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By-catch is a serious conservation threat to populations of numerous marine species, including the diamondback terrapin. Terrapins are top level predators in their estuarine environments and can play an important role in maintaining salt marsh integrity. Unfortunately, numerous populations have declined due to drowning in submerged commercial and recreational crab pots. By-catch reduction devices (BRDs) were developed to prevent terrapin by-catch without affecting crab capture, and they have been shown in previous studies to be effective. The current study examined the efficacy of BRDs in reducing terrapin by-catch in a depleted population of terrapins along the Gulf Coast of Alabama. The BRDs significantly decreased terrapin by-catch (an approximate 90% reduction). There was no significant reduction in the overall capture of crabs in BRD-equipped pots; however, capture of marketable-sized crabs was significantly lower in pots modified with BRDs. This latter finding was in contrast to several large scale studies that had much larger sample sizes and found no significant reduction in the capture of marketable-sized crabs with the use of BRDs The results indicate that BRDs represent an effective and practical management tool in reducing terrapin by-catch in commercial and recreational crab pots in Alabama., INTRODUCTION The impacts of by-catch from marine fisheries have been well documented and have become a conservation concern for a variety of species such as sea turtles (Hall et al., [...]

Land taxes are known to be amongst the most efficient forms of taxation, as land is an immobile factor; property (capital value) taxes are less efficient owing to the tax on improvements. However there is little international (or New Zealand) evidence regarding the distributional impacts of land and property taxes. Nor is there much New Zealand evidence on their potential fiscal implications or about the taxes' impacts on asset values and debt positions. Using both partial and general equilibrium models, we explore impacts that may arise from the imposition of land and property taxes in New Zealand. Keywords: land tax: property tax, 1. Introduction Many developed countries, including New Zealand, face the prospect of significant structural central government budget deficits (IMF, 2009; New Zealand Government, 2009). These pressures make it sensible to [...]

This paper develops a model of the housing market to examine the long-term consequences of different types of capital gains taxes. The model, which uses an overlapping generations framework to model the housing demands of agents who differ by age, income, and wealth, incorporates rental and owner-occupancy options, credit constraints, detailed tax regulations, and a construction sector. It suggests capital gains taxes will raise rents, increase homeownership rates, promote smaller houses, and increase the net foreign asset position. The welfare implications are less clear, particularly for young low income households that will face higher rents. Keywords: inflation; credit constraints; capital income taxes; housing markets; home-ownership rates; monetary policy, 1. Introduction This paper develops a micro-founded macroeconomic model to analyse the long-term effects of capital gains taxes on New Zealand's residential property markets. The model is a version of [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2006.08.001 Byline: Andrew Coleman Keywords: Gold standard; Threshold models; Price arbitrage Abstract: This paper argues that bilateral spatial price models do not estimate bilateral transactions costs when trade with third cities is important. The paper examines trans-Atlantic gold arbitrage during the gold standard era by assembling a database indicating when trans-Atlantic gold shipments occurred. It shows that two-way gold shipments between New York and London frequently occurred prior to 1901. However, in 1901 gold shipments to London ceased and were replaced by triangular arbitrage shipments through Paris. Consequently, New York and London gold price data cannot be used to estimate New York-London transactions costs after 1901, as no trade took place. Author Affiliation: Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Economics Department, 2, The Terrace, Wellington, New Zealand Article History: Received 12 November 2004 Article Note: (footnote) [star] I thank Craig Brown, Neil Reddy, and Saurav Sen for assisting in the collection of the data that are the heart of this paper, and Raphael Portillo for providing useful research assistance. I thank Lawrence Officer, Galina Swartz, and seminar participants at the University of Michigan and Massey University for useful comments. A similar version of the paper originally circulated under the title 'The French Connection: The efficiency of triangular commodity point arbitrage during the Gold Standard era, 1886-1905' (2002).

[Many commentators, including even some members of the International Court of Justice itself, have expressed concerns about the Court's ability to make a valid contribution to the resolution of highly [...]

The author examines the International Court of Justice's authority to investigate crimes against humanity and issue advisory opinions on such investigations, and concludes the court does not possession such power under its establishing statute.

The minimal social situation, which arises in living systems and subsystems at the level of the group, is a two-person game of incomplete information in which the players are ignorant of their interdependence. The win-stay, lose-change principle, based on the law of effect, explains how they nonetheless learn to cooperate when the game is repeated many times. In this paper the minimal social situation is generalized to groups of arbitrary size with the original two-person game representing a special case. Some theorems are derived from the assumption that the players follow the win-stay, lose-change principle, and the circumstances that result in joint cooperation are formally characterized. Whethe or not an iterated multiperson minimal social situation results in joint cooperation under the win-stay, lose-change principle is shown to depend on the configuration of initial choices and the number of times that the group size is evenly divisible by two. Finally, some implications for experimental research are outlined.

The government has released its draft guidance on contaminated land, requiring authorities to inspect their areas for contamination, identify sites and formulate clean up strategies and draw up a register of sites where clean up is needed. The scope of the definition of contaminated land has narrowed and there is concern that lower levels of contamination could continue to pollute the enviornment. The LAAs are proposing changes to the definition. There is also concern that the Supplementary Credit Approval funding will not be sufficient to to implement the guidance.