Beyond the Australian Debt Dreamtime: Recognising Imbalances

Sadly, all the efforts of a generation of Australian men and women have only made them more indebted to the rest of the world. Australia’s external net wealth is negative, soon passing minus $900b on an accelerating downward trajectory. This ongoing dissipation of national resources is unsustainable. Australians live in a debt dreamtime, one from which the rest of the world has been rudely awakened. After years of inadequate policies, the nation has a large external debt and significant government exposures. Servicing pressures are growing as rising uncertainties permeate global credit markets. Reserve Bank policies are worsening Australia’s external position and needlessly driving up internal costs. Major policy rethinking is warranted. Relevant issues are still little considered, crowded out of dialogues by comforting myths that accompany the Australian Debt Dreamtime. Imbalances need proper recognition with new approaches and strategies developed. Automatic corrections will not occur as history and current overseas experiences demonstrate. A real awakening, improved positioning and a touch of luck are required if Australians are to avoid being seriously impoverished by world events and their own confused Dreaming.balance of payments, monetary policy, open economy, government, Australia

Asleep at the wheel: the real interest rate experience in Australia

Real interest rates have been unsustainably high in Australia for a generation, yet it seems no one has noticed. A most important change has gone unmonitored. Historically high real interest rate, examined here in terms of the variable housing loan rate, now exceed increases in the returns from production and complicate remediation of pervasive problems. Significant external problems have arisen as the nation has expended more than it produced, and borrowed to service the gap. Issues raised in this paper deserve critical attention, and new policies. Constructive dialogues and new thinking are needed if Australia is to successfully move beyond current debts and difficulties.

Sugar Supply Chains and Regional Development

The coastal Queensland regions are heavily dependent upon the sugar industry and are likely to remain so. The interplay between sugar industry and regional development is little understood beyond the historical record. Yet current reform proposals place great store on regional initiatives to rejuvenate both sugar and its host communities. Such proposals are at best naïve as will be seen in this paper. A key feature of sugar and like industries is a high degree of supply chain interdependence which is embedded in place and time. Reflecting this, sugar regions have a more diverse skills mix and a more advanced manufacturing and services capability than many other agriculturally-oriented regions, notably broadacre grain and beef. Central to the emergence of such a regional industrial structure are inter-industry transactions. These will be considered in both an input-output framework and from a transactions cost basis. Associated insights point to the inadequacy and likely failure of initiatives based on current “efficiency/productivity‿ thinking. Alternative ways to view the industry are discussed along with a recommendation that those involved with sugar regionally revisit current plans

Regions Between Theory & Reality: Agricultural Policy and its Impacts in Australia

This paper seeks to explain why rural policy based upon market economics cannot deliver appropriate rural policies to Australia in the 21st century. It also discusses why environmental policy and rural policy are on a collision course. Regions lie unappreciated in the middle. Three key themes are developed: • Rural policy is still entrenched in the policy debate of the third quarter of last century and cannot meet the policy needs of a rural sector in the twenty first century. • Environmental, conservation and resource depletion impacts of the production process are excluded from input pricing constructs of CGE modelling and of policy so informed. • In 1995 ratification by member countries of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture moved international trade in agriculture to a rules based system. Australia remains clinging to the Cairns Group agenda from the 1980s. For Australian regions the impacts have been varied but are often manifestly severe as can be seen from available statistics. If Australian regions are to develop to their due potential the roles of agriculture in regional development needs to be comprehensively and critically understood. Historically many Australian regions have advanced using agriculture and, we are told, this may occur again. Turning what are presently little more than pious hopes into successful regional realities requires considered, consistent policy and appropriately coordinated actions

On International Agricultural Trade Reform

Despite over a decade of talks on reform, agriculture remains the most highly subsidised sector in the world economy. The aim in this paper is to consider international agricultural trade reform. A review of the literature on international agricultural trade reform reveals several dominant themes. The first concerns the influences of national interests, both domestically and internationally. The domestic positions of the USA and the EU are seen by many to dominate international policy. A second theme centres on the argument that trade reform is good. This position is highly contested in the literature and policy debates with both sides appearing strongly supported. A third theme is the prospects for further trade reform and international negotiations. How the Uruguay Round has advanced, or failed to advance, international trade is one issue. Subsequently, examining the future of Doha and other negotiations post Cancun raises important issues about multilateral, bilateral and other approaches

