Doping in sport: an economic analysis

This paper examines the impact of various regulatory policies on the decision to dope by athletes. The analysis suggests that punishment schemes involving lump-sum fines and bans, which are commonly used to control doping, create biases, and do not achieve their goal of levelling the playing field. Under plausible assumptions, these schemes are more likely to control doping for risk averse athletes compared to risk neutral ones, poorer athletes compared to their wealthier counterparts, and athletes with high earning potentials relative to those with lower potential. A marginal penalty scheme where athletes are fined based on the quantity of dope detected eliminates these biases, and emerges as a superior policy for levelling the playing field.

Actor network theory and the study of online learning: new perspectives on quality

This paper describes an approach to studying innovation and change that is taken from the field of Science and Technology Studies. Actor-network theory draws attention to the performative nature of the implementation of new technologies like quality systems and on1ine teaching. The theory posits that the world is not populated with entities that possess certain essences in and of themselves, but rather that the world is a texture of relations-a network which occasionally produces the effect of stabilised entities. We examine the consequences of producing durable forms of online teaching and quality assurance and argue that achieving durable performances requires a conformity to existing performances of a university thus reproducing current patterns of inequity.

Promoting innovation in university teaching against the tide of centralised control and institutional risk avoidance

Over the last m'o decades, university systems world-wide have been subject to government initiated, top-down restructures in the name of greater effectiveness, accountability and quality. Within this timefrome, government interest in university teaching has increased, and innovation and responsiveness in teaching have been increasingly prioritised by both government and university policies. AcademiC interest in the teaching has also increased. and much research and discussion has focused on defining teaching as a source of scholarship and expounding its role in the promotion of innovation, and in the recognition and rewarding of teaching work. In this paper, I draw on a study of academics' views, which I have reported at previous AARE conferences and elsewhere, to raise questions about recent and ongoing developments in the work environment of university educators.l raise the possibility that systems and processes whose express purpose is to facilitate and support university educators' efforts to improve teaching are, in fact. inhibiting innovative practice by institutionalising an aversion to risk that is anathema to innovation.

Tourism, trade and domestic welfare

Tourism has been regarded as a major source of economic growth and a source of foreign exchange. It has also been viewed as an activity that imposes costs on the host country. Such costs include increased pollution, congestion and despoliation of fragile environments, and intra-generational inequity aggravation. One aspect that has been ignored is the general equilibrium effects of tourism on other sectors in the economy. This paper presents a model that captures the interdependence between tourism and the rest of the economy, in particular agriculture and manufacturing. An important result obtained is that the tourist boom may 'immiserize' the residents.

Risky doctorates : managing doctoral studies in Australia as managing risk

This paper draws on work by the author as part of a team undertaking an ARC Discovery project entitled: The Impact of Risk Management on Doctoral Research Policy and Pedagogy in Australian Universities. The team is Erica McWilliam, Peter Taylor, Terry Evans and Alan Lawson, with Eluned Lloyd and Karen Tregenza. Some of the ideas in this paper reflect our discussions, reading and other work as part of this project.

Arguably, part of any manager’s work involves the identification and assessment of risks and then working to minimise or manage them. However, never has this been more important than is the case today for the manager of doctoral studies in Australia. Partly this is related to the rising risk consciousness and risk aversion in contemporary societies, but more particularly it is related to the dangers and harms that have been infused by the Australian government into its policies on ‘research training’ (that is, principally doctoral education) and quality assurance. This article explores the consequences of these two trends, one general and one specific, on the management and nature of doctoral research in Australia.

