Environmentalising Economic Development: a South East Asian Perspective

South Asia's pursuit of economic development has entailed considerable damage to and exposed the fragility of the physical environment of the region like elsewhere in the developing world. South Asia is beset with a number of environmental problems. This paper provides an analytical overview of the of the environmental problems that manifest themselves in South Asia in a comparative perspective with East and Southeast Asian countries as well as selected developed market economies. It is argued that to-date, South Asian development process has been environment-intensive and that environmental problems may set serious constraints to sustain growth in production to feed its growing population. The paper underscores the need for environmentalesque-type process innovation to reverse the trend of high environment-intensity in South Asian development.

Kinerja Pelayanan Perijinan pada Kantor Pelayanan Terpadu (KTP) di Kabupaten Gorontalo

Licensing service performance is one form of service that often gets complaints from the public so that the community demands for better services. In addition to long- winded bureaucratic chain, arrogant bureaucrats, not the professionals, ultimateTy money. Its also no stranger to public service in the country when it imaged as a source of corruption. Thus, if the sting that should be public service in this cointry difficult to access by the poor, and becomes the trigger high-cost economy that ultimastely burden the macro economic performance, public burden, become embedded in our bureaucracy The results of this study indicate that the Licensing Service Performonce in lntegrated Services Ofice (OPT) Gorontalo regency on service disription Letter Business License (SIGU) can be said to be good, because almost all the indicators used in this study to asseess the performance of Licensing Services at the Office of Integrated services (oPT) Gorontalo regency, indicating satisfaction of tha servici user community. Contribulions and benefits that can be learned from this research is in the form of input for the Integrated Service Office (OpT) Gorontalo regency to be able to improve performance in holding licenses and permits, particularly in the service of non Permit Business Interruption (SIGU) in order to realize a quality service Keyword : Service Performance,quaIity, satisfoction Keyword : Service Performance,quaIity, satisfoctio

Do instructional attributes pose multicollinearity problems? An empirical exploration

It is commonly perceived that variables ‘measuring’ different dimensions of teaching (construed as instructional attributes) used in student evaluation of teaching (SET) questionnaires are so highly correlated that they pose a serious multicollinearity problem for quantitative analysis including regression analysis. Using nearly 12000 individual student responses to SET questionnaires and ten key dimensions of teaching and 25 courses at various undergraduate and postgraduate levels for multiple years at a large Australian university, this paper investigates whether this is indeed the case and if so under what circumstances. This paper tests this proposition first by examining variance inflation factors (VIFs), across courses, levels and over time using individual responses; and secondly by using class averages. In the first instance, the paper finds no sustainable evidence of multicollinearity. While, there were one or two isolated cases of VIFs marginally exceeding the conservative threshold of 5, in no cases did the VIFs for any of the instructional attributes come anywhere close to the high threshold value of 10. In the second instance, however, the paper finds that the attributes are highly correlated as all the VIFs exceed 10. These findings have two implications: (a) given the ordinal nature of the data ordered probit analysis using individual student responses can be employed to quantify the impact of instructional attributes on TEVAL score; (b) Data based on class averages cannot be used for probit analysis. An illustrative exercise using level 2 undergraduate courses data suggests higher TEVAL scores depend first and foremost on improving explanation, presentation, and organization of lecture materials.Multicollinearity, variance inflation factor, instructional attributes, threshold, Australia

Demand for M2 in Developing Countries: An Empirical Panel Investigation

A significant body of literature on developed countries support the view that disequilibrium in the money market can affect the future output gap and/or inflation. This paper examines the major determinants of the demand for real money balances in eight developing countries for which consistent annual time series data are available. Pooling cross-country and time series data for the 1979-1999 periods and employing the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) estimation technique, this paper models a standard money demand function. Various country-specific coefficients are allowed to capture inter-country heterogeneities. Consistent with theoretical postulates, this paper finds that the demand for money positively responds to an increase in real income and negatively to a rise in the interest rate spread, the rate of inflation and the US long-term interest rate. This study supports the hypothesis that disequilibrium in the money market can exacerbate inflation and widen the output gap.Demand for Money, Money and Interest Rate Spread, Panel Data,

Demand for M2 in Developing Countries: An Empirical Panel Investigation

A significant body of literature on developed countries support the view that disequilibrium in the money market can affect the future output gap and/or inflation. This paper examines the major determinants of the demand for real money balances in eight developing countries for which consistent annual time series data are available. Pooling cross-country and time series data for the 1979-1999 period and employing the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) estimation technique, this paper models a standard money demand function. Various country-specific coefficients are allowed to capture inter-country heterogeneities. Consistent with theoretical postulates, this paper finds that the demand for money positively responds to an increase in real income and negatively to a rise in the interest rate spread, the rate of inflation and the US long-term interest rate. This study supports the hypothesis that disequilibrium in the money market can exacerbate inflation and widen the output gap.Demand for Money, Money and Interest Rate Spread, Panel Data,

