Green Power schemes offer electricity generated by recently constructed renewable energy sources to customers for a higher price than ordinary electricity. This study examines the place of Green Power in the electricity supply industry and among policies to counter global warming, the demand and supply characteristics of Green Power, its effectiveness and measures which could increase its sales. Although growing rapidly, Green Power sales are less than 0.5% of total electricity sales in Australia. The wide variation in market penetration between jurisdictions and between countries for Green Power, the discrepancies between stated willingness-to-pay surveys and actual sales and the low awareness of Green Power found by surveys indicate that Green Power sales could be increased by appropriate marketing and government policies. A sample of 250 pooled time series and cross sectional observations was used to estimate a statistically significant elasticity of demand for residential customers for Green Power with respect to price of -0.96. Green Power schemes appear not to be necessarily loss-making activities for retailers. There has been ample generating capacity for Green Power to meet the growing sales to customers to date. The most cost effective means to increase sales was found to be advertising campaigns such as the campaign in Victoria in 2005. It was also found that full tax deductibility of the Green Power premium to residential customers, an exemption of the Green Power premium from the Goods and Services Tax and a tax rebate for Green Power are probably less cost-effective for promoting sales than direct government purchase of Green Power in terms of cost of policy per unit of increased sales. Green Power plays a small but important role as one amongst a number of climate change policies and the potential of this role is yet to be fully realised.

The proposition that a relatively new technology such as a Differential Evolutionary Algorithm (DEA) can violate the weak form of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis is tested using daily data from the Australian share market from 2000 until 2008. An options trading strategy based on forecasts from a DEA is shown to perform better than a buy and hold strategy over parts of the sample space and, on average, over all of it. The paper concludes speculators may make supernormal profits from new methodologies however that such profits are unlikely to be sustained.

The proposition that a relatively new technology such as a differential evolutionary algorithm (DEA) can violate the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis is tested using daily data from the Australian share market from 2000 until 2008. An option trading strategy based on forecasts from a DEA is shown to perform better than a buy and hold strategy over parts of the sample space and, on average, over all of it. Speculators may make supernormal profits using new methodologies however such profits are unlikely to be sustained.

This study investigates whether large Australian companies use their political power to lower their effective tax rates (ETRs) over and above their political costs. It also tests whether there is an industry effect on ETRs for the mining and financial industries in Australia. This study expands the current research into the effect of political power on ETRs by incorporating other tax rate theories. Using 402 mature Australian public companies over a 13-year period the study applies three separate tests to profitable companies.
Firstly, we employ panel data analysis to examine changes in the ETR of 55 profitable companies over the 2000-2012 periods. Secondly, we use cross-sectional analysis to ascertain the relationship that the effect can be seen over a long period by using panel data testing methodology between company size and ETR for profitable companies on a year-by-year basis. Finally, we assess various tax-rate theories by examining the ETR paid by the profitable public companies in 2012.
Out findings from this study provide evidence that there is a consistent negative relationship between company size and ETRs. We suggest, that further research incorporating the use of qualitative data would be needed to counter the effect of political costs on individual companies and industries.

The nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant in 1986 is described and a summary of its immediate effects on people and the environment outlined. Then there is a summary of the important parts of the literature on diseases and deaths resulting from radiation and mortalities to date and the way mortality data became increasingly conservative over the years is discussed. Today, there is still uncertainty about future mortalities due to long latency periods for many cancers however cancer deaths in Chernobyl affected regions are expected to be similar to non-Chernobyl controls. The major literature on environmental effects on wild species, forests, water and agricultural land are then reported with a brief discussion of remediation work and of current trends. Finally, contemporary perceptions of the Chernobyl accident are described in the context of popular anti-nuclear sentiment that prevailed in 1986, the immense publicity surrounding the accident and the natural tendency of people to exaggerate prospects of unlikely, yet extreme, events.

