The Victoria University Centre of Policy Studies paper modelled four scenarios for Australia's economic future. Two of them are "orderly" and "disorderly" responses to the end of the mining boom. A third assumes a high level of productivity growth, of a level not seen since the early 1990s. A fourth assumes a moderate level of productivity growth.

The modelling was prompted, said the paper, by Melbourne University academic Ross Garnaut and his 2013 book Dog Days. The book predicts a hard landing for the Australian economy following the end of the mining boom.

''Dog Days ... argues that the Australian economy faces significant economic challenges," said the paper. "Australia will be entering an economic environment characterised by declining terms of trade, a rising dependency ratio and rising world interest rates.''

The paper argues that unless major productivity reforms are enacted:

REAL GDP growth will slump to either 2.09 per cent annually until 2020 under the "orderly adjustment" model or 2.08 per cent annually under the "disorderly adjustment" model. From 2004 to 2014, by contrast, it was 2.92 per cent;

REAL per capita incomes will fall by 0.3 per cent per year so that by 2019/20 they will be at 2010/11 levels;

AVERAGE real wages will fall by 0.89 per cent per year, returning to the 2007/08 level by 2019/20; and

PER capita consumption will fall by 0.79 per cent per year, returning to its 2008/09 level by 2019/20.

Under the "disorderly adjustment" model, wages and consumption will remain high despite the drop in national income. This will result in unemployment rising 0.6 percentage points to 6.6 per cent in 2015/16, before a 2.8 per cent drop in real wages brings unemployment back to its current level in 2019/20.

The third scenario – maintaining Australia's current growth in real per capita incomes – would require real GDP growth of 4.29 per cent annually, said the paper. But to do this, "we find that the required rate of productivity growth, at 1.96 per cent, is of a level not seen in Australia since the last program of major structural reform in the 1990s.

"It seems unlikely that we can count on the tailwinds of any recent programs of micro reform to generate the levels of multifactor productivity growth that will be needed to maintain recent growth rates in real income."

The fourth scenario – maintaining real per capita incomes – requires 0.49 per cent productivity growth per annum and annual real GDP growth of 2.44 per cent.

"At 0.49 per cent per annum, this rate is higher than the average productivity performance of the last decade, suggesting Australia faces a significant reform challenge in maintaining, let alone growing, real per capita incomes in the post-boom environment." the paper says.

The Melbourne Economic Forum, a newly created group of reform-minded economists and policymakers, hosted its first gathering on Monday to discuss Australia's macro-economic prospects. It heard presentations by James Giesecke, director of the Centre for Policy Studies; Professor Garnaut; Treasury's head of macro-economics, David Gruen; former Liberal leader John Hewson; and former Labor trade minister Craig Emerson.