Demand for Wildlife Hunting in British Columbia

We present estimates of the demand for hunting licenses by residents and non residents in British Columbia for the period 1971–2000. We obtain estimates of both short-run and long- run price elasticities and discuss their revenue implications for future fee increases. We find the demand by non residents to be strongly correlated with U.S. income variation over the business cycle, but find no such role for cyclical income variation for resident hunters. The ability of the government to increase revenues from resident hunters turns out to be limited, particularly in the long run, while greater opportunities exist to raise revenues from U.S. hunters as short- and long-run price elasticities of demand are quite inelastic. We argue that conservation surcharges on foreign hunters are one way to capture more of the resource rent.recreation demand, resource revenues and rent capture, conservation surcharges

Demand for Wildlife Hunting in British Columbia

We present estimates of the demand for hunting licenses by residents and non residents in British Columbia for the period 1971–2000. We obtain estimates of both short-run and long-run price elasticities and discuss their revenue implications for future fee increases. We further find the demand by non residents to be strongly correlated with U.S. income variation over the business cycle; however, we find no such role for cyclical income variation for resident hunters. Finally, we demonstrate that hunters respond differently to conservation surcharges on hunting licenses relative to direct licensing charges, which has implications for policy makers introducing environmental surcharges in various contexts.recreation demand, environmental surcharges, resource revenues and rent capture

Divergence between WTA and WTP Revisited: Livestock Grazing on Public Range

The research reported here provides further empirical support for the contention that there is a divergence between WTA and WTP. The conclusion is based on results from a 2002 survey of Nevada ranchers that asked about willingness to pay for public forage and WTA compensation to part with grazing rights. WTP and WTA are estimated simultaneously, with the estimators used to demonstrate a statistically significant divergence between WTP and WTA. The simultaneous estimation allows us to identify ranch characteristics that influence the discrepancy in valuations. Ranch size, public grazing allotment, financial distress, and long term commitment to ranching are all significant influences on the disparity. We interpret these results both with respect to general differences in welfare measures and with respect to ranch policy.contingent valuation methods, dichotomous choice surveys, WTA versus WTP, grazing rights and public forage

Forecasting Australian Economic Activity Using Leading Indicators

This paper examines the contribution leading indicators can make to forecasting measures of real activity in Australia. In a policy context, we are interested in forecasting the levels or growth of policy relevant variables throughout the cycle. We are less interested in forecasting turning points in the cycle or in forecasting coincident indices, which are subjectively defined overall measures of economic activity. This gives us a different focus to much of the recent work done in this area. We use a simple forecasting framework (bivariate VARs) to compare the Westpac-Melbourne Institute (WM), NATSTAT and ABS leading indices’ predictive performance for real GDP, employment and unemployment in Australia. Within sample we find all three indices help predict all of the activity variables, although with varying leads. Out of sample evidence, however, is weaker. Within our framework, we only find evidence in favour of the WM index when used to forecast GDP. Otherwise, the indices do not make any substantive contribution to forecast quality. To gauge the usefulness of the simple bivariate VAR models, we compare the out of sample forecasts of GDP, using the WM index, to those from a single equation structural model due to Gruen and Shuetrim (1994). Over a forecasting sample of relatively stable growth, the WM index model performs quite well relative to the Gruen and Shuetrim model. Over a longer forecasting sample period, one which includes the downturn in the early 1990s, there is some evidence that the WM index model performs relatively poorly.forecasting; leading indices

Consumption and Wealth

Two remarkable features of the Australian economy over recent years have been strong growth in private consumption expenditure and household wealth. This paper examines the relationship between consumption and wealth in an effort to better understand aggregate consumption behaviour. We find a reasonably robust steady-state relationship between non-durables consumption, labour income and aggregate household wealth for the period 1988:Q4–1999:Q3. Based upon this relationship, an increase in per capita wealth of one dollar is eventually associated with a rise in annual non-durables consumption of approximately four cents. We also find that changes in both non-financial and financial assets have significant effects on consumption. Above-trend growth of wealth in recent years has contributed significantly to growth in consumption over this time. A further noteworthy result concerns the recent demutualisations and share floats in Australia; perhaps surprisingly, we find no evidence that these events had a significant effect on consumption growth. Finally, we place our results within the broader empirical literature and examine whether they are consistent with standard economic theories of consumption.consumption; life-cycle hypothesis; wealth

A Structural Vector Autoregression Model of Monetary Policy in Australia

This paper examines the effects of monetary policy in Australia using a small structural vector autoregression model. The model we use is a modification of the small open economy model developed for the G6 economies (the G7 less the United States) by Kim and Roubini (1999). The success of the Kim and Roubini model across these economies makes it a natural starting point to analyse monetary policy in Australia. Consistent with Kim and Roubini, we find no evidence of the price or exchange rate puzzles identified in the literature. We demonstrate that, in the Australian context, modelling the interdependence between the domestic interest rate, the foreign interest rate and the nominal exchange rate is critical to resolving these puzzles. Further, we demonstrate that the Kim and Roubini model can be further usefully refined when applied to the Australian data. We use the model to perform various monetary policy experiments and the results of these experiments accord well with both the existing SVAR literature and previous empirical work for Australia. We find that monetary policy shocks have a delayed and gradual effect on the price level and a small temporary effect on output. We also use the model to examine the effects of shocks to the Australian economy and the role of monetary policy in response to these shocks. Generally, we find that monetary policy has served to dampen both output and price fluctuations. A qualifying aspect of our results is the model’s instability, for example, around the most recent change in the implementation of monetary policy in Australia.exchange rates; monetary transmission mechanism; structural vector autoregressions

Understanding OECD Output Correlations

This paper develops an empirical model of the cross-country variation in bilateral output growth correlations for 17 OECD countries. Consideration is given to the role played by explicit mechanisms for transmitting shocks between countries, such as trade in goods and financial assets and the coordination of monetary policy between countries. In addition we identify a number of country characteristics and institutions (including measures of legal origin, accounting standards, and the speed of take-up of new technology) that appear to lead countries to respond similarly to economic shocks. Both transmission mechanisms and common country characteristics have a role to play in explaining output correlations. When we use our empirical results to help to explain the strong correlation observed between Australian and US output growth, we conclude that trade between the two countries is not sufficiently important to account for much of the correlation. Nor does the similarity of monetary policies make much of a contribution. Our results instead suggest that it is the similarity of economic characteristics and institutions that explains much of the observed correlation between Australian and US output growth.business cycle correlations; international economic integration

Public Capital and Private Production in Australia

Addresses the question of causality between public capital and private production in Australia. Representations for private production; Long-run elasticities; Short-run dynamics; Relationship between public capital and employment

Public Capital and Private Production in Australia

Addresses the question of causality between public capital and private production in Australia. Representations for private production; Long-run elasticities; Short-run dynamics; Relationship between public capital and employment

Extending semantic long-term knowledge on the basis of episodic short-term knowledge

Voss I, Wachsmuth I. Extending semantic long-term knowledge on the basis of episodic short-term knowledge. In: Schmalhofer F, Young RM, Katz G, eds. Proceedings of the EuroCogSci03. Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2003: 445-445