Water accounting in Australia

This paper introduces water accounting as produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). It provides information about the ABS Water Accounts and highlights the many other organisations involved in the provision and use of water related data in Australia. The ABS Water Accounts have built upon previous reports on Australian water resources and the System of Environment and Economic Accounting [UN (United Nations) 2003. Draft Handbook Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting. Studies in Methods, Series F, No. 61, Rev. 1. United Nations, European Commission, International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Bank. New York.]. Information from the ABS Water Accounts is presented along with examples of their use in economic analyses designed to inform public debate and government decision-makers.A key feature of the Australian environment is that water is relatively scarce when compared with other inhabited continents. Rainfall displays a high level of spatial and temporal variability and droughts are common. In 2004 an Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative (NWI) was reached by Australia's national and eight state and territory governments. The NWI aims to address environmental, economic and social concerns about the current and future state of Australia's water resources. The NWI specifically calls for the preparation of annual water accounts, which clearly indicates the expected usefulness of national and regional water accounts.     

Cognition,competition, and catallaxy in memory of Friedrich August von Hayek

The paper focuses on central elements of the scientific work of Friedrich A. v. Hayek since the 1930s. In a first part, his epistemological position and its implications for his understanding of the tasks of the social sciences are presented as he set them out particularly in theSensory Order (1952). Then, it is shown how his findings in economic theory as well as in the analysis of economic and societal systems are formed by these foundations. His emphasis on the subjectivity and the constitutional limitations of human knowledge is identified as a precondition for the outstanding analytical insights which he gained with regard to the functioning of a market order and the role of institutions in societal development. Furthermore, it is argued that Hayek's enduring campaign for freedom and against the socialist tendencies in welfare states was not simply a matter of personal conviction. It was also the result of his analysis in constitutional political economy which revealed to him that freedom as a normative basis of economic and societal institutions is the key to the explanation of European cultural evolution.     

An objective function for simulation based inference on exchange rate data

The assessment of models of financial market behaviour requires evaluation tools. When complexity hinders a direct estimation approach, e.g., for agent based microsimulation models, simulation based estimators might provide an alternative. In order to apply such techniques, an objective function is required, which should be based on robust statistics of the time series under consideration. Based on the identification of robust statistics of foreign exchange rate time series in previous research, an objective function is derived. This function takes into account stylized facts about the unconditional distribution of exchange rate returns and properties of the conditional distribution, in particular, autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity and long memory. A bootstrap procedure is used to obtain an estimate of the variance-covariance matrix of the different moments included in the objective function, which is used as a base for the weighting matrix. Finally, the properties of the objective function are analyzed for two different agent based models of the foreign exchange market, a simple GARCH-model and a stochastic volatility model using the DM/US-$ exchange rate as a benchmark. It is also discussed how the results might be used for inference purposes. Research has been supported by the DFG grant WI 20024/2-1/2. We are indebted to two anonymous referees of this journal, Leigh Tesfatsion, Patrick Burns and other participants of the CEF’06 conference in Limassol for helpful comments on preliminary versions of this paper.     

Common holdings and strategic manager compensation: The case of an asymmetric triopoly

We study an asymmetric triopoly in a heterogeneous product market where quantity decisions are delegated to managers. The two biggest firms are commonly owned by shareholders such as index funds, whereas the smallest firm is owned by independent shareholders. Under such a common holding owner structure, the owners have an incentive to coordinate when designing their manager compensation schemes. This coordination leads to a reallocation of production and induces a redistribution of profits. The trade volume in the market is reduced so that shareholder coordination is detrimental to consumer surplus as well as welfare.     

Defensive strategies for managing satisfaction and loyalty in the service industry

The investment model is used to predict customer responses to defensive value-added and value-recovery strategies. The two strategies were manipulated under different competitive environments with airline services scenarios in a controlled experiment. Hypotheses were affirmed as value-added and value-recovery strategies influenced customer satisfaction and loyalty with varying sensitivities to the competitive environment and different mechanisms consistent with prediction derived from the investment model. Regardless of value-added strategy and competitive environment, value-recovery strategy strongly and positively influenced customer satisfaction, situational loyalty, and enduring loyalty. Value-added strategy also had a positive effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty, but these effects emerged primarily when a value-recovery strategy was already present, and under conditions of less intense competition. Satisfaction was found to mediate strategic effects on loyalty, with more pronounced effects observed for value-recovery strategy and situational loyalty. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

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Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Geldpolitik in verändertem umfeld

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Campaign Contributions with Swing Voters

We analyze contributor behavior when there are two types of voters: positioned voters, who care about the ideological positions of candidates, and swing voters, who care about only the leadership abilities of candidates. Campaign expenditures, which are funded by contributions, are assumed to influence voters' perceptions of a candidate's ability. We find that the number of swing voters may have unexpected consequences on equilibrium campaign contributions. In particular, total contributions may increase as the number of swing voters decreases.
Elections are won by doing two things: mobilizing your base and winning the independent swing voters.
(Karl Rove, campaign strategist for George W. Bush)