The growth of agricultural administration 1880-1900 : the dairy industry as a test case : thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University

No historical writer is likely to deny that the growth of a relatively intensive administration was an integral part of the total Liberal achievement. Nevertheless, little enough research has been done on the nature of governmental growth in this period. Gibbons and Brooking have performed some of the spadework in this field and this thesis will attempt to slightly broaden and deepen the enquiry. 1 Sea Gibbons, P.J. "'Turning Tramps into Taxpayers' – The Department of Labour and the Casual Labourer in the 1890's", unpublished M.A. thesis, Massey University, Palmerston North, 1970; and T.W.H. Brooking, "Sir John McKenzie and the Origins and Growth of the Department of Agriculture, 1391-1900", unpublished M.A. thesis, Massey University, Palmerston North, 1972. It is particularly in the explanation of Liberal administrative growth, comparable only with that experienced in the early years of the first Labour Government, that the hypothesis developed below will take a different course. Gibbons on the Labour Department, and Brooking on the Department of Agriculture, have emphasized the role of personalities, especially master bureaucrats, in their explanations of the massive quantitative and qualitative growth that the Liberal period of government (1891-1911) witnessed. The zealot Tregear, it would seem, successfully applied his peculiar bureaucratic ethic during those years of the 1890's when his idealism and effective control of the Labour Department existed in a relationship which enabled him to provide his conscious contribution to the "administrative revolution" then taking place. J.D. Rtitchie, Brooking suggests, was only able to work his unobstrusive revolution once he was under the supervision of T.Y. Duncan and R. McNab, both decidedly weaker Ministers of Agriculture than Sir John McKenzie. [From Introduction

Who Joins Trade Unions? : Testing New Sociological Explanations

Peer reviewedPostprin

Aspects of the impacts of mouse (Mus musculus) control on skinks in Auckland, New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Conservation Biology at Massey University

Conservation in New Zealand has a strong focus on pest control and eradication. However,a growing number of eradication attempts have failed to extirpate, or prevent reinvasions of house mice (Mus musculus). This thesis experimentally examined aspects of lizard ecology in relation to mice and the use of brodifacoum for mouse control. Shore skinks (Oligosoma smithi) were surveyed in three grids under different levels of mouse control (long term. LT, short term, ST and uncontrolled. UC). Skink capture rates, demographics and body condition were recorded on a monthly basis (November 2006 to June 2007). Skink capture rates were highest in the LT and lowest in the UC grid. Twice as many juveniles were caught in the LT than ST and UC sites: however proportions of neonates were not significantly different. Proportions of recaptured skinks within LT and UC grids peaked in February, whereas the ST grid showed peaks corresponding with troughs in mouse abundance. Mice were snap-trapped and gut contents were analysed from 50 per month (February to May). Skink remains were identified from 14 mice. Impacts of brodifacoum on shore skinks in situ as well as rainbow skinks (Lampropholis delicata) in captivity were investigated. Skink visitation rates to brodifacoum bait stations were quantified using tracking cards. Skinks were assessed for signs of ill health. Shore skink tracking rates reached 81% One skink was observed consuming bait directly. Rainbow skinks showed higher tracking rates inside stations without bait than baited. Neither species indicated any sign of ill health. Captive rainbow skinks were supplied with brodifacoum cereal blocks or brodifacoum-loaded mealworms. Rainbow skinks were not observed to directly ingest brodifacoum and showed no affects on weight gain or behaviour. Results suggest that mice are predators of skinks. particularly during and shortly after skink birthing period. This has important implications for mainland conservation efforts where mice are more difficult to control, and particularly for rare and cryptic lizard species. Native lizards may be significant vectors of brodifacoum. where they are abundant. Although mouse eradications should be attempted when possible, further research into acute toxicity and sub-lethal effects of brodifacoum is urgently required

Off-balance sheet banking

Letters of credit ; Loan sales ; Bank loans ; Off balance sheet financing

Acquisitions in banking

Bank mergers

Are bank loans special?

Bank loans ; Bank supervision ; Banks and banking

RAROC Based Capital Budgeting and Performance Evaluation: A Case Study of Bank Capital Allocation

This paper describes the RAROC system developed at Bank of America (B of A) in order to examine how risk-based capital allocation models work. I begin by discussing the economic rational for allocating capital in a diversified organization like the B of A. Drawing on recent work by Froot and Stein (1995) and Stein (1996), I argue that the capital budgeting process used by the B of A resembles the operation of an internal capital market in which businesses are allocated capital with the objective of mitigating the costs of external financing. Viewing the capital budgeting process in this way is useful because it suggests that a businesses contribution to the overall variability of the cash flows of the bank will be an important factor in evaluating the risk of (and the capital allocated to) a specific business unit. In addition, since RAROC systems are used both for capital budgeting and management compensation, the measures of risk are designed to limit rent seeking and influence activities by division managers, Next, given the theoretical background, I provide a detailed look at how the RAROC capital allocation and performance evaluation system works at B of A. The primary objective of B of A's system is to assign equity capital to business units (and ultimately to individual credits) so each business unit has the same cost of equity capital. This process implies that investments in riskier projects or business units (measured by the projects contribution to the overall volatility of the market value of the bank) will be required to use less leverage than investments in less risky business units. This paper was presented at the Financial Institutions Center's October 1996 conference on "

The economic consequences of a hung parliament : lessons from February 1974

The British general election on 10 May 2010 delivered Britain’s first hung Parliament since February 1974, and in the run-up, the Conservative Party made much of the economic difficulties Britain faced in the second half of the 1970s in order to try and convince voters that anything other than a Tory vote would risk exposing the nation to the discipline of financial markets. The question of how well equipped an exceptional kind of British government is to deal with exceptional economic circumstances is therefore of paramount importance. This paper argues that the Conservative Party made too much of the impact of the 1974 hung Parliament in precipitating subsequent economic crisis and suggests that as such, there is no reason to assume that the Conservative-Liberal coalition government is ill-equipped to manage British economic affairs in difficult circumstances