Economic Integration, Sovereignty and Identity: New Zealand in the Global Economy

Markets are becoming more integrated. Whilst governments have limited influence over this process, they can hasten or hinder the pace of integration and will need to respond to the implications of integration. This paper provides a framework for thinking about the benefits and costs of market integration. It analyses how cross border flows of goods, services, capital and labour affect the living standards of New Zealanders in terms of both productivity and incomes as well as other, broader, aspects of living standards. Particular attention is paid to the areas of spatial economic analysis and national sovereignty and identity. Governments must consider a number of factors when thinking about their stance on integration. Further economic integration promises economic benefits for New Zealanders in terms of greater productivity and higher incomes. One risk, however, is that with increasingly free factor flows, government pursuit of integration may increase the risk of activity relocating offshore. The evidence on the overall effect of integration on income distribution is unclear, however we do know that there will be winners and losers. Decision-making power and feelings of identity seem to be important components of well-being - integration brings with it both risks and opportunities in these areas, as pressure is put on traditional forms of governance and identity, and new forms develop. Deciding how the costs and benefits of integration stack up ultimately involves a number of value judgements - the paper provides a framework and a summary of empirical evidence to help inform those judgements.

Cultural and creative activity satellite accounts, Australia 2013

In Australia and internationally, there is strong interest in the role of ‘cultural’ and ‘creative’ activity in the economy, such as highlighted recently by Australia’s National Cultural Policy, Creative Australia. These terms are often used to describe activities connected with the arts, media, heritage, design, fashion and information technology. To advance the development of economic measures for these activities, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has conducted a study on the feasibility of producing cultural and creative activity satellite accounts for Australia. The feasibility study concludes it is possible for the ABS to construct Australian cultural and creative activity satellite accounts with a reasonable level of quality using currently available data. The purpose of this discussion paper is to present the findings of the study and invite comment on the proposed approach, data and investment priorities. The feasibility study was undertaken in consultation with federal and state government organisations comprising the Cultural Ministers’ Statistics Working Group, and with Australian academics

Labour Migration and Development: ILO Moving Forward

[Excerpt] This document has been prepared for the Tripartite Technical Meeting on Labour Migration, to be held in Geneva from 4 to 8 November 2013. The goal of the Meeting, as identified by the ILO Governing Body in March 2013, is to enable the Organization “to assess the outcome of the United Nations General Assembly High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development … and consider possible areas for ILO follow-up”. This paper highlights the key challenges and opportunities in this regard, “bearing in mind the changing landscape of international labour migration and its implications for the world of work, and the findings of the assessment of the ILO’s response, including in respect of the Multilateral Framework”. It draws on research carried out within the ILO and elsewhere, and earlier policy guidance provided by the ILO’s tripartite constituency

An overview of the involvement of women in fisheries activities in Oceania

Role of women, Fisheries, Oceania,

Globalisation and Shortages of Skilled Labour in Pacific Island Countries: A Case Study of Australia

During the past two decades, the Australian economy has experienced fundamental changes influenced by the increasing propagation of globalisation. Globalising forces have reduced barriers to labour mobility across countries and economies. Concurrently there has been an increase in the importance of the ‘knowledge economy’ and thus the demand for highly skilled workers. The combination of these factors has increased the competition for highly skilled workers across national economies and in particular among Pacific Island countries (such as New Zealand and Fiji) in which the domestic demand for highly skilled labour outstrips the available domestic supply. The primary objective of this article is to analyse the impact of globalisation on the Australian labour market with a focus on shortages of skilled labour in Australia. The paper also examines the implications of shortages of skilled labour for other Pacific Island countries and suggests policy initiatives in this area.

Competitiveness and innovativeness of the EU dairy industry

This study provides the methodology to measure competitiveness and an assessment of the European dairy industry’s competitiveness and innovativeness. Several studies on competitiveness of industries are weakly theoretically founded, descriptive of nature or do not provide an overall assessment of all indicators used. This study provides an integrated and quantitative approach. The EU dairy industry competitiveness turned out to be weak. Policy projections show that modest improvements for the EU are possible by abolition of the quota system. A unique database on innovations in the dairy industry has been compiled. The number of innovation per firms’ size classes follows the production value and employment. Small firms are as innovative as large firms measured as innovation per billion turnove

The Declining Share of Agricultural Employment in the People\u27s Republic of China: How Fast?