Key behavioural and cognitive employee outcomes : a social exchange model

This paper serves to integrate social exchange with organisational justice and performance theory. Social exchange relationships are represented by employees’ perceptions of workplace inequity and evaluated using justice rules. Employees are expected to have in-role and extra-role behavioural responses and cognitive responses to inequity. It is theorised that behavioural and cognitive responses are moderated by the employee’s perceptions of organisational justice. Much employee performance, commitment, engagement, retention and turnover may be explained by this comprehensive model.

fMRI studies in neuro-fuzzy and behavioral finance : a case based approach

Financial decision making mechanisms have not been identified. Using event-related fMRI without MR compatible switch which can be performed by all MRI system which has only Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) feature, we examined financial decision-making task with three risk levels in two participants. We saw activation regions differences between risk-seeking and risk-aversion selection in addition to larger activated regions in selection funding in comparison with no selection. Thus, consideration of anticipatory neural mechanisms may add predictive power for economic decision- making.

Promoting transportation cycling for women : the role of bicycle infrastructure

Objective.
Females are substantially less likely than males to cycle for transport in countries with low bicycle transport mode share. We investigated whether female commuter cyclists were more likely to use bicycle routes that provide separation from motor vehicle traffic.
Methods.
Census of cyclists observed at 15 locations (including off-road bicycle paths, on-road lanes and roads with no bicycle facilities) within a 7.4 km radius of the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Australia, during peak commuting times in February 2004.
Results.
6589 cyclists were observed, comprising 5229 males (79.4%) and 1360 females (20.6%). After adjustment for distance of the bicycle facility from the CBD, females showed a preference for using off-road paths rather than roads with no bicycle facilities (odds ratio [OR] = 1.43, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.12, 1.83), or roads with on-road bicycle lanes (OR = 1.34, 95% CI: 1.03, 1.75).
Conclusions.
Consistent with gender differences in risk aversion, female commuter cyclists preferred to use routes with maximum separation from motorized traffic. Improved cycling infrastructure in the form of bicycle paths and lanes that provide a high degree of separation from motor traffic is likely to be important for increasing transportation cycling amongst under-represented population groups such as women.

Accounting services and SMEs : an Australian study

Background: The observance of regulation has become a fundamental part of life for the conduct of business around the world. Governments and their duly appointed designates, acting in the interest of the collective public, have relied on regulation to moderate economic and social behaviour through the imposition and enforcement of rules. While it can be commonly accepted that such a prescriptive framework may be necessary for the achievement of desired economic and social outcomes, regulation does impose costs on society and on individual firms. These costs, which can include the costs for government departments to administer, the cost for firms to comply, and the multitude of indirect costs such as lost innovation and productivity or their interrelated opportunity costs, have received ample attention.

Accountants are key advisers to all businesses on all aspects of doing business, including regulation. As such, it is appropriate that ACCA has sponsored this study, which explores the regulatory issues facing SMEs and the critical role that accountants and other organisations play in helping SMEs be aware of, comply with and generally manage effectively the regulations that apply to their business.

ACCA has consistently argued for a balanced view to be taken on regulation, recognising that certain rules are necessary for the fair development of business and for employees’ rights. Yet at the same time, ACCA recognises that SMEs are likely to be disproportionately burdened by regulatory requirements and, as a consequence, it actively campaigns for fairness in regulation, recognising the issue as a significant factor in the success, productivity and growth of small businesses.

Overview: This study complements similar research commissioned by ACCA in the United Kingdom and Canada (Blackburn et al. 2006), with the aim of helping to provide a more international picture of the effects of regulation on adviceseeking by SMEs and how accountants can help SMEs meet their regulatory obligations.

The research commenced in November 2006 and was conducted over the Australian summer period 2006/7, among SMEs and accounting practices, as follows:

* telephone survey among 250 SMEs
* postal survey among 130 accounting practitioner firms.

Key findings: The SME section of this study revealed the following points.

