Real Rates of Return in Electricity Supply: New South Wales,Tasmania and Victoria*

This paper uses a newly developed economic return model to estimate the real (inflation adjusted) costs of supply, and rates of return, for the electricity systems in three States over very long time periods. It is shown that because of a combination of public ownership and the use of historical cost accounts, the real return on capital tends to fall with the onset of rapid inflation such as occurred in the mid 1970s In NSW in particular the rapid growth in demand for electricity in the 1970s due to falling real electricity prices and considerable increases in other energy prices has given rise to a major investment program and rapidly developing excess capacity. Higher real electricity prices in the 1980s, combined with the economic slump of 1982, resulted in low or negative growth rates in demand Much of the boom I bust mentality evident in all three States may have been avoided or ameliorated had the electrical supply authorities been required to earn even a very modest real rate of return of (say) 4 or more per cent p.a. which is considerably below the (pre-tax) return earned in the corporate sector.     

The marketing of love: how attachment styles affect romantic consumption journeys

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science - The experience of romantic love is closely interlocked with consumption journeys—yet how and why consumers engage in romantic consumption is not...     

The quantity theory of money and its long-run implications

This paper examines three propositions implied by the quantity theory of money, namely, the neutrality hypothesis, the Fisher hypothesis and the monetary approach to exchange rate determination for six developed countries within a dynamic framework, which incorporates the long-run proposition as its steady-state solution while allowing for short-run deviation from the hypothesized long-run relationships to take place. The joint hypothesis that all three propositions are satisfied simultaneously is supported only for two countries.     

Community Health Purchasing Alliances (CHPAs): how Florida CHPAs are affecting employers. A case study

Florida's health insurance reforms for small employers can be viewed as two distinct initiatives: insurance reform and the community health purchasing alliances (CHPAs). While small employer insurance reform legislation appears to have expanded access to coverage, the administrative structure of the CHPA still has a long way to go to capture the confidence of the marketplace.     

Tests based on φ-divergences for bivariate symmetry

In this paper we introduce a family of test statistics for testing symmetry based on φ-divergence families. These test statistics yield the likelihood ratio test and the Pearson test statistic as special cases. Asymptotic distribution for the new test statistics are derived under both the null and the alternative hypotheses. A simulation study is presented to see that some new test statistics offer an attractive alternative to the classical Pearson test statistic for the problem of symmetry. Received: May 2000     

The demand for M3 in the euro area

In this paper, an empirically stable money demand model for M3 in the euro area is constructed. Starting with a multivariate system, three cointegrating relationships with economic content are found: (i) the spread between the long‐term and the short‐term nominal interest rates, (ii) the long‐term real interest rate, and (iii) a long‐run demand for broad money M3. There is evidence that the determinants of M3 money demand are weakly exogenous with respect to the long‐run parameters. Hence, following a general‐to‐specific modelling approach, a parsimonious conditional error‐correction model for M3 money demand is derived which can be interpreted economically. For the conditional model, long‐run and short‐run parameter stability is extensively tested and not rejected. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.