The future of the uplands

Upland areas provide UK society with many important functions, goods and services, but have experienced a number of disturbing trends and face an uncertain future. This paper outlines historic, current and future drivers of environmental, economic, socio-cultural and policy change in UK uplands, and assesses how these have affected or are likely to affect ways in which land is used and the provision of ecosystem services. Information is synthesised into scenarios summarising a range of possible futures anticipated for UK uplands to 2060 and beyond. Finally, innovations in science, technology, governance and policy are evaluated that could enable uplands to continue providing key ecosystem services under a range of scenarios. The paper concludes that many upland areas will need to be prepared for significant reductions in grazing and prescribed burning. Conversely, other areas could experience agricultural intensification, for example significant increases in grazing or an expansion of arable or bioenergy crops into upland valleys, due to anticipated increases in global demand for food and energy. These scenarios will take place in the context of climate change. Many may take place together and may interact with each other, with complex and unpredictable implications for the upland environment, economy and society. In this context, a number of advances are needed in science, technology and policy to maintain viable upland communities and the future provision of ecosystem services. These may include funding for ecological and hydrological restoration via carbon offsetting or other means. It may also involve advances in ecosystem service modelling, mapping and valuation, which through stakeholder participation could facilitate more integrated rural planning. New forms of environmental governance need to be explored that can empower those interested in developing upland economies to maintain thriving upland communities, while managing the ecosystem services they provide as efficiently as possible.     

‘Australian sailors wanted’: Labour supply and Australian shipping,c. 1870–c. 1914

In the pre-1914 era Australia did not develop an ocean-going merchant navy. The problem is well recognised in previous studies that assumed that it was high Australian wages that made the operational cost of deep-sea vessels uncompetitive on a global scale. This article reconstructs historical shifts in the Australian market for a seagoing workforce and demonstrates there was low recruitment of Australian labour. Drawing on new sources and inspired by efficiency wage theory the article argues that it was this shortage of a domestic labour supply that constrained the development of a national deep-sea shipping industry.     

Are Housing Wealth Effects Asymmetric in Booms and Busts?

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper investigates the effects of household indebtedness and housing wealth on consumption. To identify exogenous movements of housing wealth...     

Investigation of investors' overconfidence, familiarity and socialization

This study, using a sample of New Zealand investors, investigates three behavioural finance theories: investor overconfidence, socialization and the familiarity effect. We find support for the investor overconfidence theory, using characteristics such as past success, optimism, confidence in one's abilities, investment experience and investment‐related knowledge. Concerning the socialization theory, we observe that the investors actively sought information regarding the stock market, 75 per cent doing this on a weekly basis. Those investors that kept themselves informed daily outperformed other investors by 8 per cent. The familiarity effect was confirmed, showing investors to hold a far too high proportion of local stocks, although the majority of investors believed international equity markets would provide returns that were either better or equal to New Zealand stocks.     

Static hedging and pricing of exotic options with payoff frames

We develop a general framework for statically hedging and pricing European‐style options with nonstandard terminal payoffs, which can be applied to mixed static–dynamic and semistatic hedges for many path‐dependent exotic options including variance swaps and barrier options. The goal is achieved by separating the hedging and pricing problems to obtain replicating strategies. Once prices have been obtained for a set of basis payoffs, the pricing and hedging of financial securities with arbitrary payoff functions is accomplished by computing a set of “hedge coefficients” for that security. This method is particularly well suited for pricing baskets of options simultaneously, and is robust to discontinuities of payoffs. In addition, the method enables a systematic comparison of the value of a payoff (or portfolio) across a set of competing model specifications with implications for security design.     

Social-ecological factors influencing tourist satisfaction in three ecotourism lodges in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon

Analysing the factors that influence visitor satisfaction is critical for the appropriate management of tourism, particularly in nature tourism enterprises, which are expected to contribute to biodiversity conservation and the development of local people. In this paper, we investigate the effect of different socio-economic and ecological variables, as well as tourist-operation related factors, on the overall satisfaction of tourists visiting three Amazonian lodges in Peru. We found three typologies of tourists, differing by several socio-economic and cultural factors, and by their motivations. The quality of the lodge was the factor that had the largest influence on overall satisfaction. Only one type of tourists (“true ecotourists”) showed a positive relation between their overall satisfaction and ecological features such as the species observed or cultural features such as operation of the lodge by native communities using local guides. Implications for management are discussed in terms of the potential of nature tourism to contribute to sustainable development in the Peruvian Amazon.