Reform of the Electricity Supply Industry

Electricity markets around the world are becoming more competitive, partly in response to technological changes. Successful restructuring requires an understanding of the sources of monopoly power in the industry, and separation of competitive from natural monopoly elements. Competitive wholesale electricity markets require transparent regulatory and cross-subsidy mechanisms. Such changes in turn make public ownership less relevant for protecting consumers. Competitive markets are also more risky for owners, and governments are not ideally suited to financing large and very risky business ventures. The arguments are illustrated by reference to the reforms undertaken in Australia in the last decade.

Rational Expectations and the Foreign Exchange Market

Many models of exchange rate determination imply that movements in money supplies and demands should result in movements in exchange rates. Hence, if rational agents are attempting to forecast exchange rate movements, they should in the first instance forecast movements in the supplies of and demands for money balances. Furthermore, if these underlying variables follow some stable autoregressive processes agents should use those processes to make their forecasts. If we identify the forward rate with the market's expectation for the future spot rate, rationality of expectations will imply testable cross-equation restrictions in a joint model of the autoregressions and exchange rate forecasting equation. This strategy is implemented in the paper using data on the L UK/$US and DM/$US exchange rates from the recent floating rate period.

Inside Money and Monetary Neutrality

This paper examines the interaction between the financial and real sectors of the economy within the framework of a stochastic, rational expectation model that distinguishes between inside and outside money. The model also can be used to study the impact of variations in the degree of intermediation, measured by the elasticity of bank deposit supply. In contrast to earlier work which emphasized confusion between monetary and real shocks, we focus on the role played by confusion between inside and outside money and temporary and permanent base money disturbances. Financial sector disturbances, as well as temporary shocks tothe monetary base, are shown to have real effects even when private agents have complete information. When contemporaneous information on economic disturbances is incomplete, permanent shocks to the monetary base also have real effects. If our model is correct, it is invalid to reject equilibrium models of the business cycle on the grounds that anticipated money affects output. We argue that this result is robust in the sense that many "reasonable" models which incorporate inside money would yield a non-neutrality of portfolio and temporary base money supply shocks.

Financial intermediation, monetary policy, and equilibrium business cycles

Business cycles ; Monetary theory ; Financial institutions

Macroeconomic fluctuations in Europe: demand or supply, permanent or temporary?

We use generalized method of moments to estimate a rational expectations aggregate demand-aggregate supply macroeconomic model for five European economies. Our aim is to examine whether supply or demand shocks have predominated in the major European economies during the post-war era and whether shocks of either type have been primarily temporary or permanent in nature. The estimation procedure is an alternative to estimating and interpreting vector autoregressions under restrictions either of the Bernanke-Sims variety or the Blanchard-Quah variety or to performing calibration exercises. ; We find that all four types of shocks (permanent supply, permanent demand, temporary supply, and temporary demand) are needed to account for the data on output and inflation. Permanent or temporary demand shocks have been the dominant source of variance in output growth in four of the five countries, but there is no consistent pattern for inflation.Business cycles ; Econometric models ; Europe ; Macroeconomics

Sand-storage dams : an alternate method of rural water supply in Namibia

Bibliography: leaves 95-99.The costs of establishing and installing a borehole are high, ranging from R 57 000 to R 180 000 depending on the depth of hole drilled and type of pump installed (DR WS, 1996). Because of these high costs, the Namibian Government has historically taken responsibility for the provision, operation and maintenance of rural water supply. However, in accordance with the principles advocated in the country's new Water and Sanitation Policy (WASP), an emphasis has been placed on shifting this responsibility to the communities utilising these water supplies (DWA, 1993). In April 1997, the Directorate of Rural Water Supply (DRWS) implemented a programme for the "Community Management of Rural Water Supply". This programme is to be phased in over nine years and during this time rural communities are expected to gradually take over full responsibility for the operation and maintenance costs of their water supply. In the final stage of this programme it is envisioned that these communities will be required to replace broken equipment, and provide new installations themselves (DR WS, 1996). Expecting rural communities to pay for the full cost recovery of their water supply will result in obvious socio-economic impacts on these communities (Sekhesa, 1997). However, the present reliance of many rural communities on groundwater resources gives them little alternative but to accept responsibility for the high costs associated with boreholes. This dissertation therefore, aims at assessing the feasibility of developing sand-storage dams as an alternate supply of water in the rural areas of Namibia

'The Catherine Wheel'

This case study describes the consultancy experiences of targeting motivational climate within a youth performance hockey academy. Written from the perspective of a trainee sport and exercise psychologist, the theoretical and philosophical frameworks which guided the consultancy are described and justified, whilst discussing the unexpected challenges associated with consultancy implementation. The consultancy is evaluated with reference to lessons learnt, whilst also highlighting key reflexive and developmental considerations for the supervision and development of trainees and experienced practitioners alike

Developing Academic Strategic Alliances: Reconciling Multiple Institutional Cultures, Policies, and Practices

Colleges and universities have often been required to evolve in response to shifting societal priorities. Over the past century, this occurred in the context of an ever-expanding system of higher education built with a substantial investment of public money. If society needed more professional programs, institutions added them. In the current context, however, the expectation of institutional accountability remains undiminished despite an increasingly resource-constrained environment. This places colleges and universities in a double bind. They are expected to address society\u27s needs, yet they often do not have the resources to respond to them. Our institutions of higher learning are limited in the ways they can generate additional capital, and efforts to free resources by reducing administrative overhead and reallocating responsibilities have often produced pyrrhic victories (Eckel, 2003)

Portable Multi-Megapixel Camera with Real-Time Recording and Playback

We are interested in the problem of automatically tracking football players, subject to the constraint that only one vantage point is available. Tracking algorithms benefit from seeing the entire playing field, as one does not have to worry about object