From 1962 to 2013, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) agricultural employment share declined from 82% to 31%. The transfer of workers out of low-productivity agriculture is a fundamental pillar of the PRC’s aspirations to progress and eventually become a high-income economy. We hypothesize that the drivers of this decline have been the increase in income per capita, industrial value added, foreign direct investment, and domestic credit. We use an Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model to test the strong exogeneity of the regressors so that we can use it for forecasting. Results indicate that the share of employment in agriculture in the PRC will decline to about 24% by 2020, the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020). We also estimate that the PRC’s employment share will reach 5%, the share observed in today’s rich economies, by 2042–2048

Prosper. An evaluation of tourism's contribution to regional economies

Prosper has delivered a three part model for assessing and enhancing the value of tourism in regional areas. The first part of the model uses simple indicators to provide an assessment of the economic, social, and environmental value attached to tourism. An indicators approach was adopted following extensive review of the application of more complex approaches to regional economic analysis. The review found that complex approaches are unlikely to produce results of sufficient validity and applicability to warrant their high resource costs (time, money, and skills). Complex models are also more difficult to maintain. The economic value is represented through quantitative indicators relating to employment and the number of businesses in tourism related sectors. These are all relative indicators (for example, proportion of all businesses which are businesses in the tourism sector or proportion of change in employment that can be attributed to change in tourism related employment). These indicators are drawn from national data sets which provide information for statistical local areas and/or postcode areas. This offers the opportunity to develop and deliver consistent national profiles through a vehicle such as Decipher. National standard data sets are supplemented in the model by more qualitative assessments of tourism’s contribution to the local economy made by business operators through interviews or surveys. Again, tracking the change in these assessments over time is the key to the model. Social and environmental values are substantially more difficult to assess. The Prosper case studies have included qualitative assessments derived from business and community meetings, local government and other administrative documents, media and a simplified network analysis identifying the extent to which community based organisations interact with the delivery of tourism services. Data sets have been identified which would allow a quantitative analysis of the extent to which tourism activity (visitor movements, business activity, business construction) encroaches on environmentally sensitive areas or is responsible for redevelopment or preservation of built environments. The case studies have not been able to implement this quantitative analysis. The second part of the model conducts a ‘diagnostic’ assessment of the capacity in the region to harness the value of tourism through innovation. Innovation is seen as a very important mechanism for both identifying regional issues and developing responses to those issues. Innovation is widely accepted in the literature as a driver of economic growth, and concepts such as ‘systems of innovation’ and ‘regional systems of innovation’ have become common in understanding how that innovation can be encouraged and placed within technical or geographical contexts. The diagnostic element of the Prosper model uses a series of techniques (including historical document analysis, interviews, and network analysis) to investigate the characteristics of region’s human tourism resources in relation to their ‘innovation potential’. Innovation potential is influenced by: • Economic competence – the extent to which those resources include capacity to manage projects and implement new ideas; • Clustering of resources – the spatial relationships between tourism attractions and amenities and nontourism amenities and resources which may be critical in the delivery of tourism product; • Networks – the social and professional relationships between tourism attractions and amenities and nontourism amenities and resources which may be critical in the delivery of tourism product; • Development blocks – the existence of sufficient new resources or new ways of looking at existing resources to provide opportunities for innovation. Development blocks need also to be a source of tension or disequilibrium so that their use is contested and therefore options more likely to be scrutinized as to their viability; • Entrepreneurship – the capacity for human resources to engage in new tasks and drive activity; • Critical mass – the relationship between the capacity to supply tourism product, and the capacity to access sufficient and appropriate markets (including resident markets) to support ongoing supply; • Local government – the extent to which local government considers tourism an important issue and is willing to engage in the innovation process • Production and distribution of knowledge – the extent to which the history and current status of tourism is understood and communicated, and the degree to which stakeholders can access and apply new information for identifying the potential or need for change, assessing the viability of projects, and evaluating activities; • Social, political and cultural capital – the strength of the social, political and cultural environments, and the degree to which those environments can be effectively harnessed to support tourism innovation. The third part of the model uses ‘visioning’ techniques (drawing in part on experiences from Sustainable Tourism CRC projects on ‘Gold Coast Visioning’ led by Professor Bill Faulkner at Griffith University, and research by Walker, Lee, Goddard, Kelly & Pedersen, 2005) to engage stakeholders in developing strategies for identifying tourism value issues (based on the community awareness of the value of tourism, aspirations for enhancing value, and strategies for addressing deficiencies in innovation potential). A number of processes are available for applying visioning techniques. Our case studies typically involved community leaders accepting ownership of the results of the application of the first components of the model and, in a facilitated or nonfacilitated way, delivering these results broadly through the community. In some cases, strategies emerged entirely from within the region, while in others, the research team was further engaged to collate strategy suggestions and summarise the arguments attached to these suggestions. In most cases, the final case study write-up included reference to suggestions which appeared likely to be carried forward. The Prosper model was tested in thirteen case studies, not simply to establish whether the relationships hypothesized between innovation potential and harnessing the value of tourism could be observed, but also to establish to extent to which participating regions viewed the application of the model as important and worthwhile in their attempts to move forward. The case studies were a mix of five new studies conducted using the Prosper model in a direct way and meta-analysis of eight previous case studies. The short time frame for the research (2 and ½ years) and the relatively long term nature of change made it impossible to design the research to evaluate the success of the strategies developed or any specific innovations in new case studies, so the metaanalysis studies were significant in this respect. The case studies strongly supported the second part of the model in particular, and the research served as an influential tool for many of the case study communities who were able to implement programs of value monitoring (through quantitative or qualitative means), identify ways in which their systems of innovation could be strengthened, and develop context specific mechanisms for identifying and assessing the feasibility of tourism development proposals. The research has delivered a number of outputs which may be used in dissemination and commercialisation of the intellectual property. A stand-alone publication reviewing the applicability of various economic value assessment techniques to regional tourism has been produced. A quick guide to the Prosper model and assessing whether application of the model would assist a particular region has been drafted, and is slated for development in collaboration with Sustainable Tourism CRC. A detailed methodology specification has been prepared, and may be used as the basis of consulting services or the conduct of further case studies. The quantitative data sets (Census, Sensis, TTF employment analysis, labour force statistics etc.) may be made available through Decipher and included in a structured Decipher product which facilitates analysis and interpretation. A book containing research results of the thirteen case studies and an overview of the relationship between those case studies and the Prosper model has been edited by Dean Carson and Dr Jim Macbeth and has been submitted to the Sustainable Tourism CRC editorial team led by Professor Chris Cooper at the University of Queensland

