Towards an ecologically sound Australian tax system (journal article)
by Charles Berger
from National Environmental Law Review, 2009:2, pp.24 - 32
"[Treasury Secretary Ken] Henry proposed that the three traditional principles of good tax design - equity, efficiency and simplicity - principles which have stood the test of time since Adam Smith's day, be supplemented by a fourth: environmental sustainability. The notion that environmental considerations were not just important, but should be at the very core of tax policy design, must have seemd at least provocative, if not heretical."
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Methods explained: The balance of payments (journal article)
by Graeme Chamberlin
from Economic & Labour Market Review, vol 3, no 9, pp 44-51
"This article describes the main features of the United Kingdom Balance of Payments. The Balance of Payments essentially records one nation’s transactions with the rest of the world – relating to conventional trade in goods and services, income flows and the transfer in ownership of financial assets across borders. The International Investment Position, or net asset position, is the part of the Balance of Payments that records net stocks of the UK’s foreign assets and liabilities. The relationship between this and investment income is also analysed. Finally, the impact of the global recession and credit crunch on recent Balance of Payments data is presented."

Capitalising research and development: towards the new system of National AccountsUpdates previous work to include improvements to measuring R&D deflation, depreciation, rate of return and stocks (journal article)
by Peter Evans, M. Khalid Nadeem Khan, Lars Wenzell
from Economic & Labour Market Review, vol 3, no 9, pp 16-23
"This article extends the earlier work on capitalisation of R&D in response to the proposals in the new System of National Accounts (SNA). Major improvements include: R&D deflators, depreciation rate for non-market R&D, rate of return, and estimates of R&D capital stocks. In addition, the article highlights areas for future improvements and presents preliminary estimates for the impact of capitalisation on the UK National Accounts. R&D capitalisation raises the level of UK GDP by approximately 1.6 per cent and gross capital formation by about 9 per cent. These changes are due to capitalisation of R&D rather than an actual improvement to GDP growth, which is estimated to be minimal. These fi gures are preliminary, based on experimental methods, and should therefore be interpreted with caution. The authors welcome comments and complementary evidence that can be used to substantiate or revise the assumptions made throughout this article. "

The Trainer's handbook [book]

Author: Karen Lawson

"Includes tips on assessing the needs of participants, ideas for keeping training sessions learner-centred, suggestions for incorporating activities into training, guidelines for selecting effective audiovisual aids, and proven techniques for closing sessions creatively." - cover.

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Competitive alternatives : KPMG's guide to international business costs [online]

Authors: KPMG / MMK Consulting

A guide to comparing business locations in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. It measures the combined impact of 27 significant cost components that are most likely to vary by location, as applied to specific industries and business operations.

Brisbane's Top 50 Private Companies
by Matthew Ogg
from Brisbane Business News, September 2009
"WHILE the share market has been on the mend in recent months, the ASX's volatility over the past year has shown that private business does have its benefits. This month Brisbane Business News profiles the city's top private companies - the quietly confident high-achievers that pass under the radar, yet manage to cover so much ground."

The Business plan workbook : the definitive guide to researching, writing up and presenting a winning plan [book]

Authors: Colin Barrow, Paul Barrow and Robert Brown

"Brings together the process and procedures required to produce that persuasive plan. The step-by-step approach covers all the key topics, including: Validating your business idea; Examples from the plans to successful entrepreneurs; Practical ways to research your market; Developing your marketing strategy; Raising finance; Building a website; Keeping the books; Controlling the business; Writing up and presenting your business plan; Links to free business spreadsheets and online tools." - cover.

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The cooking-immigration nexus (journal article)
by Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy and Bob Kinnaird
from People and Place, v.17, no.1, 2009, pp. 63-75
"There has been a meteoric rise in enrolments of overseas students in cooking courses in Australia from around 1019 in 2004 to 8242 in 2008. All are trained in full-time courses conducted mainly by private providers, rather than by the apprenticeship system which is the norm for Australian-trained cooks. ... This article examines the rules governing the training and subsequent vasaing of these cooks. It concludes that there are serious gaps in the rules governing their training and the assessment of their competency. In large part because of these definciencies, only a minority obtain employment in Australia as trade-level cooks."

Writing for Results (article)
By Patricia Hoyle.
from Management Today September 2009
To keep misunderstandings in business to a minimum; clear, concise written communications are essential.

Total public sector output and productivity: presents latest estimates for public service productivity between 1998 and 2007 (article)
by Fraser Munroe, Mike Phelps
from Economic & Labour Market Review, vol 3, no 8, pp 45-55.
"Public services account for over 20 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Almost everyone is a potential user of public services such as the NHS or schools. Taxpayers, as the main funders of public services, also have a legitimate concern about what we are getting for our money. One important aspect of this, though not the only aspect, is productivity: the quantity of output that is produced divided by the quantity of input used. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published periodic assessments of the productivity performance of key public services. This article presents estimates for all public services collectively for the first time since the 2003 ONS article Understanding Government Output and Productivity (Pritchard, 2003). "

The Return of depression economics and the crisis of 2008 [book]

Author: Paul Krugman

"Shows how today's situation parallels the events that caused the Great Depression. He surveys the economic crises that swept across Asia, Russia and Latin America in the 1990s, and reveals that those crises were a warning for all of us. Now depression economics has returned: when the great housing bubble of the mid-2000s burst, the Western financial system proved as vulnerable as those of developing countries caught up in earlier crises - and a replay of the 1930s seems all top possible. Krugman shows how it happened and lays out the steps that must be taken to turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession. Brilliantly crafted in his trademark style - lucid, lively, and supremely informed - this will become a cornerstone of the debate over how to respond to our current economic predicament."

