Australian property investment advice : an unregulated industry and the need for better consumer protection laws

Currently, consumers have no means of protecting themselves when they are looking for property investment advice in Australia. There is no uniform national or State regulation in the property investment advice and marketeering industry. The only protection and remedies currently available are those under the general consumer protection laws scattered in various Acts, and even so, these have numerous problems. This paper highlights what those problems are under the general consumer protection laws and suggests some changes to the current system. The paper also argues that a national co-operative approach is the only way to move forward in this area and suggests that the constitutional difficulty can be overcome by using the legislative conferral of state powers provision, which has often been overlooked. The paper also argues that a new regulator be set up to administer and enforce the new proposed laws on property investment advice.

Assessing the efficacy and standardization potential of five competing venture capital investment evaluation approaches

The research objective behind this article was to perform a critical evaluation and comparison of five representative business plan evaluation aids (BPEAs) to facilitate constructive discussion of the proposition that greater standardization of venture capital decision-making might be both desirable and possible. The five BPEAs were systematically compared using a structured, taxonomic process. The evidence of this investigation suggests a clear superiority of BPEAs that are based on the researched attributes of successful ventures and use actuarial modeling. Discussion centered on the importance of using BPEAs in a quest for greater consistency during venture capital investment decision-making.

Japanese investment on the Gold Coast : the interface of globalization and locality

This study explored the interface between the forces of globalization and a given place, at a given time, the Gold Coast during the 1980s. The global economic boom of the 1980s was one in which the role of Japan was particularly important. In less than half a decade capital flows from Japan surged to make it the world's largest investor. Locations in the Pacific Basin were favoured destinations for Japanese investment, one of the most significant was the Gold Coast. Japanese capital and tourism helped transform its urban area from a national resort to an international tourist destination and resort centre, The surge of capital arriving to the Gold Coast was a function of economic conditions in Japan, as was its steep reduction after November 1989, Thus the Gold Coast became integrated into global capital flows and so dependent on decisions made in Tokyo, one of the main financial centres of the world. However this study has also sought to explore a more complex reality; namely, that this place also became the interface of complex cultural forces and perceptions. The wealth of the Japanese investors on the Gold Coast enabled them to realize their dream of developing projects in the most fashionable global styles. These styles were essentially Western, and it was onto these that their Japanese owners ascribed their own meanings; meanings that reflected the cultural baggage that they had brought from Japan, and through which were filtered the economic and environmental realities of the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast as locality also included residents. Hence it became an interface between two different groups of people, the Japanese and the strongly Anglo-Celtic local community. Some in the local community perceived the Japanese presence as a threat to their perception of the Gold Coast, in fact, a threat to their perception of Australia's national identity. A campaign based on the politics of memory of the Japanese developed on the Gold Coast. Within weeks it became a national debate in which isolationalist, if not xenophobic traditionalists, concentrated on the Gold Coast challenged the economic rationalism and multicultural tolerance of the self-interested and ideologically convinced advocates of globalization. Governments at all levels sought to arbitrate, to legitimize standpoints, but more often than not were seen to move into positions of ineffectual flexibility. The forces of globalization on the Gold Coast were catalysts for change that in turn provoked local opposition which rapidly became a debate about national identity and direction. It is in the exploration of the complex and contradictory economic, cultural and political forces engendered by globalization that this study has sought to make a distinctive contribution.

Dividend policy choice : do earnings or investment opportunities matter?

The aim of this paper is to analyse the influence of a company's level of earnings and growth opportunities in determining the dividend policy choice of Malaysian-listed firms. The analysis is based on a sample of 136 firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia Index over a period of six years, from 1990 to 1996. The evidence suggests that the payers are more profitable than non-payers. Likewise, investment opportunity, which is measured by (∂At /At-1) and (Vt /At), differed for both payers and non-payers. The regression estimates from Logit model suggest that the average coefficient for EATA is a significant determinant for firm's dividend policy choice in Malaysia. This is consistent with the supposition that profitable firms are more likely to pay dividends than less profitable firms. Although investment opportunities, the firm's size and leverage were not found to be statistically significant, they provided some explanation for the dividend policy choice.

The saving and investment nexus for China : evidence from cointegration tests

The saving and investment nexus as postulated by Feldstein and Horioka (FH) (1980) is revisited. The saving investment correlation for China is estimated over the periods 1952-1998 and 1952-1994, the latter culminating in a period of fixed exchange rate regime. Amongst the key results, it is found that saving and investment are correlated for China for both the period of the fixed exchange rate and the entire sample period. With high saving-investment correlation, the results suggest that the Chinese economy is in conformity with the FH hypothesis. This is a valid outcome, for in China capital mobility was fairly restricted over the 1952-1994 period as indicated by the relatively low foreign direct investment.

The relationship between saving and investment for Japan

In this paper, we revisit the saving and investment nexus as postulated by Feldstein and Horioka (FH) [Econ. J. 90 (1980) 314]. We test for cointegration between saving and investment using the recently developed bounds testing approach to cointegration and derive the long-run elasticities using the autoregressive distributed lag modeling approach for Japan over the period 1960–1999. We establish the unit root properties of the data in the presence of structural break(s) using the Zivot and Andrews (ZA) [J. Business Econ. Stat. 10 (1992) 251] and the Lumsdaine and Papell (LP) [Rev. Econ. Stat. 79 (1997) 212] tests. Finally, we ascertain the direction of causation between saving and investment by using the bootstrap approach. Amongst our key results we find that saving and investment are cointegrated for Japan; investment causes saving and saving causes investment; shocks to saving and investment have a permanent effect; and the long-run coefficient on saving is 0.68, implying a moderate rate of correlation. From the latter finding, we believe that there is no puzzle between saving and investment in the case of Japan, a result contrary to FH (1980).

The influence of educational resources on superannuation investment choices

This paper reports on an investigation of whether educational resources supplied by a superannuation fund provide members with the required information to assist them in making informed choices regarding their superannuation investment funds. The data indicated that certain demographic groups are less likely to utilise the resources provided by their superannuation fund and other information sources. Females, younger individuals, those with low superannuation balances or limited knowledge of financial matters were the key groups identified as less likely to utilise the educational information offered to them.

Existence of externalities from investment in higher education research and development

Research undertaken for this thesis supports the underlying claim that education does generate externalities. By examining the impact of higher education R&D on Australian state production, the results suggest that both pure and applied R&D have a statistically significant impact on Australia's regional economic performance.

A comprehensive analysis of foreign direct investment and economic growth

All three frameworks reveal a strong positive impact of FDI on economic growth. On average, economic growth appears to have been driven by FDI, human capital, domestic investment, openness to trade, and economic freedom. However, findings on the impact of growth on FDI are somewhat different across the three frameworks.