Can the Australian exchange rate still be considered a commodity based currency?

The Australian dollar is considered a commodity-based currency, with the high level of primary commodity exports in Australia’s trade balance given as an explanation. Key studies have concluded that Australia’s terms of trade are a primary driver of the real exchange rate based on a comparative advantage trade model. These studies have been undertaken at an aggregate level where changes in the terms of trade have been assumed as a given. Since the Australian economy was deregulated in the early 1980s, there have been dramatic changes in the structure of the economy. Australia’s trading activity has grown and now contributes more within the domestic economy. Similarly the structure and contribution of key imports and exports has also evolved. Furthermore the role of the traded goods and services balance and the income balance within the Australian current account balance has also changed, with a significant change occurring in 2003/04. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly it establishes whether the relationship between the Australian exchange rate and terms of trade has changed in response to changes in the role of the traded goods and services sector within the Australian current account balance. Secondly the paper disaggregates the movements in the terms of trade to establish what role its various components have on the wider relationship between the Australian exchange rate and the terms of trade. The paper concludes that despite substantial changes in the structure and nature of the current account balance and the traded goods and services sector, the Australian exchange rate still responds to changes in the terms of trade as if it is still a commodity-based currency and economy.Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade,

Organic Upland Beef and Sheep Production

The technical guide addresses the issues relevant to the organic beef and sheep sector, acknowledging the questions that are frequently directed to the technical ‘Helpline’ of Organic Centre Wales. It draws on the experience of the ADAS Research Farm at Pwllpeiran and is intended as a guide for those with an interest in organic beef and sheep production production. This guide is in three interrelated parts. The first part deals primarily with technical issues of grassland and beef and sheep management, and provides practical information for farmers on key factors influencing the performance of the system. The upland organic unit at ADAS Pwllpeiran in mid-Wales was set up in 1993 to examine the feasibility of organic beef and sheep production in the hill situation. The organic unit at Pwllpeiran ADAS research farm located in the Cambrian Mountains Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) of mid-Wales has 237.5 ha, of which 111 ha achieved full organic status in 1995 and a further 126 ha was added in 2004. There is a suckler herd of Welsh Black cows and a breeding flock of Hardy Speckled Face ewes and Texel crosses. Annual average rainfal at 300 metres was 1765 mm, compared to over 2500 mm at 550 metres. Between 1993 and 2001, work focused on the feasibility of organic livestock production in the hills. With EAGGF Objective 5b funding, the unit was compared with the rest of the farm in terms of grassland productivity, livestock and financial per formance. Since 2001, the focus has been on key problems for organic upland farmers, particularly livestock health and welfare. Methods of internal and ectoparasite control, feeding to organic standards and maintaining the quality of forage by reseeding upland pastures have been investigated. Part 2 is a review of the financial performance of organic beef and sheep farming in Wales, provided by Andrew Jackson, of the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales Aberystwyth. It is based mainly on two DEFRA funded studies: • Data for organic farms extracted from the main Farm Business Survey in Wales • A four year project focusing specifically on organic farms, drawing on all Farm Business Survey data collected for organic farms across England and Wales as well as independently collected data. From these data, it is possible to derive whole farm income data, gross margin and cost of production data to give an overview of the economics of organic dairy farming in Wales for the latest recorded financial periods (2004/05) The third and final part consists of 2 farmer case studies, which put many of the issues discussed in parts 1 and 2 in the context of individual farm businesses. We are grateful for the co-operation of Blaen y Nant and Cannon Farm

Export prices, terms of trade, real exchange rate and structural changes in the Australian economy

Australia has long been considered a commodity-based economy, with reliance on a few primary export commodities a key reason. Structural change in the economy since the mid-1980s has seen a growing role of the traded sector within the Australian economy, with expansion in both the export and import sector. A sustained price-led boom from 2003 to 2008 in Australian export commodities has triggered discussion around the Gregory thesis and wider Dutch Disease theory. This thesis examines the impact of the price-led boom and the longer-term structural change on the Australian economy, manufacturing sector (at an aggregate and disaggregate level), and the real exchange rate. The key conclusions are: (i) that the aggregate manufacturing sector was impacted by the mineral export-price boom, although not as expected; (ii) at a disaggregate level there are differences in how the boom impacted each manufacturing sub-sector; (iii) underlying structural change in the Australian economy and OECD manufacturing remains an important influence on Australian manufacturing; and, (iv) despite these structural changes, the underlying co-integrated relationship between the terms of trade and real exchange rate is largely unchanged. The role of underlying structural change within the economy is an important consideration for policy makers and future research opportunities

The clustering of galaxies in the SWIRE survey

Despite the coherent cosmological framework provided by the λCDM model that astronomers have to work within, there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding galaxy formation and evolution. Measuring the clustering of galaxies can provide information about the different environments that different types of galaxies reside in. Also, measuring the clustering of similar samples of galaxies at different redshifts can provide insights into how galaxies have evolved over time. Previous clustering analyses, particularly at high redshift, have often been restricted to galaxy samples which are small, selected on observable properties and/or contain an unknown mixture of different spectral types. Small samples lead to limited statistics and the inability to break the sample into interesting subsamples based on properties, e.g. by luminosity or star formation rate. Selecting samples based on observable properties leads to varying intrinsic properties with redshift and hence makes interpreting the evolution of clustering difficult. Mixing spectral types makes it impossible to separate the contribution to the clustering signal from early and late-type galaxies which tend to cluster very differently. This thesis overcomes some of the limitations of earlier clustering analyses by using the Spitzer Wide area InfraRed Extragalactic (SWIRE) photometric redshift catalogue of Rowan-Robinson et al.(2008) to measure the clustering of galaxies. The SWIRE catalogues covered multiple fields and large volumes providing large samples of galaxies over 0.1 < z < 1.5. The template fitting procedure also provides spectral classifications as well as intrinsic properties such as stellar mass and star formation rate estimates. The clustering of elliptical and spiral galaxies detected in SWIRE is measured as a function of stellar mass over 0.1 ≤ z ≤ 1.5. The clustering of spiral galaxies selected on star formation rate is also investigated over the same redshift range. Such measurements can help constrain theories of galaxy evolution. Another Spitzer dataset, the dark field, is used in an attempt to place one of the first observational constraints on the detection rate of population III supernovae. The dark field is an extragalactic data set with repeat imaging on a monthly basis over a baseline of approximately 2 years. The unprecedented depth and multi-epochal nature of this data makes it ideal for a first foray into trying to detect supernovae from the first stars

Imperial citizenship or else: liberal ideals and the Indian unmaking of empire, 1890-1919

This article examines three connected campaigns for Indian imperial citizenship which spanned the period 1890 to 1919, and their impact on the emergence of radical South Asian anticolonialism. It shifts our focus from individuals and ideologues who sought the status of British imperial citizens, to address the agitations which commenced to attain such a status within a reconstructed British Empire. Specific attention is paid to the conditions which encouraged South Asian patriots to imagine that the ideal of equal imperial citizenship within an imperial federation was a feasible political objective, to the illiberal official retreat from such an ideal, and to the political ramifications of this retreat. In conclusion, this article argues that the quest for Indian imperial citizenship, which spanned the Empire from South Africa to Canada, has been a much-neglected chapter in the evolution of anti-colonial nationalism in South Asia which deserves to be reinserted in the grand meta-narrative of the region’s 20th century history