A Practical Introduction to Stata

This document provides an introduction to the use of Stata. It is designed to be an overview rather than a comprehensive guide, aimed at covering the basic tools necessary for econometric analysis. Topics covered include data management, graphing, regression analysis, binary outcomes, ordered and multinominal regression, time series and panel data. Stata commands are shown in the context of practical examples.Stata, econometric analysis, data management, regression analysis, graphing, binary outcomes

Articulating Principals, Agents and Institutions in the EU

Principal agent problems arise frequently in situations of interdependence. Europe, with its various arrangements, is replete with principal agent problems that are mediated by institutions at various levels. While issues of water and land can provide a convenient focus, the essential problem is a deeper one. Decision making in principal agent situations has traditionally been considered in only a limited way. Current agency approaches seek to orient the interests of agents to those of the principal. More generalised formulations experience difficulties in reconciling interests. This is apparent not only in two-party forms but even more so in three-part(y) ones. In n-party environments things may appear to become simpler as n increases, but the problem may remain. An innovative exploration of a principal-agent situation which uses object-based concepts and simulations is presented in this paper. Different patterns of agent commitment are seen when it is applied to a European context. Suitable reconceptualisation of agency theory appears to have wide implications and applications. Its further development will allow more adequate specification of agency situations with immediate implications for policy and practice not only in Europe but in nations and regions around the world.

The Dilemma of Democracy: Collusion and the State of Exception

<p>In what sense might the authoritarian practices and suspension of legal norms as means to combat the supposed threat of “terrorism,” within and by contemporary western democratic states, be understood as a problem <em>of </em>and not <em>for </em>democracy? That question lies at the heart of this article. It will be explored through the theoretical frame offered in the work of Giorgio Agamben on the <em>state of exception</em> and the example of British state collusion in non-state violence in the North of Ireland.</p> <p>The North of Ireland provides a particularly illuminating case study to explore how the state of exception—the suspension of law and of legal norms and the exercise of arbitrary decision—has increasingly become a paradigm of contemporary governance. In so doing it brings into question not only the traditional conceptualization of the “democratic dilemma” of liberal democratic states “confronting terrorism” but also challenge dominant paradigms of transitional justice that generally fail to problematize the liberal democratic order.</p> <p>After outlining Agamben’s understanding of the state of exception <em></em>the article will chart the development of “exceptional measures” and the creation of a permanent state of emergency in the North, before critically exploring the role of collusion as an aspect of counter-insurgency during the recent conflict. The paper will argue that the normalization of exceptional measures, combined with the need to delimit the explicitness of constitutional provision for the same, provided a context for the emergence of collusion as a paradigm case for the increasing replication of colonial practices into the core activity of the contemporary democratic state.</p

Still Unequal at Birth: Birth Weight, Socio-economic Status and Outcomes at Age 9

The prevalence of low birth weight is an important aspect of public health which has been linked to increased risk of infant death, increased cost of care, and a range of later life outcomes. Using data from a new Irish cohort study, I document the relationship between birth weight and socio-economic status. The association of maternal education with birth weight does not appear to be due to the timing of birth or complications during pregnancy, even controlling for a wide range of background characteristics. However, results do suggest intergenerational persistence in the transmission of poor early life conditions. Birth weight predicts a number of outcomes at age 9, including test scores, hospital stays and health. An advantage of the data is that I am able to control for a number of typically unmeasured variables. I determine whether parental investments (as measured by the quality of interaction with the child, parenting style, or school quality) mediate the association between birth weight and later indicators. For test scores, there is evidence of non-linearity, and boys are more adversely affected than girls. I also consider whether there are heterogeneous effects by ability using quantile regression. These results are consistent with a literature which finds that there is a causal relationship between early life conditions and later outcomes