Australia 2010 : towards a seamless national economy [online]
Authors: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

"Presents a general picture, set within a macroeconomic context, of regulatory achievements and challenges, including regulatory quality at the Commonwealth level as well as across levels of government, competition policy and market openness. It also provides a special focus on Commonwealth-state relationships." - abstract.

Pigs at the trough : lessons from Australia's decade of corporate greed [book]

Author: Adam Schwab

"The past decade has seen a period of unparalleled growth in executive remuneration. But while CEO pay exploded, shareholders looked on helplessly as some of Australia's best-known companies self-destructed. When the fall eventually came, executives were well protected. Shareholders and creditors were not so lucky.
From Telstra's enriching of Sol Trujillo to the toppling of Eddy Groves's ABC Learning Centres and the untold accounts of the billions lost by the collapsed Babcock & Brown, Allco Finance Group and MFS, Pigs at the Trough tells the story of how a generation of executives, under the supervision of well-known and respected non-executive directors, pushed all the boundaries and sometimes sailed right over them ... and got away with it." - from publisher.

Call number: 338.5420994 PIG 2010
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OECD tourism trends and policies 2010 [online]
Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

"The tourism sector, a vital driver of job-creation and growth, is under pressure. Facing an increasingly competitive landscape, tourism in many OECD countries has started to lag, in both growth rate and productivity. This book defines the major trends and challenges facing tourism in the next decade – from globalisation to environmental issues. To address these challenges, the book then provides specific policy guidance and recommendations for making tourism more competitive and environmentally sustainable. Tourism data from 42 countries are presented and analysed including all OECD countries, and fast-growing tourism centres such as Brazil, Chile, China and India."

China's megatrends : the 8 pillars of a new society [book]

Authors: John and Doris Naisbitt

"Reveals that China is not only undergoing fundamental changes but also creating an entirely new social and economic model—what the Naisbitts call a "vertical democracy"—that is changing the rules of global trade and challenging Western democracy as the only acceptable form of governing. The Naisbitts have identified 8 pillars as the foundation and drivers of China's new society:

Emancipation of the Mind

Balancing Top-Down and Bottom-Up

Framing the Forest and Letting the Trees Grow

Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones

Artistic and Intellectual Ferment

Joining the World

Freedom and Fairness

From Olympic Medals to Nobel Prizes"

Find it at: 330.951 CHI 2010 or
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Where the US will find growth and jobs (journal article)
from McKinsey Quarterly Mar 2010
"Policy makers everywhere should focus on the competitiveness of individual sectors."
Contact the Library for a copy of this article.

Duties and responsibilities of directors and officers [book]

Author: Robert Baxt

Chapters include: The duties of directors : a broad overview -- The fundamental duties of directors : duty to act -- The fundamental duties of directors : duty to act with care and diligence -- Day-to-day duties -- Insolvent trading -- Insurance, forgiveness by shareholders and by the courts -- Remedies for shareholders : common (general) law and statutory -- Traps for the unwary director.

Find it at: 346.9406642 DUT 2009 or
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Booming Bohemia? Evidence from the US High-Technology Industry (journal article)
By David S. Bieri
from Industry & Innovation Vol 17 Iss 1 Feb 2010, pp. 23 - 48
"This paper assesses the effect of Richard Florida's creative class on economic growth and development at two levels of spatial aggregation. First, I examine the dynamics of economic growth across US metropolitan regions and investigate how they relate to regional specialization and the concentration of talent in the high-tech industry. In addition to evidence of significant high-tech clusters, I identify important complementarities with regard to the interaction between the three Ts of regional development (talent, technology and tolerance) and regional growth dynamics. Using firm-level data, the regional analysis is then complemented by exploring the location of new high-technology plant openings and their relationship with university research and development (R&D) and the creative class. Specifically, I test the hypothesis that both university R&D and the presence of “creativity” generate spillovers which are captured locally in the form of new high-tech establishments, after controlling for important location factors such as local cost, demand and agglomeration economies. While the marginal impacts of increased R&D funding on county probability for new firm formation is modest, the mix of creativity and diversity—as proxied by the Florida measure—appears to be a key driver in the locational choice of new high-tech firms. Separate estimates indicate that these findings hold up across the major high-tech industries in the USA."