ANALISIS HIRA (HAZARD IDENTIFICATION AND RISK ASSESSMENT) PADA INDUSTRI TAHU SERASI BANDUNGAN BARU SEMARANG

HIRA adalah salah satu metode penilaian risiko yang dapat digunakan untuk menilai bahaya yang dapat menimbulkan risiko terbesar dengan mempertimbangkan seberapa besar kemungkinan terjadi dan seberapa besar dampak yang dapat terjadi. Industri Tahu Serasi Bandungan Baru merupkan salah satu usaha sektor informal yang memiliki potensi bahaya pada lingkungan kerja dan proses kerjanya. Penilitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi potensi bahaya, melakukan penilaian risiko, menggambarkan pengendalian bahaya yang sudah ada dan merekomendasikan upaya pengendalian bahaya untuk mengurangi risiko kecelakaan kerja. Penelitian ini dilakukan di dua lokasi pembuatanTahu Serasi Bandungan Baru. Lokasi pertama merupakan lokasi tempat produksi dan pemasaran tahu, sehingga pengunjung dapat melihat langsung proses pembuatan tahu. Sedangkan pada lokasi kedua hanya digunakan sebagai tempat produksi saja. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif pendekatan deskriptif (explanatory research) dengan jumlah responden 14 orang yang terdiri dari 12 informan utama dan 2 orang informan triangulasi. Dengan tiap lokasi terdiri dari 6 informan utama dan 1 informan triangulasi. Proses kerja pada industri tahu ini dibagi kedalam dua kelompok bagian yaitu bagian serabutan dan bagian penggilingan. Berdasarkan penelitian ditemukan beberapa potensi bahaya yaitu pegal-pegal, Lantai licin, terjepit alat press, tertimpa alat press, tertimpa pemberat press, terkena jamur, tekena sari kedelai panas, terkena asap pembakaran, tersengat arus listrik, kebisingan dan kebakaran. Upaya pengendalian yang sudah dilakukan Industri Tahu Serasi bandungan Baru yaitu dengan memberikan jam istirahat dan pemberian APD kepada pegawai. Kata Kunci: HIRA, lingkungan kerja, proses kerja, identifikasi bahaya, penilaian risiko, upaya pengendalia

Assessing eco-environmental performance of agricultural production in OECD countries: combination of soil surface, soil system and farm gate methods of nutrient auditing

Nitrogen balance is increasingly used as an indicator of the environmental performance of agricultural sector in national, international, and global contexts. There are three main methods of accounting the national nitrogen balance: farm gate, soil surface, and soil system. OECD (2008) recently reported the nitrogen and phosphorus balances for member countries for the 1985 - 2004 period using the soil surface method. The farm gate and soil system methods were also used in some international projects. Some studies have provided the comparison among these methods and the conclusion is mixed. The motivation of this present paper was to combine these three methods to provide a more detailed auditing of the nitrogen balance and flows for national agricultural production. In addition, the present paper also provided a new strategy of using reliable international and national data sources to calculate nitrogen balance using the farm gate method. The empirical study focused on the nitrogen balance of OECD countries for the period from 1985 to 2003. The N surplus sent to the total environment of OECD surged dramatically in early 1980s, gradually decreased during 1990s but exhibited an increasing trends in early 2000s. The overall N efficiency however fluctuated without a clear increasing trend. The eco-environmental ranking shows that Australia and Ireland were the worst while Korea and Greece were the best.

Factors That Affect Teaching Scores in Economics Instruction: Analysis of Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) Data

This paper explores the factors that affect students’ evaluations of economics instructions using a sample of over 2400 completed questionnaires at a large Australian university. Ordered probit analysis is used to determine the changes in the predicted probability of teaching evaluation (TEVAL) scores with variations, amongst other things, in students’ perceptions of the quality of presentation; explanation and organization of lecture material; and helping students improve their learning skills. Analyses of the comparative importance of the relationships both for undergraduate and postgraduate courses reveal significant differences across levels of the undergraduate program but little differences in students’ responses in higher level undergraduate and postgraduate instructions. One disturbing finding is that a key variable, namely emphasis on thinking rather than memorizing (THINKMEM) has little or no substantive impact on TEVAL. Thus the implication is that high TEVALs can be achieved at the cost of some critically important factors in teaching and learning. Consequently, those using just TEVAL score to evaluate teaching need to look closely at other factors of critical importance.

Development Of Gene Deleted Recombinant Pseudorabies Virus

The glycoprotein E (gE) and thymidine kinase (TK) genes are virulence-associated genes of pseudorabies virus (PrV). The study conducted was to shut down the gE gene from an established local TK defective (TK¯) PrV strain (TK¯gE+PrV). The ultimate aim of the study was to develop a gene-deleted recombinant PrV with useful identification markers. A gE gene-deleted pseudorabies virus (TK¯gE¯PrV) was constructed by homologous recombinational techniques. The TK¯gE+PrV, regarded as the parental strain in the study, originated from a virulent local PrV isolate (TK+gE+PrV). Prior to the construction of the TK¯gE¯PrV, the gE of the parental strain was amplified, cloned and studied. Comparative sequence analysis showed that the gE sequence of TK¯gE+PrV was closely identical (98 %) to a Chinese Ea strain. The 10 nucleotide variations at nucleotide positions 237, 931, 1207, 1409, 1501, 1530, 1549, 1555, 1682 and 1842, led to six amino acids substitutions at amino acid residues 403 (