Mega‐Regional Agreements and Their Impact on Australia

This paper estimates the effects of emerging mega‐regional agreements on the economy of Australia using a Computable General Equilibrium model. Scenarios considered include the 11‐member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans‐Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) agreement, its possible enlargement to include five additional members (‘TPP16’) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) currently under negotiation. The study finds that Australia stands to enjoy real income and trade gains along both the CPTPP and RCEP paths. However, since Australia is already benefiting from its own liberal trade policies and many prior trade agreements, benefits are relatively modest, typically below one per cent of real income.     

‘Best Practices’ in Regional Trading Agreements: An Application to Asia

Regionalism in Asia, particularly in the form of free‐trade areas (FTAs), is a recent trend that is becoming increasingly important. This has been disturbing to many, given the significance of trade and investment in Asian economic growth and development and the region's key role in global commerce. In light of this trend, the goal of this paper is to develop a blueprint, or a set of 10 ‘best practices’, that can be used as a guide to FTAs in order to ensure that they approximate first‐best outcomes to the greatest extent possible. Next, the paper applies this framework to the existing FTAs between Asian countries and their regional and extra‐regional partners. The results suggest that the more advanced regional accords generally receive high grades, with the notable exception of rules of origin, which tend to be even more problematic in the context of accords in which an OECD country is a party.     

A resilience-based framework for evaluating adaptive co-management: Linking ecology, economics and society in a complex world

Adaptive co-management brings together collaborative and adaptive approaches in pursuit of sustainable resource use and social-ecological resilience. Enthusiasm for this management approach, however, is countered by recent critiques regarding outcomes. A lack of evidence from consistent evaluation of adaptive co-management further exacerbates this situation. This paper revisits the issue of evaluation in natural resource management and recasts it in light of complex adaptive systems thinking. An evaluative framework for adaptive co-management is developed which directs attention toward three broad components: ecosystem conditions, livelihood outcomes and process and institutional conditions. Scale-specific parameters are offered for each component to facilitate systematic learning from experience and encourage cross-site comparisons. Conclusions highlight the importance of systematically incorporating evaluation into the adaptive co-management process and recognize the challenge for resource agencies and researchers to shift from a conventional to a complex adaptive system perspective.     

The dialogue that needs to happen

The author proposes that the enormous potential of academic psychology's contribution to marketing and advertising can only be fully realized through a collaboration that allows an understanding of the nature of the issues and tasks to which that psychological knowledge will be applied in a business context. Forums such as this journal, face-to-face contacts through visiting professorships, sabbaticals, and internships can complement the role of conferences, symposia, and consultancies as mechanisms for establishing the interface between academics and practitioners that will allow greater awareness of the relevance of academic knowledge to the real-time, real-world nature of the human element in marketing.     

The Effects of Property Tax Protests on the Assessment Uniformity of Residential Properties

This study examines whether the appeals process improves assessment uniformity for residential properties. The sample includes all single?family residential properties in Harris County, Texas, for 2006–2008. I use a hedonic pricing model and Heckman's two?stage approach to explain the assessed values of all properties before and after the appeals adjustments. Full sample results suggest that the appeals process increased assessment uniformity and that the value adjustments were appropriate in amount. I also present results across properties of different values (low, medium, high). The first?stage probit model provides evidence on the factors that affect the likelihood that an owner will protest.     

Dynamics of Business Cycles in Asia: Differences and Similarities

The paper documents the extent of similarities and differences of business cycle characteristics of the Asian countries and compares the cyclical regularities in this region with those of the G‐7 countries. The Asian economies are generally more volatile than the G‐7 countries, but the amplitude of economic fluctuations in the Asian countries tends to decrease over time. Comovement and persistence properties of business cycles in the Asian countries are very similar to those of the G‐7 economies. The authors find that while the patterns of business cycle fluctuations in the main macroeconomic aggregates display important similarities, the behavior of fiscal and monetary policy variables exhibits significant differences across the Asian countries. Moreover, there is a high degree of comovement between the individual country business cycles and different measures of the Asian business cycle, indicating that there is a regional business cycle specific to the Asian countries.