The effects of the late 2000s global financial crisis on Australia's construction demand

An accurate measurement of the impacts of external shocks on construction demand will enable construction industry policymakers and developers to make allowances for future occurrences and advance the construction industry in a sustainable manner. This paper aims to measurethe dynamic effects of the late 2000s global financial crisis on the level of demand in the Australian construction industry. The vector error correction (VEC) model with intervention indicators is employed to estimate the external impact from the crisis on a macro-level construction economic indicator, namely construction demand. The methodology comprises six main stages to produce appropriate VEC models that describe the characteristics of the underlying process. Research findings suggestthat overall residential and non-residential construction demand were affected significantly by the recent crisis and seasonality. Non-residentialconstruction demand was disrupted more than residential construction demand at the crisis onset. The residential constructionindustry is more reactive and is able to recover faster following the crisis in comparison with the non-residential industry. The VEC model with intervention indicators developed in this study can be used as an experiment for an advanced econometric method. This can be used to analyse the effects of special eventsand factors not only on construction but also on other industries.

Agency issues surrounding A-REITS and the global financial crisis

 This thesis examines the optimal balance of debt and equity undertaken by Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts, the incentive-driven pay structure utilized to compensate management, and the factors of A-REIT composition and performance that appeal to large, powerful shareholders who are able to influence market prices.

Time-varying herding behavior, global financial crisis, and the Chinese stock market

In this paper, we examine the evidence of herding behavior on the Chinese stock market. Our main findings are as follows. First, we find strong evidence of herding behavior on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. Second, we document evidence of asymmetric herding behavior with greater magnitude of herding behavior on up markets than on down markets. Third, our findings suggest that herding behavior is sector-specific and predominant in the industrial and properties sectors. Finally, we unravel strong evidence suggesting that herding behavior is time-varying and in some sectors time-varying herding behavior is more prevalent than in other sectors.

The G20’s role in legitimating global capitalism: beyond crisis diplomacy?

The rising profile of the G20 in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis has led to various forms of concern about the legitimacy of this forum. While debates about the legitimacy of the G20 are important and ongoing, they overlook the important observation that the G20 is also attempting to perform a key role in legitimating global capitalism. This role of legitimating global capitalism emphasises the importance of the G20 to act, and be seen to act, to normalise global capitalism, to strengthen global economic governance, and also facilitate a political consensus with regard to key policy issues. This essay critically examines the role that the G20 plays in legitimating global capitalism and contends that the G20 is not just a technical forum of international policy-making but also a political forum for creating and performing visible responses to problems which are seen to be socially responsive.

Occupational class differences in suicide: evidence of changes over time and during the global financial crisis in Australia

BACKGROUND: Previous research showed an increase in Australian suicide rates during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). There has been no research investigating whether suicide rates by occupational class changed during the GFC. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the GFC-associated increase in suicide rates in employed Australians may have masked changes by occupational class.

METHODS: Negative binomial regression models were used to investigate Rate Ratios (RRs) in suicide by occupational class. Years of the GFC (2007, 2008, 2009) were compared to the baseline years 2001-2006.

RESULTS: There were widening disparities between a number of the lower class occupations and the highest class occupations during the years 2007, 2008, and 2009 for males, but less evidence of differences for females.

CONCLUSIONS: Occupational disparities in suicide rates widened over the GFC period. There is a need for programs to be responsive to economic downturns, and to prioritise the occupational groups most affected.

Regulating synthetic securitisation following the global financial crisis

This article explores whether proposed changes to the regulation of synthetic securitisation in Australia are sufficient in light of the Global Financial Crisis. Synthetic securitisation is specifically chosen as an object of study, given the relative ease with which it can be over-used. The article examines several theoretical problems with securitisation, which entice corporations into excessively risky behaviour. Contrary to popular belief, it is established that agency issues are not a serious problem with securitisation. Instead, managerial behavioural biases are shown to be most problematic. The article recommends stricter capital adequacy relief requirements, which would provide a disincentive for excessive risk-taking by potentially over-confident managers.

Sustainability, A-REITs and the global financial crisis

While environmental sustainability has grown in importance to governments and the community, the purpose of this paper is to examine the environmental sustainability activities of A-REITs over the period of the global financial crisis. Using a content analysis methodology similar to Newell, annual reports and home websites for 24 of the largest A-REITs (which have also been a constituent of the ASX 300 index) are analysed to determine the extent of their sustainable investment activities. The Green Building Council of Australia and NABERS websites are also explored. Given the increasing focus on sustainable commercial property, the study finds that A-REIT investment into these properties has been rather conservative and slow. There are, however, some A-REITs that have tried to lead in the field even during the period of the global financial crisis. Relatively solid and stable returns on equity and assets appear to be achieved by such A-REITs in the years during and following this crisis.

The implementation of OECD corporate governance principles in post-crisis Asia

The recent OECD Principles on Corporate Governance provide a framework for the convergence of global corporate governance practice. This paper considers the implementation of these global ‘best-practice’ standards of governance as part of the continuing post-economic-crisis reform throughout Asia. These initiatives have explicitly acknowledged that no single model of governance can exist, and instead have focused on those elements apparently common and, therefore, applicable to all countries. Notwithstanding the existence of these elements, this paper investigates the difficulties involved when attempting to implement general rules across countries at different stages of economic and legal development. While implementation will be hindered by obvious cultural disparities, long-term change in practice requires a cultural shift in the philosophical and financial bases of the firm.

