ESTIMATING SOURCES OF FLUCTUATIONS IN THE AUSTRALIAN WOOL MARKET: AN APPLICATION OF VAR METHODS

Vector autoregression (VAR) methods are used to analyse the contribution of supply, demand and policy shocks to unpredictable fluctuations in the market for Australian wool. VAR procedures are compared with conventional structural econometric models as methods for decomposing sources of instability. While each has advantages and disadvantages, VAR procedures might be viewed as preferable when the underlying market structure is complex and uncertain, as it is in the case of wool. Based on the results obtained, demand shocks are the dominant source of uncertainty in the wool market in the absence of Australian Wool Corporation intervention, but intervention has blunted their effects, reducing market uncertainty and increasing the average level of prices and revenues.     

Friend or Foe?— Farmer Perceptions of Biotechnologh1

This paper is the result of survey investigation the attitudes of Western Canadian farmers toward two biotechonological products, ENFIX-L and PB-50. Farmers were asked to rate both the importance and the performance of 21 attributes of the products. Soil depletion was found to be an important concern to many farmers. personal and environmental risks were less of a concern. Overall, it was found that the non-biotech-nological aspects of a product would prevail in purchasing decisions.     

Investing in Health: A Macroeconomic Exploration of Short-Run and Long-Run Trade-Offs

This paper aims to unravel the competing effects of health investment. It explores, both analytically and numerically, the equilibrium shift and transitional dynamics after a one-time policy of health investment. We find that such a policy improves health status in the long run, but harms economic growth in both the short- and long-term. The relative sizes of these competing effects depend on the specific health parameters. Within the plausible range for the value of health relative to consumption, households gain welfare in the long run as long as the effectiveness of labor in health production is large. The expanded health sector policy makes households worse off only if labor is rather unproductive in producing health and if households value health relatively little. Nevertheless, the findings challenge the policy recommendations of the World Bank (1993) and World Health Organization (2001) in that good health does not necessarily increase the productivity of workers and the economic growth rate. We hope that the relative simplicity of our model, compared to the existing theoretical literature, can help close the gap between formal academic work on this topic and actual debates among policy makers in both developed and developing countries.     

Analysis of the Efficacy of Public Spending on Research and Development in State Programs

This paper presents an approach to assessing the efficacy of public spending on research and development in state programs. At present, there is a need to develop a unified approach to the analysis and evaluation of the efficacy of such spending from the perspective of participants in state programs (federal executive bodies). The proposed approach does not allow evaluating the efficacy of public spending on the development of research areas assigned to the authors.     

Application of Standardization Methods for Environmental Improvement as an Element of Quality of Life Through the Development of a Company’s Business Potential

Various aspects of sustainable development and quality of life are considered, including the impact of standardization. Particular attention is paid to the study of the role played by standardization in improving environmental protection. In this connection the significance of standardization is shown as a factor of improving the technological potential of an enterprise and the quality of life. Various approaches to methods for assessing the effective impact of standardization on the quality of life are analyzed.     

Russia’s salt industry: Problems of development

The paper describes the current situation in the salt industry. It points to the inadmissibly high and expanding market share of imported salt products despite the country’s own colossal resource base and the domestic enterprises’ huge unused capacities. It has been shown that OAO Russian Railroads (OAO RZhD) will economically benefit due to its reasonable policy of selective reduction of the railroad shipment tariffs for salt for domestic producers due to the inevitable growth of the country’s own salt output.     

The Visual Representation of Border Tourism: Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Dokdo in South Korea

The demilitarized zone (DMZ) and Dokdo mark South Korea borders with North Korea and Japan respectively. Each borderland is a socially constructed symbolic cultural landscape shaped in part by tourism. In this study, a sample of 2202 online images was inspected using content‐semiotic analysis to understand how visual representation of border tourism works. It was found that visitors via social media and government censorship play major roles in constructing representations of (i) alienated borders with iconic war heritage attractions at the DMZ and (ii) an alienated and isolated Dokdo. Both borders highlight patriotic/nationalistic ‘flagging’ and the gaze across. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.