ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF REGULATIONS TO PRESERVE NATIVE WOODLAND ON PRIVATE PROPERTY: A CASE STUDY IN THE HUNTER VALLEY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Australian policies to preserve native vegetation on farms rest on mandatory regulations without compensation, whereas policies in most OECD countries rest on voluntary conservation with compensation. In New South Wales, the Native Vegetation Conservation Act 1998 restricts farmers from clearing native vegetation on their own freehold land, and offers no compensation. The Act may therefore impose opportunity costs, or losses in income, on landholders. These opportunity costs are estimated for a case study property in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, and these results are then generalised to assess the broad trade-offs between development and preservation. The losses in income appear to vary between 5 and 10 per cent of annual income, depending on livestock prices. The flow of these losses over time appears to total some $26m for all properties of this kind in the immediate region. In addition to imposition of these direct opportunity costs, the regulations hinder land sales and so hinder adjustment by landholders to changing conditions.Native vegetation, environmental preservation, opportunity cost., Land Economics/Use,

One-loop renormalisation of general N=1/2 supersymmetric gauge theory

We investigate the one-loop renormalisability of a general N=1/2 supersymmetric gauge theory coupled to chiral matter, and show the existence of an N=1/2 supersymmetric SU(N)xU(1) theory which is renormalisable at one loop.Comment: 30 pages, including 8 figures. Plain TeX. Uses Harvmac and eps

Entrepreneurship as nexus of change: the syncretistic production of the future

This paper deals with the issue of how the future is created and the mechanisms through which it is produced and conceived. Key to this process appears to be social interaction and how it is used to bring about change. Examining the entrepreneurial context by qualitative longitudinal research techniques, the study considers the situations of three entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that the web of relationships in which individuals are engaged provide the opportunity to enact the environment in new ways, thus producing organizations for the future. It further provides empirical evidence for a Heideggerian reading of strategy-as-practice, extending this conceptualization to account for the temporal dimension

COBRA Subsidies for Laid-Off Workers: An Initial Report Card

Reviews the implementation of the government subsidy of COBRA health insurance premiums for laid-off workers in the 2009 stimulus package and its effects on COBRA enrollment and medical spending. Considers policy implications for access and affordability

Federal Subsidy for Laid-Off Workers' Health Insurance: A First Year's Report Card for the New COBRA Premium Assistance

Analyzes how the subsidy for laid-off workers' costs to continue their health coverage, included in the 2009 stimulus bill, affected enrollment. Considers determining factors, implications of health reform for extending the subsidy, and lessons learned

Constructional Volcanic Edifices on Mercury: Candidates and Hypotheses of Formation

Mercury, a planet with a predominantly volcanic crust, has perplexingly few, if any, constructional volcanic edifices, despite their common occurrence on other solar system bodies with volcanic histories. Using image and topographical data from the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, we describe two small (< 15 km‐diameter) prominences with shallow summit depressions associated with volcanically flooded impact features. We offer both volcanic and impact‐related interpretations for their formation, and then compare these landforms with volcanic features on Earth and the Moon. Though we cannot definitively conclude that these landforms are volcanic, the paucity of constructional volcanic edifices on Mercury is intriguing in itself. We suggest that this lack is because volcanic eruptions with sufficiently low eruption volumes, rates, and flow lengths, suitable for edifice construction, were highly spatiotemporally restricted during Mercury's geological history. We suggest that volcanic edifices may preferentially occur in association with late‐stage, post‐impact effusive volcanic deposits. The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury will be able to investigate further our candidate volcanic edifices, search for other, as‐yet unrecognized edifices beneath the detection limits of MESSENGER data, and test our hypothesis that edifice construction is favored by late‐stage, low‐volume effusive eruptions