The chimera of competitiveness: varieties of capitalism and the economic crisis

In this paper we assess the different definitions and theories of economic competitiveness at the firm and national levels. First we contrast the theories of classical liberal economists with those of the German historical school of national economics, noting the importance of the historical school for theories of national economic competitiveness. Drawing on the comparative political economy literature on ‘varieties of capitalism’, we hen discuss the factors underlying competitiveness in social market economies, social democratic economies, and liberal economies. These models f capitalism are compared under six headings: labour markets and labour market institutions; financial markets; corporate funding and governance; inter-firm relations; the role of the state; and economic culture and history. In the penultimate section of the paper we discuss how the different odels of capitalism have responded to the economic crisis and the impact of the crisis on their economic competitiveness. The paper concludes with a summary of the key points to emerge from the analysis and looks to how the scene may evolve as national economies begin to adapt

International migration in a sea of islands: Challenges and opportunities for insular Pacific spaces

Our contribution to the International Conference “Connecting Worlds: Emigration, Immigration and Development in Insular Spaces”, held in the Azores between 28 and 30 May 2008, examines contemporary mobility of Pacific peoples in a transnational context with reference to processes of out-migration, return, re-migration and the complex systems of circular mobility between island countries as well as to and from countries on the Pacific rim. There are some significant differences between parts of the Pacific region in terms of the access their peoples have to work and residence opportunities outside their island countries. These are reviewed with reference to some major challenges for development in the region: rapid growth of youthful populations; high levels of unemployment; limited markets for local produce; unsustainable levels of extraction of timber, fish and mineral resources; changing climates; and unstable governance systems in some countries