* Most SMEs (between 70% and 80%), agreed that the regulations under review were reasonable, however there were significantly high levels of concern regarding:
* the number of regulations affecting their business (80%)
* staying up to date with changing regulations (80%)
* complexity of regulation or the ease of understanding regulations (77%)
* inequity, or the cost of regulation in proportion to the business (66%)
* duplication, or being required to provide the same information to more than one government department (55%).
* External accountants were the most common source of advice, being used by 72% of SMEs; this was followed by federal government agencies,    62%; trade or industry bodies, 61%; and a lawyer or solicitor, 53%.
* Highest levels of satisfaction with the advice provided were recorded for lawyers/solicitors (94%), banks (91%) and external accountants (90%).
* Overall, 80% of SMEs who had used accountants rated their service as excellent or good. Thirty per cent gave accountants an excellent rating.
* Accountants rated particularly well on the following attributes:
* the potential for a long-term relationship with the business (81% excellent/good)
* technical understanding of the regulatory requirements that apply to the business (79%)
* ability to meet the needs of the business (77%)
* understanding of the business of the SME and its operations (73%).

The survey of accounting practitioners produced the following information.
* The results indicate that SME firms with fewer than 10 employees are the main source of revenue for the respondent accounting practitioners.
* Virtually all accountants provide regulatory advice, primarily in the areas of taxation (particularly Goods and Services Tax, GST), and Do-It-      Yourself (DIY) superannuation requirements. These services provided the accountants with their largest business growth in the two years before the time of the survey.

Seventy-nine per cent of accountants referred their SME clients to external professional advisers. Their comments indicate (see Appendix 4) that some accountants consider their role to be as convenors or advisers for their SME clients. Importantly, according to the accountants, SME firms with fewer than 10 employees did not update their knowledge of regulatory requirements; they relied on their accountant for the right advice. The main types of external adviser to whom accountants referred their SME clients were lawyers and financial planners.

* Accountants expressed their concern regarding the complexity and amount of regulations affecting their SME clients.
* The accountants also stated that they would like to provide additional advice to their SME clients.
 
Confidence intervals – SME survey:  The survey sample size was 250 SMEs from the total of 1.2 million Australian SMEs. Any estimate of proportions agreeing or disagreeing with particular statements must be considered with respect to the margin of possible statistical error. Owing to the small sample size, generalising the results from this study to a wider population of SMEs may be constrained.

A 95% confidence interval of the sample mean for the following estimates based on a percentage agreement of 75% to a proposition with a sample size of 250 would be from 69.5% to 80.5%. The 95% confidence interval for estimates of any other value will diverge slightly in magnitude from the numbers given.

In general then we can be highly confident that the actual sample mean will be within approximately ± 5% of the figure given, with a survey of this size. Confidence intervals – acounting practitioner survey IBISWorld estimates reveal a figure of 9,222 accounting practices in Australia as at June 2006 (IBISWorld 2007). The sample size of 133 accounting practitioners gives a 95% confidence limit that the results reported from the mail-out survey are within the ± 5% confidence interval of the reported values.

Conclusions:  This report describes the results of two parallel surveys undertaken on the impact of business regulation on small and medium-sized enterprises in Australia and on the perceptions of accounting firms about the ways in which the regulatory impact on the SME sector drove their business.

The survey of SMEs provides empirical support for many of the concerns raised with the Regulation Taskforce, which reported to the Australian government in 2006. Many businesses are concerned about the volume and complexity of government legislation as it applies to their business. They are concerned that they are unable to keep up with new legislation and that there is apparent duplication of reporting requirements across the various tiers of government.

The survey of accountants revealed that accounting firms derive a significant proportion of their revenue from SMEs. While the SMEs are concerned with regulatory changes, the accountants surveyed reported that the major growth areas in their businesses were in what could be seen as traditional accounting areas of tax and superannuation. Some SMEs sought advice on areas such as employment law, environmental regulation and health and safety but it appears that many accountants refer their clients to specialists in these areas. Recent changes to the laws regarding financial planning in Australia may lead to changes in the market for financial advice in Australia, with many accountants apparently regarding this as a key driver of future business opportunities.

