A Richer Understanding of Australia’s Productivity Performance in the 1990s: Improved estimates based upon firm-level panel data

Australia’s productivity performance is characterized by important differences across continuing firms, frequent entry of new firms, and substantial exit of firms which, for one reason or another, decide to cease production. These basic facts call into question the appropriateness of measuring productivity using an aggregate production function that is based upon a representative firm. This study relaxes the standard assumptions that industries are comprised of a set of homogeneous firms, the set of which are constant over time. Instead, we apply a semi-parametric production to continue production. The model controls for the relationship between productivity shocks and input choices and the inter-relationship between these and the decision to continue production. Using the Business Longitudinal Survey we estimate an improved set of production functions for twenty-five two-digit industries in Australia. We use these results to examine aggregate industry-level productivity performance. We use a new aggregation method in calculating these changes which allows us to separate productivity changes and output composition changes which sheds new light on industry-level productivity performance in Australia.Firm-level production function estimation, multi-factor productivity, semiparametric estimation, Australian economic performance

Measuring Regulatory Restrictions in Logistics Services

This study measures the extent of restrictions on trade in logistics services in the ASEAN+6 economies by constructing a logistics regulatory restrictiveness index for each economy that quantifies the extent of government regulations faced by logistics service providers. This is the first study of its kind to construct a regulatory index of the entire logistics sector, which includes the main modes of international transport and customs restrictions. The indices show that large differences exist in the logistics regulatory environment of ASEAN+6 economies. Many of these economies are open to trade in logistics services, while others are relatively restrictive. Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines and Vietnam are the most restrictive economies of logistics services in this region. Relatively, Singapore and Australia are the most open economies for trade in logistics services, along with Japan and New Zealand. Preliminary investigations find evidence of negative relationships between logistics regulatory restrictiveness and logistics sector performance, as measured by the World Bank's Logistics Performance Index and its sub-components. These findings support that notion that a less restricted trade environment results in better performance for the logistics sector.Logistics, Transport, Government Regulation, Trade, East Asia

The Pragmatics Of Politeness As Expressed By Native Arabic-Speaking English Learners

The research question addressed in this project was, what are the areas of pragmatic difficulty for adult, native Arabic-speaking English learners when expressing politeness in English in ESL settings? Research of literature on the topic, accounts by cultural informants, and the author’s observations as an instructor of adult, native Arabic- speaking ELs informed five areas targeted for lessons in a pragmatics education seminar designed for this group—compliments, requests, inter-familial communication, communication between the sexes, and euphemisms. The author documents the details of the seminar lessons, which use a variety of student-centered instruction based on authentic language samples as advocated by researchers Wiggins and McTighe, Bardovi- Harlig and Mahan-Taylor, Knowles, and Parrish. The potential benefits and drawbackswhen implementing the seminar are weighed by the author who concludes that the academic exercise was a worthwhile endeavor with the potential to lessen the occasion of pragmatic error among the targeted group—adult, native Arabic-speaking English learners. Research to back the author’s conviction is cited

The use of holographic interferometry for measurements of temperature in a rectangular heat pipe

Holographic interferometry is a nonintrusive method and as such possesses considerable advantages such as not disturbing the velocity and temperature field by creating obstacles which would alter the flow field. These optical methods have disadvantages as well. Holography, as one of the interferometry methods, retains the accuracy of older methods, and at the same time eliminates the system error of participating components. The holographic interferometry consists of comparing the objective beam with the reference beam and observing the difference in lengths of optical paths, which can be observed during the propagation of the light through a medium with locally varying refractive index. Thus, change in refractive index can be observed as a family of nonintersecting surfaces in space (wave fronts). The object of the investigation was a rectangular heat pipe. The goal was to measure temperatures in the heat pipe, which yields data for computer code or model assessment. The results were obtained by calculating the temperatures by means of finite fringes

Saint Joseph and Baby Jesus by Valentin Metzinger and Other Paintings from the Strahl Collection in the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb

Karl Ritter von Strahl (1850−1929) was the last owner of the renowned collection of paintings and art objects kept in his castle of Stara Loka (Altenlack) near Škofja Loka in Carniola. In 1929, Strahl sold 32 paintings to Stanko Senečić, an antique dealer from Nova Ves in Zagreb. In the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, there are five paintings of hitherto unknown provenance, which undoubtedly originate from the Strahl Collection. The paper discusses the circumstances of Senečić’ s purchase and the earlier provenance of the five paintings. Furthermore, different paths by which the paintings came to the museum in Zagreb are analyzed. As previous research of the interwar art market in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia) has shown that Croatian private buyers and professional antique dealers visited regularly the sales of castle and manor furnishings in interwar Slovenia, we can assume that there are more art heritage items originating from Slovenia in present-day Croatian public and private collections, awaiting an analysis of their provenance

Thinking with Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research

Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research is a direct challenge to long held traditional forms of qualitative data analysis. Defining analysis methods like coding and thematic analysis to be reductive and simplistic, Jackson and Mazzei offer an alternative account of data analysis by “plugging-in” six poststructural theorists to data. Through interviews of two first generation academic women, Jackson and Mazzei demonstrate how researchers can employ complex theories to analyze data without relying upon traditional methods. The insightful, clear, and, at times, profound, findings of Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research demonstrates the need for researchers to reexamine the continued reign of traditional forms of data analysis in the contexts of modern social life

A Richer Understanding of Australia’s Productivity Performance in the 1990s: Improved estimates based upon firm-level panel data

Australia’s productivity performance is characterized by important differences across continuing firms, frequent entry of new firms, and substantial exit of firms which, for one reason or another, decide to cease production. These basic facts call into question the appropriateness of measuring productivity using an aggregate production function that is based upon a representative firm. This study relaxes the standard assumptions that industries are comprised of a set of homogeneous firms, the set of which are constant over time. Instead, we apply a semi-parametric production to continue production. The model controls for the relationship between productivity shocks and input choices and the inter-relationship between these and the decision to continue production. Using the Business Longitudinal Survey we estimate an improved set of production functions for twenty-five two-digit industries in Australia. We use these results to examine aggregate industry-level productivity performance. We use a new aggregation method in calculating these changes which allows us to separate productivity changes and output composition changes which sheds new light on industry-level productivity performance in Australia

Applied Qualitative Data Analysis After the Ontological Turn

In this article we demonstrate the use and usefulness of new materialism as an analytic lens in applied qualitative inquiry. Intended as a possible entry point to applied inquiry after the ontological turn, we draw on Barad’s agential realism to analyze three existing transcripts of focus groups conducted with healthcare workers, traditional birth attendants, and mothers to explore the postnatal care referral behavior of traditional birth attendants in Nigeria. We describe elements of our data analysis process including deep reading, summoning of the inquiry, delaying the inquiry, attuning to glowing data, and writing. We explore how the research phenomenon enacted agential cuts that distinguished participants (healthcare workers, traditional birth attendants, and mothers) and relayed their participation in the focus group. We show how the inclusion of the mothers’ babies and the transcripts themselves made available some understandings at the possible exclusion of others. Our Baradian, new materialist analysis shows the inextricability of interview materials (things) and language (discourse) and demonstrates that all applied research is bounded and affected by its material conditions. As a point of entry, we hope our illustration sensitizes applied qualitative researchers to how research decisions, research materials, and research cultures produce what can be known and lived within and beyond the research encounter