An Empirical Examination of the Market Returns and Financial Performance of Entities Engaged in Sustainability Reporting

The importance of sustainability reporting to external stakeholders is reflected in the advent of various reporting guidelines and government inquiries. However, evidence of the inadequacy of such reporting, coupled with limited evidence of its use by market participants (such as investors and creditors) for resource-allocation decisions, raises questions about the overall value-relevance of sustainability reporting. This study seeks to identify, in the Australian context, whether the level of sustainable reporting is associated with a range of financial and market performance attributes of the firm.     

THE ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE: A LITERATURE SURVEY

Literature on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is examined, focussing on the possibility that the EKC may be explained by trade patterns. If significant, this trade effect would cast doubt on the oft‐stated conclusion that economic growth automatically leads to environmental improvement. Research has been insufficient, although a number of promising approaches have been developed. Although evidence on the pollution‐haven hypothesis is mixed, there is enough to suggest that the EKC development path may not be available to today's developing countries. Other problems cast doubt on whether the EKC exists in any relevant sense at all.     

Agricultural Policy Debate: A Survey*

A survey is provided of writings between 1978 and 1985 on or directly relevant to Australian agricultural policy. The areas covered are: background and overview; industry policy, including tariff compensation, home consumption price schemes. quotas, input subsidies and futures trading by marketing boards; stabilization; adjustment and the capital market; and macroeconomics and agriculture. An increasingly critical approach has been taken in identifying sources of inefficiency in agriculture and in considering ways of reducing them. Private interest explanations of policy descisions have received serious study and macroeconomic issues have received increasing attention.     

TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE: IS SOUTHERN AFRICA A POLLUTION HAVEN?

Evidence that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) may be explained by trade patterns casts doubt on the oft‐stated conclusion that economic growth automatically leads to environmental improvement. Trends in net exports as a proportion of consumption for both USA and UK trade with SACU were examined for various dirty industries. Some evidence of pollution haven effects is found, although a similar trend for clean industries suggests that this effect is weak. However, even a general shift in manufacturing industries from North to South (as opposed to a shift in specifically dirty industries) may explain the EKC to some extent.