Australia's radical predatory pricing reforms : what business must know

Radical changes to the Trade Practices Act have the potential to affect significantly, the ability of businesses to engage in vigorous price competition. These changes are designed to prohibit what is colloquially referred to as predatory pricing; the practice of a firm temporarily reducing its prices to a level designed to eliminate its competitors so that, free of competition, it can thereafter, lift them to supra-competitive levels. Unfortunately, because of its scope and the ambiguous new concepts it employs, the section has the potential to apply to all forms of vigorous.price competition and creates significant risks for those businesses who.seek to compete with their rivals by systematically, or irregularly, selling at lower prices than they do. This note examines the section's nature and scope and identifies the pitfalls that it presents for such firms.

Australia's radical predatory pricing reforms: what business must know

Radical changes to the Trade Practices Act have the potential to affect significantly the ability of businesses to engage in vigorous price competition. These changes are designed to prohibit what is colloquially referred to as predatory pricing; the practice of a firm temporarily reducing its prices to a level designed to eliminate its competitors so that, free of competition, it can thereafter lift them to supra-competitive levels. Unfortunately, because of its scope and the ambiguous new concepts it employs, the section has the potential to apply to all forms of vigorous price competition and creates significant risks for those businesses who seek to compete with their rivals by systematically, or irregularly, selling at lower prices than they do. This note examines the section’s nature and scope and identifies the pitfalls that it presents for such firms.

Conceptualising the policy practice and behavioural research relationship

Background
Policy is frequently identified in the behavioural nutrition and physical activity research literature as a necessary component of effective research and practice. The purpose of this commentary is to promote a dialogue to contribute towards the further development of conceptual understandings and theories of the relationship between policy practice and behavioural research and how these two activities might work synergistically to improve public health outcomes.

Methods
Drawing on policy and public health literature, this commentary presents a a conceptual model of the interaction and mediation between nutrition and physical activity-relevant policy and behavioural nutrition and physical activity research, environments, behaviours and public health implications. The selling of food in school canteens in several Australian states is discussed to illustrate components of the relationship and the interactions among its components.

Results
The model depicts a relationship that is interdependent and cyclic. Policy contributes to the relationship through its role in shaping environmental and personal-cognitive determinants of behaviours and through these determinants it can induce behaviour change. Behavioural research describes behaviours, identifies determinants of behaviour change and therefore helps inform policy development and monitor and evaluate its impact.

Conclusion
The model has implications for guiding behavioural research and policy practice priorities to promote public health outcomes. In particular, we propose that policy practice and behavioural research activities can be strengthened by applying to each other the theories from the scientific disciplines informing these respective activities. Behavioural science theories can be applied to help understand policy-making and assist with disseminating research into policy and practice. In turn, policy science theories can be applied to support the 'institutionalisation' of commitments to ongoing behavioural research.

Do retail option traders know better about market volatility?

This paper examines the informational content and predictive power of implied volatility over different forecasting horizons in a sample of European covered warrants traded in the Hong Kong and Singapore markets. The empirical results show that time-series-based volatility forecasts outperform implied volatility forecast as predictors of future volatility. The finding also suggests that implied volatility is biased and informationally inefficient and that covered warrants are typically overvalued. The results are attributable to the fact that, in Hong Kong and Singapore, the covered warrants markets are dominated by retail investors who tend to use covered warrants' leverage to speculate on the price movements of the underlying assets rather than to express their view on volatility. Arbitrage is not possible in the markets as short-selling of covered warrants is prohibited.

The adverse effect of dummy auction bids on market value

The popularity of an auction as a means of selling residential real estate has increased markedly in recent years. The effectiveness of an auction program is heavily promoted by most real estate agents, claiming it to be the best means of attracting the best price from the highest bidder, It is based on the theory of gathering all buyers together at a publicised time, and then offering the property for sale to the open market.

In theory, the person most willing to buy the property will have the highest bid, supposedly agreeing at market value with the vendor (although above the vendor's reserve I. Unfortunately, the practice of dummy bidding has recently resurfaced and highlights serious flaws in the auction system, with hundreds of residential auctions conducted across Australia every weekend.

Clearly, it is in the vendor's best interests land the auctioneer's best interests, who is paid even more by the vendor if the price is higherl to achieve the highest offer from the last bidder. The tactic of dummy bids is designed to deceive genuine purchasers into a false sense of perception, where there appears to be more competition for the property than there actually exists.

This paper examines the auction process with the emphasis placed on the practice of dummy biding, It considers the broad implications for the definition of market value and also the overall residential market. Useful advice is also included for real estate valuers relying upon auction sale properties in their market analysis. As well as strongly supporting the auction concept, the authors suggest improvements to the overall auction process to ensure relevance to the definition of market value is maintained.

Directors' timing is too good

Research from Deakin University has shown that some directors have earned abnormal returns after selling shares in their own companies, leading one of the researchers, Harminder Singh, to argue that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission 'may want to pay closer scrutiny to the trading activities of directors of small and medium companies.