The Anatomy of the Creative City (journal article)
By Patrick Cohendet, David Grandadam and Laurent Simon
from Industry & Innovation Vol 17 Iss 1 Feb 2010, pp. 91 - 111
"The aim of this contribution is to depict and analyze the dynamics of situated creativity by presenting an anatomy of the creative city and an understanding of the emergence and formation of creative processes in these particular local ecologies of knowledge. We propose to study the anatomy of the creative city by defining three different layers—the upperground, the middleground and the underground—as the basic components of the creative processes in local innovative milieus. Each one of these layers intervenes with specific characteristics in the creative process, and enables new knowledge to transit from an informal micro-level to a formal macro-level. In order to illustrate this point of view, the creative city of Montral is analyzed through two main case studies: Ubisoft and the Cirque du Soleil. "

An Evaluation of the Economic Approaches Used by Policy Actors towards Investment in Place-Based Partnerships in Victoria (journal article)
By Chris McDonald et al
from Australian Journal of Public Administration Vol 69 Iss 1 2010, pp. 9 - 21
"Place-based partnerships are supported by the state and include various organisations and interests within particular geographic areas. The Victorian government has established place-based partnerships to plan and coordinate resource allocation decisions to meet objectives such as economic development and social inclusion. In the literature there are positive and negative views of these partnerships. One view is that they allow regions to build competitive advantage, while another is that they are a means of pursuing a neoliberal policy agenda that seeks to reduce government protection and investment. We help clarify the tensions between positive and negative views of partnerships by examining the economic approaches used by policy actors toward place-based partnerships in Victoria. We find that policy actors combine neoclassical and institutionalist approaches to argue that partnerships generate networks that enable more efficient and equitable resource allocation within places."

TAXES, GROWTH AND THE CURRENT ACCOUNT TICK-CURVE EFFECT (journal article)
By Creina Day and Garth Day
from Australian Economic Papers Vol 49 Iss 1 2010, pp. 13- 27
"This paper examines the dynamic and long run effects of a shift from income taxes to consumption taxes in a growing small open economy. We introduce a government sector that maintains a balanced budget and expenditure at a constant proportion of domestic income to a small open economy Swan-Solow model. Our framework provides a previously unidentified dynamic effect that is robust to endogenising the savings rate. Lowering the income tax rate promotes economic growth and has a tick-curve effect on the current account balance, characterised by instantaneous deterioration, a period of recovery and gradual convergence to an improved position in the long run."

FORECASTING AUSTRALIAN MACROECONOMIC VARIABLES USING A LARGE DATASET (journal article)
By Sarantis Tsiaplias and Chew Lian Chua
from Australian Economic Papers Vol 49 Iss 1 2010, pp. 44- 59
"This paper investigates the forecasting performance of the diffusion index approach for the Australian economy, and considers the forecasting performance of the diffusion index approach relative to composite forecasts. Weighted and unweighted factor forecasts are benchmarked against composite forecasts, and forecasts derived from individual forecasting models. The results suggest that diffusion index forecasts tend to improve on the benchmark AR forecasts. We also observe that weighted factors tend to produce better forecasts than their unweighted counterparts. We find, however, that the size of the forecasting improvement is less marked than previous research, with the diffusion index forecasts typically producing mean square errors of a similar magnitude to the VAR and BVAR approaches."

Low-Paid Employment and Unemployment Dynamics in Australia (journal article)
By Hielke Buddelmeyer, Wang-Sheng Lee and Mark Wooden
from Economic Record Vol 86 Iss 272 2010, pp. 28 - 38
"This article uses longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (or HILDA) Survey to examine the extent to which the relatively high rates of transition from low-paid employment into unemployment are the result of disadvantageous personal characteristics or are instead a function of low-paid work itself. Dynamic random effects probit models of the likelihood of unemployment are estimated. After controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and initial conditions, we find that, relative to high-paid employment, low-paid employment is associated with a higher risk of unemployment, but this effect is only significant among women. We also find only weak evidence that low-paid employment is a conduit for repeat unemployment."

Using Engel Curves to Estimate the Bias in the Australian CPI (journal article)
By Garry F Barrett and Matthew Brzozowski
from Economic Record Vol 86 Iss 272 2010, pp. 1- 14
"The Australian consumer price index (CPI) is a Laspeyres price index which is subject to a number of well-known biases. In this article we evaluate the performance of the Australian CPI as a true cost of living index by comparing CPI-deflated food Engel curves estimated with the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Surveys. Our findings indicate that the Australian CPI overstated the change in the general cost of living between 1975/1976 and 2003/2004 by 34 per cent. The CPI was especially inaccurate for single adults and lone mother families. In contrast, the CPI was relatively accurate in measuring the change in the cost of living for two-adult and working families."