The surveys were conducted using a similar instrument to similar surveys conducted in the UK and Canada and reported in Blackburn et al. (2006). Comparisons of the Australian survey results with those from the UK and Canada seem to support the perception that Australian business is not over-regulated, but the SME sector is concerned with the volume and complexity of regulation. This suggests that the SME sector wants to see improvements to Australia’s regulatory regime as a result of the work of the Regulation Taskforce undertaken in 2005/6. In its response to the work of the Taskforce the government agreed with 158 of the 178 specific recommendations of the Taskforce. This now needs to be followed through at all levels of government.

Accountants in all three countries understand their SME clients’ concerns with the burden of regulation and they are prepared to advise their clients where appropriate or refer them to specialist advisers. Most business growth for accountants has come from the taxation area. Very few accountants in the UK or Australia specialise in providing advice in the areas of environmental regulation or health and safety regulation.

International comparisons show that in all three countries accountants are generally highly regarded by SMEs for their professionalism and competence. The major area of client concern is the value for money offered by the accountant’s service. In an era of rapidly shifting professional and technical boundaries, accountants need to be more strongly attuned to levels of client satisfaction. Lawyers, financial planners and a plethora of specialist advisers operate in the business services market and if they have an opportunity to take business from accountants by competing on price they may well do so. This suggests a stronger role for professional accounting bodies in monitoring the broader business services market for opportunities and threats on behalf of their membership.

Valuation and incentive effects of hurdle rate executive stock options

Traditional executive stock options are often criticized for inherently weak links between pay and performance. Hurdle rate executive stock options represent a viable improvement. However, valuing these options presents extraordinary analytic difficulties. With a constant dividend yield the strike price becomes a path-dependent function of the stock price and exact analytic valuation is intractable. To solve this problem, we apply the Monte Carlo valuation approach developed by Longstaff and Schwartz (Rev Financ Stud 4:113–147, 2001) to estimate the value of path-dependent American options. We also extend the methodology to incorporate the theoretical framework by Ingersoll (J Bus 79:453–487, 2006) to permit subjective valuation influenced by an executive’s risk aversion.

Commercial sex work, survival sex, sexual violence and HIV/AIDS prevention in Arumeru District, Arusha region Of Tanzania

Objective: To examine the knowledge and practices about HIV/AIDS among female Tanzanian commercial sex workers (CSWs) and assess the contextual dynamics that prevent safer sexual behaviours.

Method: The study used mixed methods and was implemented in two phases. Phase one assessed the knowledge and practices about HIV/AIDS among CSWs. Data were obtained with 54 CSWs, who were selected by using a snowball sampling approach. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with the CSWs were undertaken to allow the research participants to describe and discuss their lived realities as they perceive and experience them. In phase two, three discrete focus group discussions, each comprising 6-10 women, were carried out with 26 of the 54 CSWs who were interviewed in phase one.

Results: There was exploitation and inequity in the women's lives due to the multiple and overlapping oppressions of poverty and patriarchy. Sexual violence was framed, legitimised and reinforced by structural and cultural inequities. Such exploitation impacted not only on CSWs' lives as sex workers, but on their previous and/or simultaneous lives as mothers, wives, girlfriends and daughters. The women practised ‘survival sex’ as CSWs and/or sexual partners of men, and experienced sexual violence from their clients/partners. This violence was either culturally legitimised within a patriarchal framework or manifested itself as ‘displaced aggressive sex’ by men experiencing marginalisation in socio-economic spheres.

A cost-based equity weight for use in the economic evaluation of primary health care interventions: case study of the Australian Indigenous population

Background : Efficiency and equity are both important policy objectives in resource allocation. The discipline of health economics has traditionally focused on maximising efficiency, however addressing inequities in health also requires consideration. Methods to incorporate equity within economic evaluation techniques range from qualitative judgements to quantitative outcomes-based equity weights. Yet, due to definitional uncertainties and other inherent limitations, no method has been universally adopted to date. This paper proposes an alternative cost-based equity weight for use in the economic evaluation of interventions delivered from primary health care services.

