Can domestication of wildlife lead to conservation? The economics of tiger farming in China

Tigers are a threatened species that might soon disappear in the wild. Not only are tigers threatened by deteriorating and declining habitat, but poachers continue to kill tigers for traditional medicine, decoration pieces and so on. Although international trade in tiger products has been banned since 1987 and domestic trade within China since 1993, tigers continue to be poached and Chinese entrepreneurs have established tiger farms in anticipation of their demise. While China desires to permit sale of tiger products from captive-bred tigers, this is opposed on the grounds that it likely encourages illegal killing. Instead, wildlife conservationists lobby for more spending on anti-poaching and trade-ban enforcement. In this study, a mathematical bioeconomic model is used to investigate the issue. Simulation results indicate that, unless range states are characterized by institutions (rule of law and low corruption) similar to those found in the richest countries, reliance on enforcement alone is insufficient to guarantee survival of wild tigers. Likewise, even though conservation payments could protect wild tigers, the inability to enforce contracts militates against this. Our model indicates that wild tigers can be protected by permitting sale of products from tiger farms, although this likely requires the granting of an exclusive license to sellers. Finally, it is possible to tradeoff enforcement effort and sale of products from captive-bred animals, but such tradeoffs are worsened by deteriorating tiger habitat.     

The relevance of personal characteristics in health care rationing: what the Australian public thinks and why

This article examines the preferences of the general public in Australia regarding health care resource allocation. While previous studies have revealed that the public is willing to give priority to particular groups of patients based on their personal characteristics, the present article goes beyond previous efforts in attempting to explain these results. In the present study, there was strong support among respondents for giving “equal priority” to people regardless of their personal characteristics. However, respondents did reveal a preference for married patients over single, for children over adults, for carers of children and the elderly, sole breadwinners, and good community contributors. Further, they would give a lower priority to those perceived as “self-harmers”—smokers, individuals with unhealthy diets, and those who rarely exercise. Variation in the answers according to broad economic and social beliefs across seven different categories (“factors”) influenced the pattern of the public's attitudes towards rationing. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) indicated that most of the items in our survey are associated with seven factors that explain or capture much of the variation. These relate to a patient's avoidance of self-harm behaviors (Safe Living), their Life Style (diet, exercise, etc.), their contribution to the community through caring for others (Caring), their talents (Gifted), their sexual behavior (Sexuality), their age and marital status (Family), and whether they are an Australian citizen or employed (Citizen). The strength of social preferences—e.g., how strongly respondents would “discriminate” against a recreational drug user or preference a person with a healthy diet—is related to the particular class of preferences.     

Flexible Working Practices In the Public,Not-For-Profit and Commercial Leisure Sectors In SCotland

Public sector leisure managers in the UK have been struggling, since the extension of compulsory competitive tendering to leisure management in 1989, to reconcile the conflicts between becoming more consumer led and satisfying the needs of the ‘recreationally deprived’. Rationalization has ensured that a fundamental priority for managers has been the introduction of more cost-effective working practices. This article examines the diversity in employment practices across the three sectors of the leisure industry, that is, the public, not-for-profit and private sectors. The case study evidence presented found clear differences between the sectors. Although managers in not-for-profit leisure facilities have more freedom to use greater flexibility in employment practices as compared with their public sector counterparts, they are still somewhat constrained by having to meet the social objectives set by their Board of Directors. Private sector managers were found to be providing the highest proportion of full-time jobs, although they offered lower conditions of employment. This was made possible by the funding certainties created by regular monthly/annual customer memberships.     

A Long-run Analysis of Cooperative Housing Societies and Housing Construction in Victoria, Australia

Housing construction is an important component of economic development. The use of cooperative housing societies is one means of channelling scarce financial resources to housing construction. The aim of this paper is to explore the causes of the rapid growth and subsequent decline of the cooperative housing societies as a source of housing finance in the State of Victoria in Australia during the years 1947 to 1992. Significant evidence is established of a strong relationship between the availability of funding for the societies and the growth of their assets. Mixed results are presented for the impact on the general level of housing construction.     

Was It Possible to Stabilise the Price of Wool? Organised Wool Marketing 1916 to 1970

Wool is the only Australian commodity for which there has been an attempt to organise price stability through a buffer stock scheme (1970–91). Growers pressed for the introduction of a scheme since the early 1920s. We test the veracity of claims that the sale of the stockpiles optimised growers' returns. We also simulate the likely outcomes of the reserve price schemes (RPS) proposed in 1925 and 1952, respectively. Our findings are that post-war stockpile disposals did not optimise wool growers' incomes, the undercapitalised proposed RPS of the 1920s would have collapsed in the depression, and that the post-1952 RPS would have been in considerable difficulty.     

Retroactive terms adjustment

The concept of Retroactive Terms Adjustment (RTA) emerged as a response to the urgent need for international action on the debt problems of the developing countries. The following article analyses the concept and the contribution RTA has made towards solving the debt problem.     

Tourism and the Australian economy

Consideration of the economic significance of tourism requires synthesis of a discrete tourism ‘industry’ from selected sectors of the economy and identification of its component activities which may then be used to relate expenditure by tourists, sectorally and spatially, to other elements in the economy. This approach is applied to create a profile of the Australian tourism industry at a national level and shows that tourism contributes a significant proportion to GDP and employs at least 3% of the labour force. This is comparable with the UK and other developed countries.