A CGE Approach to Measuring the Sectoral Contribution to an Economy: An Application to Western Australian Agriculture

Typically, sectoral contribution to an economy is estimated by measures such as shares in gross domestic/regional product, employment and exports. According to these measures, agriculture's contribution declines as the economy grows. However, the indirect contribution of the sector is likely to rise due to the expansion of agriculture–based processing activities in the process of economic growth. Input–output multiplier analysis is often used to capture such flow–on contributions of the sector. This paper proposes to use a computable general equilibrium framework to estimate the direct as well as indirect contributions of agricultural growth in an economy. It also develops a methodology to distinguish the broader effects of agricultural output growth by source — input growth and productivity growth. The proposed methodologies are illustrated by applying these to analyze the contribution of agriculture to the economy of Western Australia, an agriculture and resources based state of Australia. The results for Western Australia suggest that the indirect benefits of agriculture exceed its direct contributions and that the contributions made by enhancing productivity in agriculture are indeed substantial. Importantly, the broader contribution of the agriculture sector depends critically on the specific source of the sectoral growth — input or productivity growth.     

Acquaintance or partner? Social economy organizations,institutional logics and regional development in Australia

The social economy as a regional development actor is gaining greater attention given its purported ability to address social and environmental problems. This growth in interest is occurring within a global environment that is calling for a more holistic understanding of development compared to traditionally economic-centric conceptions. While regional development policies and practices have long considered for-profit businesses as agents for regional growth, there is a relatively limited understanding of the role of the social economy as a development actor. The institutional environment is a large determinant of all kinds of entrepreneurial activity, and therefore understanding the relationships between the social economy and broader regional development processes is warranted. This paper moves beyond suggestions of an economic-centric focus of regional development by utilizing institutional logics as a theoretical framework for understanding the role of social enterprises in regional development. A multiple case study of ten social enterprises in two regional locations in Australia suggests that social enterprises can represent competing logics to economic-centric institutional values and systems. The paper argues that dominant institutional logics can promote or constrain the inter-play between the social and the economic aspects of development, in the context of social enterprises.     

Economic uncertainty and national bitcoin trading activity

This study analyzes the dynamics between bitcoin trading, price activities, and economic surprise shocks from a broad and novel perspective on a national level. We start by estimating the response of bitcoin trading in terms of volume and volatility to economic surprises. Following this, we extend our framework by applying a Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity model to get an indication of the volatility reaction of national bitcoin activities to economic surprise shocks. Our results show that local and global shocks affect local bitcoin activities and trading volatilities, confirming that economic events affect bitcoin markets. We argue that increased trading activity, coupled with a price reaction, indicates that bitcoin might be considered a hedge or safe haven asset against economic uncertainty. We find evidence that bitcoin is treated as a speculative asset against negative economic policy uncertainty shocks in Canada pre-Covid-19. These results change during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to a significant structural break. Here, we find indications that bitcoin might be treated as a safe-haven asset in New Zealand and Australia. This shows that bitcoin behaves differently depending on the studied country, underlining the importance of country-level studies. It also shows that bitcoin is a new asset that is evolving rapidly and that the period in which it is studied is important.     

Negotiating fair pay and conditions: low paid women's experience and perceptions of labour market deregulation and individual wage bargaining

The OECD is strongly supportive of the industrial relations changes recently introduced in Australia. This article examines the experiences of low paid women in a deregulated labour market context. The research highlights the gendered effects of the recent reforms and cautions against the use of Australia as a model framework.     

推动澳大利亚入境游的宏观环境因素综述

澳大利亚不仅是南半球经济最发达的国家,还凭借其独特的自然风光和出色的人文景观吸引了全球游客的光临。本文针对澳大利亚入境游的文献资料进行了研究调查与分析,重点放在两大宏观因素上,社会文化因素(恐怖主义和兴趣旅游)和经济因素(汇率和中国市场)。通过调研本文指出,澳大利亚入境游人数在一个相对安全的国际环境下呈现出稳定增长的趋势,尤其在开发兴趣旅游方面表现出色,并且中国市场对澳大利亚入境游起到了不可小视的推动作用。全球经济回暖后,澳币汇率近五年的变化对入境游造成了附加影响,当澳币增值时澳大利亚入境游发展速度放缓,反之加快。     

Structural Change for Economic Growth

As soon as the post-war era of rapid economic growth had come to an end in the early 1970s, the intellectural fashion being to swing towards a renewed appreciation of economic growth and the 'classical' factors of growth saving hard work, enterprise, innovation and a legal framework which secures the property rights to the rewards of material progress and facilitates flexible adjustment by a competitives system. Professor Wolfgang Kasper of the University of New South Wales in Australia argues that the major challenge for societies in West and East, North and South alike is now to make the supply side of the economy more elastic and responsive to new opparatunities and circumstances.     

