Environmental-Economic Measures of Tourism Yield

A focus on ‘tourism yield’ is an important aspect of business strategies to maintain and enhance destination competitiveness. Ideally the notion of ‘tourism yield’ should include tourism's environmental and social value to a destination in addition to economic value. This paper attempts to develop measures of economic and environmental yield. It first describes how measures of economic yield may be estimated and presents results for Australian inbound tourism. Environmental yield estimates are then developed for the same visitor markets. A hybrid approach is employed, combining input-output analysis with an onsite audit for tourist accommodation. The relevant environmental impacts include those on energy use, water use, greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprint. The findings reveal that, for some inbound markets, simultaneous achievement of relatively high economic and environmental goals is not possible, and that economic-environmental tradeoffs may be necessary. The results have implications for all destinations which use notions of ‘tourism yield’ to inform their marketing strategies.     

Wine tasting: To charge or not to charge?

In Australia there is an inconsistency of practice between cellar door operators as to whether they charge for a wine tasting or not. The liquor licensing legislation in each State permits cellar door operators to charge for a wine tasting. Some charge for tastings but deduct this from any purchase made, some provide food to accompany the tasting and others provide a free tasting. This paper considers the practice from a consumer’s (wine tourist’s) viewpoint. A survey was conducted of wine tourists who have attended a cellar door wine tasting to gauge their attitude about charges for wine tastings and probable impacts on their purchasing decisions. The majority expressed a preference for free tastings and stated they would not stay if there was a charge for tastings. However, some tourists were willing to pay in a range of circumstances, depending on the services provided and overall experience.     

During play,the break,and the drive home: the meaning of parental verbal behaviour in youth sport

Problems surrounding parental involvement in youth sport have received much attention in the international academic community. Most of the focus has surrounded the frequency and nature of parental verbal behaviour such as criticism, swearing and abuse. While such behaviour has the potential to exert a negative influence in youth sport, little is known about the socially constructed meaning of parental verbal behaviour. In other words, there is a current lack of understanding surrounding the social significance (or lack thereof) of parental comments, criticisms and abuse in the context of youth sport. Addressing this oversight is important given that parents and youth do not always share a common appreciation of parental involvement in sport. This paper reports on a study which sought to generate a greater understanding of parental involvement in the junior Australian football experience. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with parents and youth participants (n = 86) currently involved in a competitive Australian football season. Data were manually transcribed verbatim and subjected to a thematic analysis. The findings reveal how parents and youth attribute different social meaning to parental verbal behaviour during play, the breaks and the drive home. While youth appear to experience parental verbal behaviour in polarising ways, parents rationalise their own verbal behaviour and in doing so, contribute to a broader social reproduction of sport parenting behaviour.     

An international comparison of economic leading indicators of telecommunications traffic

The purpose of this paper is to draw international comparisons of the coherence of indexes of leading economic indicators with selected telecommunications traffic series. The traffic series under consideration are total Australian telephone outgoing and U.S. outgoing telephone to Australia with data consisting of monthly observations spanning the period 1970–1983. The response of the telecommunications traffic to these indexes is analysed using cross-spectral techniques. Additionally, a dynamic regression forecasting model for Australian traffic is estimated using the Australian index as an explanatory variable. In comparison to an ARIMA model for the telecommunications data this model reduces post-sample MSE by 19 percent.     

Technology choice and efficiency on Australian dairy farms*

Deregulation of the Australian dairy industry, specifically the removal of price subsidies to ‘market milk’, as well as ongoing drought in many dairy regions, has placed considerable pressure on farm cash income and a search for ways in which dairy farms can be made to operate more efficiently. Using traditional farm survey data and a unique biannual data set on farm technology use, this paper estimates a stochastic production frontier and technical efficiency model for dairy farms in New South Wales and Victoria, determining the relative importance of each input in dairy production, the effects of key technology variables on farm efficiency, and overall farm profiles based on the efficiency rankings of dairy producers. Results show that production exhibits constant returns to scale and although feed concentration and the number of cows milked at peak season matter, the key determinants of differences in dairy farm efficiency are the type of dairy shed used and the proportion of irrigated farm area. Overall farm profiles indicate that those in the ‘high efficiency group’ largely employ either rotary or swing‐over dairy shed technology and have almost three times the proportional amount of land under irrigation.     

Exploring the benefits of contact centre offshoring: a study of trends and practices for the Australian business sector

A globalised knowledge economy has seen organisations restructure their delivery of customer services to take advantage of an open and competitive labour market. Gains achieved in developed economies such as the USA and UK from offshoring of business processes to developing countries are pressuring Australian businesses to offshore. This paper explores the practices of Australian businesses with offshore contact centres and considers emerging trends in offshoring in terms of potential risks and benefits for Australian organisations with broad customer contact. Findings suggest that Australian organisations are not only cautiously adopting offshore contact centre solutions to a range of onshore challenges including recruitment and retention of local staff and comparatively high local costs, but also achieving gains beyond cost savings in quality of service and enhanced business flexibility.     

中国与澳大利亚西澳州矿业权管理比较及启示

矿业权问题涉及国家资源利益的实现,是各国矿产资源管理部门共同关心的焦点。澳大利亚是世界上重要的矿产资源生产国和出口国,而西澳州的矿权设置最为明确,相关的矿业制度制定的也比较完善。本文在分析矿业权发展,矿业权设立、管理、流转等基础上,提出完善我国矿业权管理的建议。     

Higher moments and beta asymmetry: evidence from Australia

We examine whether systematic higher moments capture beta asymmetry in an asset pricing model whereby the conditional beta of a risky asset increases (decreases) during a bear (bull) market state. We first provide a simple conceptual outline from the microeconomic literature to show that beta asymmetry is driven by time‐varying higher‐order risk preferences (prudence and temperance) across different market states. We then empirically relate these higher‐order risk preferences to systematic skewness and systematic kurtosis. We find that beta asymmetry in Australian stock returns cannot be explained by Carhart (1997) 4‐factor model but is subsumed by systematic higher moments.     

Organisational capabilities and the role of routines in the emergence of a modern life insurer: The story of the AMP

In 1954 the Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP) undertook a major organisational restructure. This reform provided the foundation upon which the Society was able to develop into a diversified financial intermediary in the following decades. This paper investigates the changing organisational structure within Australia's largest life insurer as it evolved from a branch structure to a multi-divisional form of management in the 1950s. The specialisation encouraged by the divisional system allowed the development of higher order routines upon which the executive could draw. The resulting growth and sophistication of the organisation in the late 1950s ensured higher order routines were able to develop to promote further development.     

Asset pricing and downside risk in the Australian share market

As downside risk has been identified as a separate risk exposure to investors, we investigate whether downside beta and co-skewness exposure impact on the return to investors in Australian equities. Although considered as a developed market, the Australian Securities Exchange merits separate investigation, as it is small and concentrated on some sectors, when compared with the major developed markets. As realized returns are a proxy for expected returns, we separately examine conditional returns in upturn and downturn periods. We find that both downside risks are separately priced by investors, and that our results are unaffected by the inclusion of a range of company characteristics. We subsequently confirm that returns to each downside risk are not related. In robustness tests, we conclude that the return to downside risk cannot be explained by a size, a value, or a momentum premium. Although it also has explanatory power, the inclusion of a leverage factor also does not reduce the explanatory power of downside risk.