Conditional Dependence in Precious Metal Prices

This study investigates the time-series properties of gold and silver spot prices. Both precious metal price series are found to exhibit time dependence and pronounced generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (GARCH) effects. Splitting the data into similar economic subperiods provides superior explanation of these effects because of the observed long-run nonconstancy of the unconditional variance. Further, the power exponential distribution, as opposed to the Student-t, is found to portray accurately the thick-tailed conditional variance that remains after the GARCH effects are removed. These findings imply that constant variance pricing models are inappropriate for securities that are based on precious metal prices.     

Consumer decision making,E-commerce and perceived risks

This article studies how adoption and usage behaviour of the Internet and online shopping, respectively influence the preference to use electronic commerce to purchase different types of products. We empirically model the preference for electronic commerce when consumers have to buy different types of products and thus face different types of risks (Cox and Rich, 1964 Cox, D and Rich, S. 1964. Perceived risk and consumer decision making-the case of telephone survey. Journal of Marketing Research, 1: 32–9. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Unlike previous research, we find that consumers who have previously shopped online, display stronger preferences to buy products on the Internet irrespective of the perceived level of product-specific risks of online shopping. This article provides an interesting and novel insight into how both adoption and usage of electronic commerce impact on the attitude and risk perception of buying less predictable (more risky) products on the Internet.     

Developing and applying a framework to evaluate participatory research for sustainability

The normative implications of participatory research imply ongoing social learning that ought to lead to personal and institutional transformation. Sustainability science also requires reflexive scientific practice in order to enable the co-generation of solutions that take account of uncertainty and multiple forms of knowledge. However, there is little published peer-reviewed material on how to assess to what degree the rhetoric regarding the benefits of participatory research are achieved in practice, particularly with regard to participatory research for sustainability. This paper outlines how linking the rationales for participatory research and for sustainability science to the principles of evaluation can deliver a conceptually coherent evaluation framework for assessment. The approach for evaluating participatory research in this context consists of framing the evaluation, i.e., setting boundaries on the subject within its social, political, environmental and institutional context and selecting appropriate criteria, methods and data sources. The application of the framework, using a summative evaluation of participatory research for sustainability in north-east Australia, illustrates its strengths and weaknesses, concluding with a consideration of its applicability to further participatory sustainability science.     

Financial risk attitudes and aging in Australia

A number of empirical studies document that people tend to become more risk averse as they get older. But other studies find only little evidence that age matters for financial risk attitudes. This prompts a call for revisiting the relationship between age and risk attitude to better support policy recommendations. The current paper contributes to this effort by utilising large-scale population data to conduct a dynamic panel analysis. Care is taken to avoid the problem of endogeneity of lagged risk attitude in modelling its effects. Analysis reveals that individuals' past risk attitude has a positive effect on their current risk attitude. However, there is only little evidence that risk attitude and age are systematically related. Our results shed some light on the previous contradictory empirical findings in the literature and suggest that past risk attitude is potentially of greater relevance than chronological age in determining current risk attitude.     

Specific Purpose Payments and the Commonwealth Grants Commission*

The Commonwealth Grants Commission has, over the past ten years, been concerned with assessing the per capita relativities to be applied to the distribution of general revenue grants to the States in Australia to achieve fiscal equalization. In arriving at these assessments, the Commission has developed a number of approaches to the treatment of specific purpose payments. It is argued that one of these approaches – the inclusion approach – has an overriding effect which may place fiscal equalization in conflict with other objectives of Commonwealth policy. The nature of this conflict and its management are then explored     

Is corruption a greater burden for registered MSEs? Evidence from Zambia

If corrupt bureaucrats target registered firms, then corruption may discourage registration. Using data from a survey of 4,801 micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Zambia, this paper looks at whether corruption is a more or less serious problem for registered MSEs. Consistent with earlier studies, the results suggest registered MSEs are more concerned about corruption than unregistered firms are. The paper also proposes two reasons why corruption might affect registered MSEs differently than it affects unregistered firms. We first suggest that registered firms might meet with government officials more often than unregistered firms, giving corrupt officials more opportunities to demand bribes from them, but we also suggest that registered firms might be less vulnerable when officials demand bribes because they are more able to complain about bribe demands. This could offset registered firms' disadvantage because of more frequent meetings. The evidence supports the first, but not the second, hypothesis. Registered firms were more likely to meet with government officials but were not consistently less likely to pay bribes when they did meet with them.     

Changes in the status of women and the demographic development of the family

The impact of changes in the status of women on the demographic characteristics and development of the family in the USSR is examined. Three stages of family development are distinguished: formation, growth as a result of the birth of children, and dissolution with the departure of grown children. The relationship between changes in women's social status and age at marriage, family size, and divorce is analyzed. The effects of factors such as educational level, type of employment, exposure to mass media, urban residence, and declining infant mortality rates on women's attitudes toward family size are discussed.     

A theory of natural addiction

Economic theories of rational addiction aim to describe consumer behavior in the presence of habit-forming goods. We provide a biological foundation for this body of work by formally specifying conditions under which it is optimal to form a habit. We demonstrate the empirical validity of our thesis with an in-depth review and synthesis of the biomedical literature concerning the action of opiates in the mammalian brain and their effects on behavior. Our results lend credence to many of the unconventional behavioral assumptions employed by theories of rational addiction, including adjacent complementarity and the importance of cues, attention, and self-control in determining the behavior of addicts. We offer evidence for the special case of the opiates that “harmful” addiction is the manifestation of a mismatch between behavioral algorithms encoded in the human genome and the expanded menu of choices faced by consumers in the modern world.     

Structure and understanding: Some observations on current activities in the field of structural modeling

Structural modeling has been under study in recent years as a method for dealing with complex societal problems, and is growing in acceptance as a tool for understanding complex social phenomena. Structural models demonstrate the interactions of the separate elements of a system and their combined overall effect. Thus, the nature of the problem for which this method of analysis is appropriate is different from complex problems of the traditional disciplines which lend themselves to reductionist approaches. This is because complex policy problems of society cannot be “solved” with precise analysis. Kenneth Boulding suggests that there are two ways to cope with a complex policy problem, either to “slice” the problem into partial equilibrium sections or “squeeze” it by aggregating numerous variables into a single index or macho variable. Structural modeling is an approach which comes under the general strategy of squeezing the problem and is promising because of the ability to include a range of macro variables which provide insights about social change. The articles in this issue treat several interesting aspects of this approach. In this article we wish to recall for consideration a central purpose for developing such methods. We have taken a historical approach to indicate some of the roots of the concern for the effect of technological process on social change. Within this context, we discuss the nature of the contributions made by the articles in this issue and what promise the methods offer to addressing the historical concern.