Criticisms of auditors and earnings management during the Asian economic crisis

Auditors were criticised during and after the Asian economic crisis for supplying variable quality across global audit markets. This study examines
the level of earnings management as measured by discretionary accruals in the pre-crisis compared to the post-crisis periods as they impacted Malaysia. Both the Jones (1991) and earnings per share frequency distribution methods are used to examine earnings management behaviour. As hypothesised, the pre-crisis period is associated with significantly higher levels of absolute discretionary accruals and increased propensity to meet or beat the prior year earnings per share, whereas the post-crisis period is not. This finding is consistent with auditors responding to the criticisms that were made. However, the propensity to avoid losses is found to be higher in the post-crisis period, indicating that earnings management is not fully constrained.

Crisis and triage clinicians' attitudes toward working with people with personality disorder

PURPOSE. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of Australian psychiatric triage and crisis clinicians toward those with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
DESIGN AND METHODS. The design of the study was exploratory descriptive research. The study employed a survey method using Bowers and Allan's (2006) Attitude to Personality Disorder Questionnaire, which was designed to identify global attitudes toward those with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
FINDINGS. The findings of this study indicate that psychiatric crisis and triage clinicians hold negative attitudes toward those with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS. Education and clinical supervision is required to address negative clinician attitudes.

Conservation biology : a crisis discipline

Conserving biodiversity is of utmost importance on a global scale. Species conservation, however, is a challenging task, which is often compounded by a lack of knowledge of target species. New advances in information technology and molecular techniques, however, are enabling conservation biologists to obtain large amounts of data quickly, which will certainly aid in assigning conservation priorities. This article reviews the use of genetics in conservation biology and highlights, using the Powerful Owl Ninox strenua as an example, how DNA can be a valuable source of data.

Crisis of meanings : divergent experiences and perceptions of the marine environment in Victoria, Australia

The oceans of the world are regularly depicted as under threat from human exploitation with the problem portrayed as being of 'global' concern. In a world market characterised by the division of labour, many of those who eat fish do so without directly experiencing the ocean as a domain of productive utility. Rather, their encounters are with representations that depict the 'natural' world as an aesthetic object of contemplation, and environmentalist discourses that identify human activities as' threatening marine ecosystems. So prevalent is this experience that tangible institutions, such as state fisheries management bodies, have emerged, acting to reinforce the ontology of this 'contemplated' ocean, giving weight to the illusion that humans can, and should, appreciate it only from afar. In this representation, commercial fishers are regularly depicted as transgressing a 'natural' boundary between humans and the environment. It is when the world is simultaneously encountered as an object of consumptive utility and aesthetic utility that the human role in the environment becomes ambiguous and a sense of crisis arises. This paper investigates disjunctions in experiences and understandings that contribute to environmental anxiety, and debates over the appropriate use of the ocean.

Climate change and heritage : responding to the crisis

Climate change poses a major threat to heritage of all kinds. Yet much of the work so far on climate change and heritage replicates aspects of the global heritage system, tending to emphasise a European perspective and focusing on the preservation of tangible heritage. We call for a broader understanding of climate change, particularly as it affects heritage in the developing world, especially that of indigenous peoples and small Island states. This is also a call for political engagement by heritage practitioners. We argue that in the struggle against climate change heritage practitioners can make a worthwhile contribution by arguing for a de-commodified form of heritage practice emphasizing the involvement of local communities and recognition of their cultural resources; that resists being coopted into economic growth strategies unless they supplant other forms of unsustainable development; that focuses on heritage as an alternative way of viewing resources and their use.

Financial crisis, Social pathologies and 'generalised perversion' : questioning Zizek's diagnosis of the times

Slavoj Zizek's work has been highly influential in the formulation of an emerging consensus among Lacanian social researchers, that we live in a society of generalised perversion whose initial fruits are the corrosion of democracy and the recent financial crisis. This position rests upon a notion of modern subjectivity that connects ‘commodity fetishism’ with clinical perversion in a pathological configuration, so that social theoretical identification of crisis tendencies, evaluative language about moral problems and diagnostic categories from the Lacanian clinic can be combined in a single figure. In this article, we question the series of conceptual links that constitute this position, tracing them from Zizek’s critique in his short work on the global financial crisis and his broader restatement of this analysis in the recent Living in the End Times, through the moment of his announcement of the notion of ‘generalised perversion’ in The Ticklish Subject, all the way back to fundamental propositions outlined in his earliest work. Our argument progresses through three claims. First, we show in the evolution of this position that it leads Zizek to equivocate in his diagnosis of contemporary society between two mutually exclusive categories (‘psychosis’ and ‘perversion’), indicating an antinomy in his work that is resolved in favour of ‘generalised perversion’ on empirical, not logical, grounds. Secondly, we offer a critical resolution of the antinomy through a critique of what we argue is Zizek’s mistaken over-extension of psychoanalytic reason beyond its legitimate scope of application. Finally, we point to some of the political implications of the way that Zizek speculatively resolves his logical difficulties, by analysing the consequences of his claim that generalised social perversion - the problem to be solved - involves a dethroning of the communal ego ideal. A communitarian streak, implicit in the potential conflation of moral denunciation with psychoanalytic diagnosis that the rhetoric of ‘perversion’ invokes, runs through Zizek’s work on capitalism, we propose in conclusion.