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Warning : scammers are targetting you [Audio CD]
Author: Business Essentials
Contains the following segaments: Introduction -- The economy 2009/10 -- Warning : scammers are targetting you -- Winning ways to boost sales -- 12 hidden opportunities in a downturn -- Outsource your HR headaches -- Is now a good time to recruit? -- Cashflow : think outside the square -- Tax update -- Sharemarket update -- Storytelling to communicate your messages.
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Tribes : we need you to lead us [book]

Author: Seth Godin

"Argues that today everyone has an opportunity to start a movement - to bring together a tribe of like-minded people and do amazing things. And yet too many people ignore the opportunity to lead because they are "sheepwalking" their way through their lives and work, too afraid to question whether their compliance is doing them - or their company - any good." - cover.

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Australian cultural and innovation policies: Never the twain shall meet? (journal article)
By Ben Eltham
from Innovation: Management Policy and Practice Vol 11 Iss 2 Aug 2009, pp. 230-239
"
In recent years, Australian cultural policy-makers have begun to pay more attention to innovation policy. Several of the Australian states specifically address issues of innovation in their formal cultural policies, and the Australia Council for the Arts has published an Innovation Strategy which purports to constitute 'a coordinated approach to supporting creativity as one of Australia's most valuable assets' (Australia Council 2006).
However, despite this prima facie policy commitment to supporting and fostering innovation in the arts and cultural industries, there remains a disconnect between cultural and innovation policies in Australia. On the one hand, cultural policies in Australia are confused and incoherent in their approach to cultural innovation, and many policy settings as they apply to cultural industries are antithetical to the aims of fostering innovation and R&D. Meanwhile, innovation policies continue to pay only marginal attention to the creative arts and cultural industries. This disconnect will be briefly examined in three fields of cultural policy: arts and cultural funding; copyright and intellectual property policy; and broadcast media policy.
It is argued that rather than promoting innovation, existing policy frameworks in all three areas, when not specifically framed around the protection of vested interests, are often contradictory and inimical to the disruptive influence of innovative artists, technologies and firms. Possible reasons for the disconnect include pragmatic matters of busy ministers and low policy priorities, and conceptual confusion over the status and value of culture."
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The Private Finance Initiative (journal article)
By Anthony Wall and Ciaran Connolly
from Public Management Review Vol 11 Issue 5 Sept 2009, pp. 707 - 724
"This article considers the development of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and contends that it is now deeply embedded and intertwined in policies to renew and modernize the United Kingdom's public services. After briefly reviewing prior research based upon the themes proposed by Broadbent and Laughlin (1999), this article suggests a new research agenda to reflect how the PFI has matured and developed in recent years."

Government Subsidies for Professional Team Sports in Australia (journal article)
By John K. Wilson and Richard Pomfret
from Australian Economic Review Vol 42 Iss 3 2009, pp. 264 - 275
"Professional team sports represent an important aspect of Australian life. Interest is great, and a significant portion of household expenditure is directed toward sports-related goods and services. Based on international comparisons and on the size of attendance and television revenues, the sector should be highly profitable. Yet, significant amounts of public funding and regulatory exemptions are afforded to team sports in Australia. This article analyses the magnitude and reasons for government spending that subsidises professional team sports."

What Happened to Australia's Productivity Surge? (journal article)
By Ben Dolman
from Australian Economic Review Vol 42 Iss 3 2009, pp. 243 - 263
"Australia's productivity has grown 1 percentage point per year slower in the current decade than in the 1990s. This article shows that almost one-half of the slowdown is related to unusual developments in the mining industry, the effects of drought and the overstatement of productivity growth in the 1990s. Part of the remainder might be as a result of a combination of slower technological change, unmeasured declines in labour quality, the diminishing effects of past reforms and the increasing profitability of Australian firms."

Prolonged sitting linked to premature death (article)
by Angela Dorizas
from Government News, 27/08/2009
"Australian workers are risking their health through prolonged sitting, according to a landmark study. The Stand Up Australia study was a collaboration of Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Medibank Private and the Cancer Prevention Research Centre at The University of Queensland. Using accelerometers and self-reporting, Stand Up Australia monitored activity levels of 131 Medibank Private and partner organisation employees in office, call centre and retail environments. The study found that on average 77 per cent of work time was spent sitting."

The New Marketing (journal article)
by Melissa Wilkinson
from Management Today September 2009
"In the glory days of mass consumption, marketing was about getting consumers to believe they didn't just want the latest and greatest product, they actually needed it. In a robust economy fuelled by excess and greed, consumers couldn't resist being swept up in the wave of campaigns promoting 'bigger, better, faster and newer'.
It was relatively easy for marketers to push products in an environment where consumers could afford to regularly replace and upgrade their goods. The job of marketing was to simply generate awareness and sell products; adding value to consumers was unimportant."

Collaboration : how leaders avoid the traps, create unity, and reap big results [book]

Author: Morten T. Hansen

"Deciding when to collaborate - and when not to - is the first critical step in disciplined collaboration. To master collaboration is to know when not to do it. ... Highlights common collaboration traps that managers must avoid. ... Also identifies four major barriers to successful collaboration - the "not-invented-here" syndrome, hoarding, search problems, and transfer issues - and show leaders how to spot them." - cover.

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