Analysing seasonal changes in New Zealand's largest inbound market

The purpose of the paper is to analyse seasonal changes in tourism demand by New Zealand's major tourist source market, Australia, for the period 1979-2005. A time series regression model is used to test the significance of monthly seasonality. By examining sub-periods that are based on major exogenous events which have had significant impacts on international travel demand to New Zealand, seasonal distributions and intra-year seasonal variations over the 27-year period are subsequently estimated using normalized seasonal indices, coefficient of variation, seasonal ratio and the Gini coefficient. Compared with the findings of previous studies for other countries, the empirical evidence suggests that, while the tourism flow distribution or concentration is not significant for New Zealand, the seasonality in tourism demand by New Zealand's largest inbound market has changed over time

The business of social responsibility: Evidence from the garment industry in Northeast Thailand

Many business managers demonstrate a reluctance to engage fully with corporate social responsibility (CSR). They often perceive CSR as a cost and their CSR activities tend to be piecemeal and defensive. Such suboptimal outcomes can stem from a failure to appreciate a firm’s social assets. We suggest that firms have the potential to engage much more fully with CSR, in a manner that is consistent with a profit-maximizing approach to business. But managers need help in both gaining an awareness of the social contributions that they can make and in navigating their way through CSR issues. To this end, we outline a program of four-Ds, namely dialogue, data, design and delivery, to assist managers integrate CSR issues into their overall business strategies. Our case study of the garment industry in Thailand illustrates how CSR issues can be leveraged to increase worker productivity and deliver positive social and community health outcomes, despite operating in an area that is often subject to criticism

Migration, household composition and child welfare in rural Northeast Thailand

In many developing countries, the composition of rural households is influenced by the migration of adult household members to urban locations in search of employment. Children may be left in the care of their mother alone, or in the care of grandparents when both parents have migrated. Using representative data from a household survey conducted in rural Northeast Thailand in 2003, this paper investigates whether household composition has any effect on the welfare of children, as measured by anthropometric measurements including height-for-age, weight-for-age, and weight-for-height. Our findings suggest that household types other than nuclear families result in some significantly worse child nutritional outcomes. The implication is that governments should protect the welfare of the children of migrants, either through targeted programs or through increased opportunities for employment in rural areas

Time Series Forecasts of International Tourism Demand for Australia,

This paper examines stationary and nonstationary time series by formally testing for the presence of unit roots and seasonal unit roots prior to estimation, model selection and forecasting. Various Box-Jenkins Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models are estimated over the period 1975(1)-1989(4) for tourist arrivals to Australia from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and root mean squared error (RMSE) are used as measures of forecast accuracy. As the best fitting ARIMA model is found to have the lowest RMSE, it is used to obtain post-sample forecasts. Tourist arrivals data for 1990(1) to 1996(4) are compared with the forecast performance of the ARIMA model for each origin market. The fitted ARIMA model forecasts tourist arrivals from Singapore between 1990(1)-1996(4) very well. Although the ARIMA model outperforms the seasonal ARIMA models for Hong Kong and Malaysia, the forecast of tourist arrivals is not as accurate as in the case of Singapore.

"Modelling International Travel Demand from Singapore to Australia"

Prior to the recent Asian currency and economic crises, tourism from Asia had rapidly become Australia's major tourism export industry. Tourists from Singapore, which is Australia's fifth major market, represented 6% of international tourist arrivals to Australia in 1996. The average annual growth rate of tourist arrivals from Singapore of around 20% over 1990-96 far exceeded the 10.5% average annual percentage growth rate of all tourist arrivals to Australia over the same period (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1997). Despite the Asian currency and economic crises in 1997-98, tourist arrivals to Australia from Singapore has continued to grow slowly. It is imperative to consider the economic factors influencing international tourism demand for Australia by Singapore, and to undertake a sensitivity analysis of tourist arrivals to changes in the factors. The purpose of the paper is to estimate the income, price and transportation cost elasticities of inbound tourism from Singapore to Australia using seasonally unadjusted quarterly data. Initially, estimation is undertaken using ordinary least squares. Given New Zealand's proximity to Australia, it is also useful to determine using a single-equation model if Australia and New Zealand are substitute or complementary destinations for Singaporean tourists by examining the effects of the relative price changes in New Zealand and Australia on international travel demand for Australia. In addition, seasonal influences are examined using the single-equation model. The OLS estimates of the appropriate single-equation model are also compared with the estimates obtained using the cointegration method in Lim and McAleer (2001).

Household resources, household composition, and child nutritional outcomes

In many developing countries the composition of rural households is influenced by the migration of adult household members to urban locations in search of employment. Children may be left in the care of their mother alone, or in the care of grandparents when both parents have migrated. Using representative data from rural Northeast Thailand, this paper investigates whether household composition has any effect on the nutritional outcomes of children. Our findings suggest that household types other than nuclear families result in some significantly worse child nutritional outcomes. One implication is that governments should target programs to protect the welfare of the children of migrants in origin communities.migration, household composition, children, Thailand, Consumer/Household Economics, I12, O15, O18,

Human-centered Electric Prosthetic (HELP) Hand

Through a partnership with Indian non-profit Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti, we designed a functional, robust, and and low cost electrically powered prosthetic hand that communicates with unilateral, transradial, urban Indian amputees through a biointerface. The device uses compliant tendon actuation, a small linear servo, and a wearable garment outfitted with flex sensors to produce a device that, once placed inside a prosthetic glove, is anthropomorphic in both look and feel. The prosthesis was developed such that future groups can design for manufacturing and distribution in India

"Modelling Short and Long Haul Volatility in Japanese Tourist Arrivals to New Zealand and Taiwan"

This paper estimates the effects of short and long haul volatility (or risk) in monthly Japanese tourist arrivals to Taiwan and New Zealand , respectively. In order to model appropriately the volatilities of international tourist arrivals, we use symmetric and asymmetric conditional volatility models that are commonly used in financial econometrics, namely the GARCH (1,1), GJR (1,1) and EGARCH (1,1) models. The data series are for the period January 1997 to December 2007. The volatility estimates for the monthly growth in Japanese tourists to New Zealand and Taiwan are different, and indicate that the former has an asymmetric effect on risk from positive and negative shocks of equal magnitude, while the latter has no asymmetric effect. Moreover, there is a leverage effect in the monthly growth rate of Japanese tourists to New Zealand, whereby negative shocks increase volatility but positive shocks of very similar magnitude decrease volatility. These empirical results seem to be similar to a wide range of financial stock market prices, so that the models used in financial economics, and hence also the issues related to risk and leverage effects, are also applicable to international tourism flows.