Quarantine Risk Analysis

Australia's quarantine policy is based on the concept of manageable risk, which is underpinned by quarantine risk analysis, which this article examines with particular reference to recommendations of the 1996 Australian Quarantine Review. Quarantine risk assessment addresses disease concerns associated with any particular proposed import and may also require detailed examination of possible economic and environmental effects. The degree of quantification varies, and more quantitative approaches may be either deterministic or stochastic. Assessments consider both the probability of an event occurring and its consequences, including the direct economic effect of any introduction of an exotic disease.     

doleful acts

Mike Fisher, an Institute of Economic Affairs' trustee and director of Whale Tankers, explains how employment legislation is a cause of unemployment.     

a planning disaster in the car park

Mike Fisher describes difficulties that Whale Tankers, a small manufacturing company, had in getting planning permission for a car park. In looking for a cause of unemployment, he argues, one has no need to look further than the planning system.     

A critique of traditional agricultural credit projects and policies

Authors critique the results, assumptions, and policies commonly associated with agricultural credit projects in low income countries. A summary of new views on these projects is present. These views emphasize voluntary savings mobilization and positive real rates of interest. Several explanations are given for why few of these new views have been adopted by policymakers.     

Come to Tana Toraja, “land of the heavenly kings”: Travel agents as brokers in ethnicity

This paper examines the role of tourist literature in the genesis of ethnic stereotypes. Considering the case of the Toraja of Sulawesi (Indonesia), it is suggested that travel agents are brokers in ethnicity, travel brochures being the tools of their trade. In the process of marketing images of exotic places and peoples, travel brochures draw upon a small set of indigenous ethnic markers, elaborating upon them to provide a mental grid through which the tourist filters his perceptions while abroad. These travel brochure images become indices of “authenticity” and the ethnic stereotypes generated by them become reified during the course of the tourist's visit abroad.     

Strategy and Circumstance: The Success of the NUJ's New Technology Policy

This article assesses the success of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in negotiating the introduction of computerised editorial systems (direct input) into provincial newspapers. It employs a quantitative and qualitative analysis to suggest that the NUJ has been exemplary in using the New Technology Agreement (NTA) as a bargaining tool in order to limit the negative effects of technological change and to secure notable benefits — particularly pay increases. This contrasts with other survey evidence which concludes that NTAs have fallen short of the TUC's original objectives in advocating their use. The success of the NUJ is attributed to an appropriate match between the union's new technology policy/strategy and the particular industrial circumstances. It may also explain the recent moves towards decollectivisation in the newspaper industry.