The potential for tobacco control to reduce PBS costs for smoking-related cardiovaccular disease

Objective: To estimate Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) subsidies for drugs to treat smoking-related cardiovascular disease (CVD) in 2001-02, and over the period of the government's Intergenerational Report (IGR), assuming current smoking prevalence rates and a 5% absolute reduction.

Design and setting: An Australian epidemiological study, using prescribing data, aetiological fraction methodology, and IGR trends.

Main outcome measures: Estimated smoking-related PBS subsidy costs in 2001-02 and predicted cumulative subsidies until 2041-42, under current and reduced smoking prevalence assumptions.

Results: The PBS costs of smoking-related CVD in 2001-02 were $126 million, 9.77% of the cost of drugs for CVD and 2.96% of total PBS subsidies. The cumulative difference in these costs over the 40-year period with a 5% drop in smoking prevalence was predicted to be $4.5 billion, a 17% reduction. The saving would be $1.14 billion discounting future costs at 5% per year.

Conclusions: Further investment in tobacco control interventions could curb the increasing cost of the PBS and contribute to government efforts to ensure the viability of Australia's healthcare-financing programs. The net present value of a campaign to reduce smoking prevalence was estimated at $1 billion, with an internal rate of return of 33%.

Making long-term economic growth more sustainable: evaluating the costs and benefits

Currently, traditional development issues such as economic stagnation, poverty, hunger, and illness as well as newer challenges like environmental degradation and globalisation demand attention. Sustainable development, including its economic, environmental and social elements, is a key goal of decisionmakers. Optimal economic growth has also been a crucial goal of both development theorists and practitioners. This paper examines the conditions under which optimal growth might be sustainable, by assessing the costs and benefits of growth. Key environmental and social aspects are considered. The Ecol-Opt-Growth-1 model analyses economic–ecological interactions, including resource depletion, pollution, irreversibility, other environmental effects, and uncertainty. It addresses some important issues, including savings, investment, technical progress, substitutability of productive factors, intergenerational efficiency, equity, and policies to make economic growth more sustainable—a basic element of the sustainomics framework. The empirical results support growing concerns that costs of growth may outweigh its benefits, resulting in unsustainability. Basically, in a wide range of circumstances, long term economic growth is unsustainable due to increasing environmental damage. Nevertheless, the model has many options that can be explored by policy makers, to make the development path more sustainable, as advocated by sustainomics. One example suggests that government supported abatement programs are needed to move towards sustainable development, since the model runs without abatement were infeasible. The optimal rate of abatement increases over time. Abatement of pollution is necessary to improve ecosystem viability and increase sustainability. Further research is necessary to seek conditions under which alternative economic growth paths are likely to become sustainable.

The cost of seasonal respiratory illnesses in Australian children: the dominance of patient and family costs and implications for vaccine use

Respiratory viral infections are one of the next group of diseases likely to be targeted for prevention in childhood by the use of vaccines. To begin collecting necessary epidemiology and cost information about the illnesses caused by these viruses, we conducted a prospective cohort study in 118 Melbourne children between 12 and 71 months of age during winter and spring 2001. We were interested in calculating an average cost per episode of community-managed acute respiratory disease, in identifying the key cost drivers of such illness, and to identify the proportion of costs borne by the patient and family. There were 202 community-managed influenza-like illnesses identified between July and December 2001, generating 89 general practitioner visits, and 42 antibiotic prescriptions. The average cost of community-managed episodes (without hospitalisation) was $241 (95% CI $191 to $291), with the key cost drivers being carer time away from usual activities caring for the ill child (70% of costs), use of non-prescription medications (5.4%), and general practice visits (5.0%). The patient and family met 87per cent of total costs. The lowest average cost occurred in households from the highest income bracket. Acute respiratory illness managed in the community is common, with the responsibility for meeting the cost of episodes predominantly borne by the patient and family in the form of lost productivity. These findings have implications for preventive strategies in children, such as the individual use of, or implementation of public programs using, currently available vaccines against influenza and vaccines under development against other viral respiratory pathogens.

Can you seek security for costs in international arbitration in Australia?

International arbitrations can be conducted under either federal or State legislation in Australia. In both cases complexities arise in the resolution of procedural questions, such as whether security for costs can be granted. There is scant Australian case law on such issues. This article considers whether an arbitral tribunal or a court has the power [*2] to order security for costs in an international arbitration in Australia. After analysing Australia's international arbitration laws and discussing New Zealand and House of Lords' authority, it is argued that unless the parties have specifically empowered the arbitral tribunal to order security for costs, only the relevant court has that power, and even that is uncertain.

Book reviews : David Palmer, Ross Shanahan, and Martin Shanahan, eds., Australian Labor history reconsidered

An objective of this collection is to bring the history of the Australian labor movement to international attention. The editors introduce the collection with a brief overview of Australian labor history, emphasizing differences between the Australian and American experiences. The introduction argues that a unique aspect of Australian labor history is “laborism,” which is defined as the central place of the labor movement in Australian culture, as compared with the more marginal position of the labor movement in America. In Australia, this centrality is reflected in the embedding of trade unions and labor in the state through wage-fixing tribunals, a social security system designed to support the families of male wage earners, and the Australian Labor Party's strong links to the trade union movement. The introduction is informative and especially benefits from the insights of David Palmer, an American historian teaching at Adelaide's Flinders University. However, the introduction was apparently written later at the suggestion of an American reader and has thus not been fully integrated into the structure of the book.

Costs of inflation in Australia and New Zealand.

This paper evaluates the costs of inflation in Australia and New Zealand using a compensated measure calculated by calibrating a general equilibrium search model in the vein of Lagos and Wright (2005). We look at how inflation affects the intensive margin (the quantity traded in each match) by examining the impact of various pricing protocols. We also look at how inflation affects the extensive margin (the number of trades) by making the market composition between buyers and sellers endogenous. We obtain much larger costs of inflation than existing studies, but smaller costs than similar studies conducted on the US economy. Depending on the version of the model the costs of 10% inflation for a $50,000 worker ranges from $250 to $2200 per year in Australia, and from $200 to $1700 in New Zealand, that is between 0.5% and 4.4% of GDP and between 0.4% and 3.4% of GDP respectively. Finally it is calculated that Australia could gain up to 1.6% of GDP per annum--1.2% for New Zealand--by implementing the Friedman rule.

Costs of raising equity capital by renounceable rights issues in Australia

Rights issues remain a common method for raising equity capital in Australia for companies listed on me Australian Stock Exchange. This study investigates the capital raising costs of Anstralian renounceable equity rights issues from 2001 to 2006. Both direct and indirect costs are investigated and the explanatory power of potential influencing factors is analyzed. The total direct costs averaged nearly 4% of gross proceeds raised and the mean offer price was discounted around 17% from the current market price. Issue size, percentage underwritten, concentration of ownership and issuer risk significantly influence the percentage direct costs of the rights issue. The age of the issuer, the average historical volume of shares traded and the offer price appear to influence the percentage discount.

The pricing and underwriting costs of Japanese REIT IPOs

This study investigates 40 Japanese REIT IPOs during 2001 to 2006 and finds evidence that higher final offer prices are reflected in higher underpricing levels by such IPOs. There is also some evidence that the engagement of one of the big three Japanese underwriting firms suggests less money is left on the table. Economies of scale in underwriting fees for Japanese REIT IPOs are also found. Specifically, the percentage underwriting fees decrease with higher amounts of equity capital sought but the percentage fee decreases at a diminishing rate.