澳大利亚住房负担能力评析

由于住房政策的转变以及经济社会因素的变化,澳大利亚同我国一样正经历着严峻的住房负担能力问题。通过文献研究的方法,从澳大利亚住房负担问题的概念、产生的背景、问题的原因与影响等几个方面对澳大利亚住房负担能力问题的相关研究成果进行了阐述,并通过这些研究成果提出了我国住房负担能力问题研究的新思路和新视角:一是研究方法的借鉴,二是研究领域的扩展,三是应给予住房供给更多关注。     

Book reviews

Book Reviewed in This Article: BEYOND RE-ENGINEERING: HOW THE PROCESS-CENTRED ORGANISATION IS CHANGING OUR WORK AND OUR LIVES Michael Hammer MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: THE SYMBIOSIS OF WORK AND TECHNOLOGY Jos Benders, Job de Haan and David Bennett (eds) FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: SOARING TO SUCCESS IN THE 21ST CENTURY John Whiteside and Sandra Egli MANAGING CAREERS INTO THE 21ST CENTURY John Arnold MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: A GUIDE TO THE PROFESSION (3rd ed) Milan Kubr THE WITCH DOCTORS: WHAT THE MANAGEMENT GURUS ARE SAYING, WHY IT MATTERS AND HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF IT John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge     

Changes in psychological contracts during the global financial crisis: the manager's perspective

The employee–organisation relationship is dynamic and arguably affected by contextual factors, such as a change in the economic environment. This study uses data collected from managers in Australia before and after the beginning of the global financial crisis (GFC) to examine the changes in psychological contract (PC) terms from the manager's perspective. In particular, as industries can be affected differently by economic crisis and gender discrimination can increase in tough economic conditions, we examined if any changes in PC terms were contingent on industry and employee gender. The study's results show that the terms of the employment relationship deteriorated in Australia only for employees working in industries affected by the GFC. Further, we found that some gender differences in the terms of the PC exist independent of the state of the economy. In addition, a three-way interaction indicates that managers working in industries not affected by the GFC are allocating a greater proportion of their resources to their female employees than to their male employees. Ongoing labour shortages and gender inequities in Australia might have prompted managers in non-affected industries to use their relative ‘resource-rich’ advantage to positively influence the employee–organisation relationship for female employees, a traditionally disadvantaged group.     

Book Reviews

Book Reviewed in This Article: THE CHALLENGE TO MANAGEMENT CONTROL John Storey MASTERS, UNIONS AND MEN: WORK CONTROL IN BUILDING AND THE RISE OF LABOUR, 1830–1914 Richard Price A CLASS AGAINST ITSELF—POWER IN THE NATIONALISATION OF THE BRITISH STEEL INDUSTRY Doug McEachern TRADE UNIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL Alan Campbell PAY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR R. F. Elliott and J. L. Fallick CURRENT CONCERNS IN OCCUPATIONAL STRESS C. L. Cooper and R. Payne (ed.)     

Asia-Pacific Tiers of Change

This article starts by outlining five explanations of economic growth and four stages of economic development in the Asia-Pacific region. the developed countries there include Japan, Australia and New Zealand. the ‘Asian tigers’ of Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan form a top tier of post-Japan industrialisers. A second generation of ‘tigers’ includes Malaysia in the vanguard, with Thailand and the PRC following. A third tier of industrialisers may include countries as diverse as Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia and, perhaps, the countries of the Indian sub-continent. Such a classification provides a context for discussing various approaches to human resources and industrial relations issues in this article and the ones that follow.     

Stock market volatility and the business cycle

This paper investigates the joint time series behavior of monthly stock returns and growth in industrial production. We find that stock returns are well characterized by year-long episodes of high volatility, separated by longer quiet periods. Real output growth, on the other hand, is subject to abrupt changes in the mean associated with economic recessions. We study a bivariate model in which these two changes are driven by related unobserved variables, and conclude that economic recessions are the primary factor that drives fluctuations in the volatility of stock returns. This framework proves useful both for forecasting stock volatility and for identifying and forecasting economic turning points.     

