ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF LAND DEGRADATION IN AUSTRALIA

In this article an overview of several economic aspects of land degradation in Australia is presented. The economic rationale for government intervention in land management decisions relating to degradation is explored. Some potential sources of inefficient private land use decisions are identified. However, there are significant difficulties in designing policies which will result in resource allocation decisions superior to market outcomes.     

Approaches to learning at work and workplace climate

Three studies are reported concerning employees' approaches to learning at work and their perceptions of the workplace environment. Based on prior research with university students, two questionnaires were devised, the Approaches to Work Questionnaire (AWQ) and the Workplace Climate Questionnaire (WCQ). In Studies 1 and 2, these questionnaires were administered to two different samples of employees, and the factor structure of the questionnaires was explored. In Study 3, the two data sets were combined, and a random half of it was used to develop reduced sets of items that addressed selected factors for each of the questionnaires. The other half of the data was used to test the scales developed. For the AWQ, three factors are proposed: deep, surface‐rational, and surface‐disorganised. The first of these is consistent with the student learning literature, but the other two represent a division of a unitary surface factor. The three components of the WCQ are good supervision, choice‐independence, and workload. Correlations between scales indicated that the deep approach is positively associated with good supervision and choice‐independence, whereas the surface‐disorganised approach is negatively associated with these two constructs and positively associated with workload. Surface‐rational is negatively, though less strongly associated with choice‐independence. Suggestions are presented for use of these instruments in future research and practice.     

Economic assessment of acquiring water for environmental flows in the Murray Basin*

This article is an economic analysis of reallocating River Murray Basin water from agriculture to the environment with and without the possibility of interregional water trade. Acquiring environmental flows as an equal percentage of water allocations from all irrigation regions in the Basin is estimated to reduce returns to irrigation. When the same volume of water is taken from selected low-value regions only, the net revenue reduction is less. In all scenarios considered, net revenue gains from freeing trade are estimated to outweigh the negative revenue effects of reallocating water for environmental flows. The model accounts for how stochastic weather affects market water demand, supply and requirements for environmental flows. Net irrigation revenue is estimated to be 75 million less than the baseline level for a scenario involving reallocating a constant volume of water for the environment in both wet and dry years. For a more realistic scenario involving more water for the environment in wet and less in dry years, estimated net revenue loss is reduced by 48 per cent to 39 million. Finally, the external salinity-related costs of water trading are estimated at around 1 million per annum, a quite modest amount compared to the direct irrigation benefits of trade.     

Estimating the Cost‐of‐Equity Capital Using Empirical Asset Pricing Models

Empirical asset pricing models seek to capture characteristic‐based patterns in the cross‐section of average stock returns. I propose a new approach for constructing these models, and investigate its performance with respect to estimating the cost‐of‐equity capital. Using a model that accounts for the cross‐sectional relation between five characteristics and average stock returns, I obtain cost‐of‐equity estimates that outperform those produced by the Fama‐French five‐factor model in out‐of‐sample tests. Because the proposed approach builds directly on standard cross‐sectional regression techniques, it provides complete flexibility in choosing the firm characteristics used to formulate the cost‐of‐equity estimates.     

A science mapping analysis of ‘marginality,stigmatization and social cohesion’ in WoS (1963–2019)

Quality & Quantity - The current socio-economic and politico-humanitarian crisis is reflected in the progressive entanglement of social cohesion. The increase of social, political, and economic...     

Analysis of a dust deflagration

This paper outlines the events leading to a successfully vented deflagration in a storage bin for a granular material. The hazard of particle size classification during conveying and loading operations is also illustrated.     

The impact of racial and gender diversity in management on financial performance: how participative strategy making features can unleash a diversity advantage

How does racial and gender diversity in the management ranks affect the bottom line? Our findings indicate that participative strategy making (PSM) positively moderates the relationship between both racial and gender diversity in management and firm performance measured as return on assets. Specifically, PSM strengthens the positive relationship that exists between racial diversity in management and firm performance. Although no main effect is observed for gender diversity in management, our results reveal that gender diversity in management is positively related to performance when PSM is high. However, we find that gender diversity in management is negatively related to performance when PSM is low, while gender homogeneous management experience superior performance. We offer implications for diversity research to embrace and consider the role of PSM and ‘inclusiveness’.     

The external returns to education: UK evidence using repeated cross-sections

Augmenting a Mincerian earnings function with industry level data we estimate the external return to schooling for a repeated cross-section of individuals in the UK over the period 1994–2004. For men age 30–49 we find that a one year increase in the industry average level of schooling is associated with an increase in individual wages of 2.6 to 3.9%, around 2 to 3 fifths of the private return to schooling. We illustrate the sensitivity of external return estimates to industry ICT use and union density, and individuals' own level of schooling.