Methods : Equity is defined in terms of 'access' to health services, with the vertical equity objective to achieve 'equitable access for unequal need'. Using the Australian Indigenous population as an illustrative case study, the magnitude of the equity weight is constructed using the ratio of the costs of providing specific interventions via Indigenous primary health care services compared with the costs of the same interventions delivered via mainstream services. Applying this weight to the costs of subsequent interventions deflates the costs of provision via Indigenous health services, and thus makes comparisons with mainstream more equitable when applied during economic evaluation.

Results : Based on achieving 'equitable access', existing measures of health inequity are suitable for establishing 'need', however the magnitude of health inequity is not necessarily proportional to the magnitude of resources required to redress it. Rather, equitable access may be better measured using appropriate methods of health service delivery for the target group. 'Equity of access' also suggests a focus on the processes of providing equitable health care rather than on outcomes, and therefore supports application of equity weights to the cost side rather than the outcomes side of the economic equation.

Conclusion : Cost-based weights have the potential to provide a pragmatic method of equity weight construction which is both understandable to policy makers and sensitive to the needs of target groups. It could improve the evidence base for resource allocation decisions, and be generalised to other disadvantaged groups who share similar concepts of equity. Development of this decision-making tool represents a potentially important avenue for further health economics research.

Detection and treatment of hypertension in rural Australia

Background: The inequity of cardiac health outcomes between metropolitan and rural areas is well documented. As hypertension is a major cardiovascular risk factor, we need to have a better understanding of how well it is detected and managed rural areas. This study reports on the prevalence, detection and treatment of hypertension in rural Australia.

Method: Three population stratified surveys were undertaken in the Greater Green Triangle. Three thousand three hundred and twenty adults aged 25–74 years were randomly selected, stratified by gender and 10-year age groups. Anthropometric, clinical and self-administered questionnaire data relating to chronic disease risk were collected in accordance with the WHO MONICA protocol. Blood pressure (BP) was measured by trained nurses and the questionnaire collected information on the history of hypertension and medications used for treatment.

Results: Information on BP measurement, medication and awareness was available on 1506 (45%) participants. Study found that one-third of participants had hypertension. Only 54% (95% CI 47–60) of male and 71% (65–77) of female participants with hypertension were aware of their condition. While only half of the participants with hypertension were treated, only half of these treated participants had their hypertension under control. Treatment and control of hypertension was more common in women (60%, 54–67 and 55%, 47–64) compared with men (42%, 36–49 and 35%, 26–44).

Conclusion: Results of our study suggest that detection and treatment of hypertension in rural is suboptimal, particularly in men. If cardiovascular outcomes are to improve in rural Australia, people need to be encouraged to have their blood pressure measured regularly and better systems for the management of hypertension in primary care are needed.

Indigenous entrepreneurs in Australia and New Zealand : a test of social marginality theory

Focusing on the original inhabits of Australia and New Zealand, we examine the basic precept of social marginality theory, namely whether socially marginalised and disadvantaged entrepreneurs might actually be more likely to start a new venture. Using survey data and in-depth interviews, we find mixed results. For Mäori, their position of disadvantage coupled with a history and cultural attitudes favouring enterprise has led to one of the world’s highest rates of entrepreneurial activity. However, for Indigenous Australians, their disadvantage and marginal status within Australian society, compounded by a continued legacy of inequity and by internal factors, has not encouraged an enterprising culture.

Integration and coordination of care

The health care systems in Australia are under pressure from workforce shortages, increasing costs and an ageing population with a high prevalence of chronic disease. There is a well-established description of inequity in health outcomes among rural and remote populations. Most of the inequity appears to be due to poorer access to services than higher levels of health risk factors, such as cholesterol, blood pressure or obesity. Over the last 15 years, the science of improvement has led to quality improvement techniques, such as collaboratives, managed clinical networks and collaborative care, all of which have been tried successfully in Australia. Each of these offers ways to reduce the inequity in health outcomes attributed to rurality or remoteness.