Culture and Accountants' Perceptions of Environmental Reporting Practice

This paper seeks to investigate and interpret the possible link between culture and the perceptions of accountants on corporate environmental reporting practices (ENRPs) on a two‐country basis, i.e. between Malaysia and Australia. Using Hofstede's (1980) and Gray's (1988) cultural value framework, the paper employs a qualitative approach through interviews conducted with corporate accountants in publicly listed companies in Malaysia and Australia. It is revealed that ENRPs in both countries are influenced by cultural values, in particular collectivism, high uncertainty avoidance, uniformity, conservatism and secrecy. Despite the fact that types of cultural and sub‐cultural dimension pertaining to reporting practice in Malaysia and Australia are similar, mixed findings are found when compared with national cultural values (Hofstede, 1980) and sub‐cultural values (Gray, 1988). The consistencies of cultural dimensions found in ENRP in these two countries and the orientation of the practice across nations indicate a promising move towards standardization and harmonization of successful implementation of environmental accounting and reporting. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

中观信息系统审计风险控制体系研究——以COBIT框架与数据挖掘技术相结合为视角

当前,我国急需一套完善的中观信息系统审计风险控制体系。这是因为我国的中观经济主体在控制信息系统审计风险时需要一套成熟的管理流程,且国家有关部门在制定信息系统审计风险防范标准方面也需要完善的控制体系作为支撑。在阐述COBIT与数据挖掘基本理论的基础上,借鉴COBIT框架,构建中观信息系统审计风险的明细控制框架,利用数据挖掘技术有针对性地探索每一个明细标准的数据挖掘路径,创建挖掘流程,建立适用于我国中观经济特色的信息系统审计风险控制体系。     

Book Reviews

Book Reviewed in This Article: THE ORIGINS OF TRADE UNION POWER: Henry Phelps STEEL STRIKE: A CASE STUDY IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS : Jean Hartley, John Kelly and Nigel Nicholson BACK FROM THE BRINK : Michael Edwardes IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE: LESSONS FROM AMERICA'S BEST RUN COMPANIES : Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr. CORPORATE CULTURES: THE RITES AND RITUALS OF CORPORATE LIFE : Terrence E. Deal and Allen A.     

The determinants of Australian trade union membership

This paper investigates the determinants of trade union membership in Australia using the Engle and Granger (1987) theory of co-integrated economic variables. Applying the theory of co-integration yields a model of union membership which can be interpreted as distinguishing between long-run and ‘business cycle’ determinants of union membership. The principal long-run determinant of union membership is found to be the level of employment disaggregated by industry classification. Business cycle variables—the real wage and the change in unemployment—are also shown to influence movements in union density. These findings are consistent with recent studies which have attributed the decline in union membership in Australia since the early 1980s to the changing composition of employment and movements in the rate of unemployment.     

Brand personality in a membership‐based organisation

• This study employed Aaker's (6) brand personality framework to assess the brand characteristics of a membership based sport organisation in Australia (N=413). Factor analysis suggested that Aaker's framework did not fully capture variations in responses within the Australia sample, and that a modified version incorporating an additional dimension of Innovation was required. This modified factor structure may reflect characteristics of netball as a sport, specific sample attributes or cross‐cultural variations in the brand personality concept. Results indicate that the Netball Victoria brand is strongly associated with Competence, Sincerity and Innovation, is moderately linked with Excitement and Sophistication, and has a low connection with Ruggedness. These qualities are perceived with a high level of consistency by different respondents. The organisation's brand personality as perceived by its members provides a diagnostic which may be used to guide re‐branding, positioning and other marketing strategies. Additional research is required to assess the role and function of cultural variations in measuring brand personality.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

book reviews

Book reviews in this article: A PROFESSIONAL UNION: THE EVOLUTION OF THE INSTITUTION OF PROFESSIONAL CIVIL SERVANTS James E. Mortimer and Valerie A. Ellis George Allen and Unwin SKILL AND THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS, 1870–1914 Charles More, Croom Helm THE ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIETY R. Presthus THE DECLINE OF THE BRITISH MOTOR INDUSTRY Peter J. S. Dunnett, Croom Helm OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE DEGREE AND PATTERN OF THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN'S WORK IN BRITAIN, THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER COUNTRIES Catherine Hakim GOOD JOBS, BAD JOBS, NO JOBS E. Ginzberg