Financial viability remains a matter of acute concern for Australian local government. Efforts to improve local government sustainability in Australian local government have focussed principally on structural change - primarily through forced amalgamation – which is directed at generating savings by exploiting economies of scale. However, empirical evidence on the existence of substantial scale economies across the range of municipal functions is mixed and inconclusive. In general, in debates over structural reform in Australian local government, claims by proponents of amalgamation that significant economies of scale will inevitably emerge as a consequence of larger merged councils are typically not accompanied by econometric modelling or indeed any other empirical evidence. This thesis argues that much of the existing empirical literature relating to the optimal size of local government is plagued by methodological flaws. Accordingly, it cannot be used to justify compulsory consolidation programs based on increasing the population size of local government entities. This conclusion is reached after examining the implications of these flaws on the question of optimal size in Australian local government. Recent innovations in the empirical analysis of municipal size and performance are considered. Using these developments, it is argued that future structural reform programs must be assessed by employing a range of techniques that take account of regulatory priorities, citizen preferences and projected outcomes.

Quantitative research of local government financial management reform in a developing country, focussed on the measurement of international technical assistance contributions, promised to be a useful practical addition to the literature and of practical assistance to reform assessment. There is an abundance of public sector financial management reform literature, but it is most often qualitative and does not provide an analysis of the real financial impact of technical assistance, especially in the international public sector financial management reform field. Gaining an understanding of the real financial condition and performance improvements of target organisations, as a fundamental success measure of success, is more important than qualitative assessments simply of process improvement. South African local government financial management reform provided a unique research opportunity. Extensive technical assistance over many years to its municipalities, including some with international expert advisors for long periods, provided a research sample of municipalities with and without experts for comparison. A World Bank-sponsored local government financial management technical assistance program (known as MFMTAP), commencing in early 2003 and concluding in May 2008, provided a research opportunity that was witness to financial management outcomes prior to, during and post the program. Research techniques developed during the research and outcomes would be useful for evaluating the MFMTAP post completion, and might support monitoring and evaluation of similar programs in other developing countries.

There are four main objectives for success in reducing the problems from climate change by increasing the concern with a better understanding of more effective policies for sustainable development of ethanol production by cassava as an alternative energy source in Thailand. The first objective is to examine the agri-business systems of cassava production for producing ethanol as an alternative energy source and to identify types of smallholders who might decide to become involved in contract farming for cassava production. Participation in contracts under agricultural cooperatives in cassava production is based on verbal agreement between farmers and agricultural cooperatives and a written contractual agreement between agricultural cooperatives and ethanol processors. Four categories of smallholders were identified based on ownership of land and assets. The second objective is to evaluate the factors affecting contract farming. Results of examination using Linear Probability, Probit and Logit models show human capital, physical assets, production costs, credit access and agricultural groups are important factors in participation in contracts. Most wealthy smallholders face high transaction costs and hence they are willing to participate in contracting. However, lower-income smallholders, who also faced high transaction costs, were not interested in participation in contract farming. This might be because most of them were older and had lower levels of education. Thus, they might have difficulties adapting to contracting. The third and fourth objectives are to evaluate the effects of contract participation on outcomes.

The nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant in 1986 is described and a summary of its immediate effects on people and the environment outlined. Then there is a summary of the important parts of the literature on diseases and deaths resulting from radiation and mortalities to date and the way mortality data became increasingly conservative over the years is discussed. Today, there is still uncertainty about future mortalities due to long latency periods for many cancers. However, cancer deaths in Chernobyl-affected regions are expected to be similar to non-Chernobyl controls. The major literature on environmental effects on wild species, forests, water and agricultural land are then reported with a brief discussion of remediation work and current trends. Finally, contemporary perceptions of the Chernobyl accident are described in the context of the popular anti-nuclear sentiment that prevailed in 1986, the immense publicity surrounding the accident and the natural tendency of people to exaggerate prospects of unlikely, yet extreme, events.

Most local government systems across the developed world exhibit significant local infrastructure backlogs and Australian local government is no exception. While most of the scholarly literature has focused on ameliorating the problem, comparatively little effort has been expended on explaining the emergence of the local infrastructure backlogs. This paper addresses this question by employing a market failure theoretical framework to better understand gaps occurring in local government infrastructure both in Australia and elsewhere. We show how these gaps indicate local authorities are discounting infrastructure investment at higher rates than for local services.