The ripple effect in house price fluctuations in Australia

The differences in economy, society, demography and geography in different regions are main reasons which cause disparities in regional house prices. Three theories, namely ripple effect hypothesis, convergence and efficient market hypothesis, are used to examine price fluctuations in spatial dimension amongst eight housing markets in Australian state capital cities.

Supporting the online consumer decision process : electronic commerce in a small Australian retailer

The paper explores ways in which online retailers of physical products can utilise the Internet to support their consumers’ decision making processes. The approach followed by a small Australian retailer in selling boots online is examined. The case is analysed using theoretical constructs from consumer behaviour. It is concluded that it is indeed feasible even for small online retailers to successfully sell “look and feel” type goods such as footwear over the Internet. However, for this to occur, high levels of customer support is essential and online retailers need to engender consumer trust in terms of payment processing and product delivery.

Consumer decision making in telecommunications

The data analyses consumers' decision making processes in the telecommunications market. The dataset includes both autoethnographic videographies and experimental quantitative data.

The data comprises an extended autoethnographic methodology with 22 participants. Participants recorded video diaries, written diaries and extended interviews about their experiences looking for a mobile phone service. It also includes a quantitative experiment with 517 participants to examine, under close to real conditions, how consumers make decisions. This involved advertising and sales scenarios looking at the effect of bundling and limited time offers in advertising on consumer perceptions and purchase intentions; the effect of unit pricing and the presentation of terms and conditions information in advertising on consumer perceptions and purchase intentions; and the effect of information and the mode of its presentation in personal selling on consumers’ perceptions.

Ethical consumption : a critical introduction

A not-so-quiet revolution seems to be occurring in wealthy capitalist societies - supermarkets selling ‘guilt free’ Fairtrade products; lifestyle TV gurus exhorting us to eat less, buy local and go green; neighbourhood action groups bent on ‘swopping not shopping’. And this is happening not at the margins of society but at its heart, in the shopping centres and homes of ordinary people. Today we are seeing a mainstreaming of ethical concerns around consumption that reflects an increasing anxiety with - and accompanying sense of responsibility for - the risks and excesses of contemporary lifestyles in the ‘global north’.

This collection of essays provides a range of critical tools for understanding the turn towards responsible or conscience consumption and, in the process, interrogates the notion that we can shop our way to a more ethical, sustainable future. Written by leading international scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds - and drawing upon examples from across the globe - Ethical Consumption makes a major contribution to the still fledgling field of ethical consumption studies. This collection is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between consumer culture and contemporary social life.

Nothing is free in this life

This chapter raises the notion of whether creativity can be 'bought' and draws on Derrida's category of the 'invention' (as opposed to creativity, which Derrida defines differently) in order to examine closely the criteria of inventiveness. The latter overlap in certain ways with a Badiouian understanding of the event. The chapter goes on to argue, using Badiou's notion of the event and the void, that creativity is abundant and 'free', but that creative industries may be ethically justified in selling other knowledges relating to creative practice, but that they should be clear about what can be 'bought' and that which is - if examined rigorously - always already 'free'.

Three arguments against ‘soft innovation’: towards a richer understanding of cultural innovation

This paper critiques recent research on innovation in the cultural and creative industries. In particular, this paper examines Paul Stoneman’s idea of ‘soft innovation’ as a jumping off point for discussing theories of cultural innovation more broadly. Three critiques are advanced. Firstly, soft innovation is a theoretical perspective that has developed from neoclassical economics, and is therefore vulnerable to criticisms levelled at neoclassical explanations of economic behaviour. Secondly, the theory of soft innovation can be criticised for being contin- gently inaccurate: the observed reality of cultural industries and marketplaces may not reflect the theory’s premises. Thirdly, because soft innovation defines the significance of an innovation in terms of marketplace success, it implies that only high-selling cultural products are significant, a difficult claim to substantiate. This paper concludes by arguing that our understanding of innovation in the cultural sphere can benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach grounded in the full gamut of human creativity.

Unchecked manipulations, price–volume relationship and market efficiency: evidence from emerging markets

This paper investigates how unchecked manipulations could cause frequent trade-induced manipulations and weak-form market inefficiency in South Asian stock markets [Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)]. Specifically, the paper analyses the price–volume relationship as one of the many cases of market inefficiency. By employing various econometric tests, this paper first provides conclusive evidence of market inefficiency in these markets. It then extracts evidence of manipulation periods from legal cases and analyses price–volume relationship during these periods. The paper finds that there exists market-wide trading-induced manipulations, where excessive buying and selling causes prices to inflate artificially before crashing down. The paper concludes that South-Asian markets are inefficient in the weak-form.

Carving into country: the work of Badger Bates

Badger Bates (William Brian Bates) was born on the Darling River at Wilcannia in 1947. His grandmother, Granny Moysey, a revered Paakantyi woman who spoke several Aboriginal languages, raised him, teaching him stories and traditional songs. This was the beginning of Badger’s journey into a complex and sophisticated knowledge system. As a child Badger experienced the knowledge and practice imparted by his grandmother which informs his artwork today. Badger learnt carving from her and other Paakantyi elders, and by 1986 he was selling his carvings of wood and emu eggs to the Australian Museum in Sydney.