OECD Economic Surveys : China [online]

Author: OECD

"Finds that China's spectacular expansion has continued in recent years, making for impressive improvements in living standards. The slowdown associated with the global financial and economic crisis was contained by massive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus, which has boosted domestic demand. This survey includes chapters on recent achievements and prospects, monetary policy, financial reforms, product market regulation and competition, inequality, the labour market, old-age security and the health care system. " - abstract.

Best practice board reporting : handbook [Ref Standard]

Author: Standards Australia

Provides guidelines on the content, presentation and other features of information presented in board reports, so that Board members can discharge their duties in the best interest of the entity. It is directed at board members, its key stakeholders and those involved in the preparation of the reports.

Find it at: Ref Standard HB 403:2004

Unrealised gains : the competitive possibilities of tax reform [book]
Author: Business Council of Australia

The Business Council of Australia's final submission to the Australia's future tax system review, chaired by Dr Ken Henry.
"Calls for a tax system that maximises community wealth. Among the reforms proposed in Unrealised Gains are lower corporate tax and lower taxes on local savings, measures that support a shift in focus over time away from taxing the means of production to taxing consumption. In the tougher economic environment of the next decade, our biggest growth opportunity will come from attracting a larger share of scarce global investment capital.Lower corporate tax and lower tax on local savings will boost investment. And higher investment in turn will raise productivity, wages and living standards over the next 20 years." - publisher's website.

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Call number: 336.2050994 UNR 2009

Venture Capital and Later Stage Private Equity, Australia, 2008-09
Source: ABS 5678.0
The survey provides details of venture capital and later stage private equity activity from venture capital and later stage private equity fund managers. The information includes in broad terms fund commitments and drawdowns by source of funds, assets and liabilities of the venture capital and later stage private equity funds, financing flows between the funds and their investors and investee companies and the stage and industry characteristics of venture capital deals undertaken during the latest financial year.

Boulevard of broken dreams : why public efforts to boost entrepreneurship and venture capital have failed--and what to do about it [book]
Author: Josh Lerner
"When has governmental sponsorship succeeded in boosting growth, and when has it fallen terribly short? Should the government be involved in such undertakings at all? Boulevard of Broken Dreams is the first extensive look at the ways governments have supported entrepreneurs and venture capitalists across decades and continents. Josh Lerner, one of the foremost experts in the field, provides valuable insights into why some public initiatives work while others are hobbled by pitfalls, and he offers suggestions for how public ventures should be implemented in the future." - cover.
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Call number: 338.04 BOU 2009

Ford's principles of corporations law, 14th ed. [book]

Authors: R. P. Austin & I. M. Ramsay

"Responds to recent Australian Commonwealth legislation, including legislation dealing with rights issues, the powers of the Takeovers Panel, the rights and obligations of external administrators of companies, and cross-border insolvency." - cover.
Sections include: Companies and Company Law, A Company as a Corporate Entity, The Law of Corporate Governance, Corporate Liability, Corporate Finance, Corporate Control and Restructuring, and External Administration.

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Call number: 346.94066 FOR 2010

How markets fail : the logic of economic calamities [book]

Author: John Cassidy

Why are financial markets and housing markets so prone to bubbles? Why doesn't rising prosperity make people happier? Why do many people contribute generously to charity but fail to save for their own retirement? What is the economic answer to global warming? These questions all involve behaviour that many would regard as irrational - and market outcomes that are far from ideal.
Standard economics has been dominated by rational choice models, which regard the free market as a giant super-computer that magically coordinates the activities of consumers and firms, to the benefit of all. Using fascinating new insights from behavioural economics, and vivid contemporary and historical examples, Cassidy shows how people's myopia, gullibility, copycat behaviour, overconfidence, loss aversion, and sense of altruism and fairness all help us understand the world in ways that rational choice economics does not.
This is the book that both explains the current moment and explains past and future such moments. We will continue to get things wrong. But at least now we will be having the right conversation.

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Call number: 330.01 HOW 2009