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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of functional, hedonistic and ethical attributes of denim jeans attributes and the trade-offs young adult Australian consumers made within these attributes when making a purchase decision. Design/methodology/approach – A two-stage mixed-method approach was used to explore the importance of denim jeans attributes and the trade-offs made within these attributes. First, focus groups were used to identify attributes that were important to young Australian adult consumers. In the second stage, conjoint analysis was used to estimate the relative importance of the product and ethical attributes that were identified in the focus groups and the trade-offs made within this attribute set. Findings – Focus group participants identified style, price, brand, country of origin and ethics as attributes that they used to evaluate denim jeans. In the conjoint analysis respondents identified price as having the highest relative importance, followed by brand, country of origin, style and ethical attributes. It was clear multiple attributes were valued and, although the ethical attributes that were included were not as important as garment attributes, respondents appeared to make trade-offs between garment and ethical attributes when purchasing denim jeans. Originality/value – The paper identifies attributes of denim jeans that are valued by young Australian adult consumers. That product attributes were more important than ethical attributes suggests a focus on ethical credentials may not be effective. Denim jeans are more likely to be purchased by young Australian adults if they are reasonably priced, made in Italy and have a designer brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mining industry makes up a large portion of the gross domestic product (GDP) in Australia, although securing human resources remains a problem in that field. The aim of this paper is to identify Australian university mining students' preferences, considering it as potential employees' preferences, for labour conditions at mining sites by means of a discrete choice experiment to promote efficient improvements in labour conditions in the mining industry. The data of 93 respondents analysed in this paper was collected by survey carried out in two universities in Australia. The result of the study showed that students have preferences on several factors such as wage, fatality rate, working position, commuting style, and company. Students having specific sociodemographic characters were found to show specific preferences on labour conditions. The results of this study indicate the potential average of appropriate monetary compensation for each factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The difficulties experienced with traditional forms of economic regulation of airports involving direct control of prices have led to an interest in light-handed regulatory frameworks. Experience with light-handed regulation of airports is primarily confined to Australia and New Zealand. The paper examines the design features of light-handed regulation in Australia and New Zealand in relation to the stated objectives associated with the introduction of light-handed regulation. The paper identifies important aspects associated with the design of light-handed regulation including the incorporation of a credible threat of stronger regulation and the characteristics of this, and an apparent trade-off in objectives achieved with different approaches to light-handed regulation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The mining boom in Australia since 2003 has produced significant economic benefits for regional, State and National economies, creating new job opportunities and revenue flows. Despite the contribution of the resources sector to economic growth, questions are frequently raised about the concomitant negative social, economic and environmental impacts. The Surat Basin in southern Queensland is a traditional agricultural region with a small but growing coal mining sector and a rapidly developing liquefied natural gas industry (mainly associated with extracting coal seam gas). In this paper, the preferences of residents in Brisbane, the State capital, are explored in relation to the relative importance of social, economic and environmental impacts of the resource boom in the Surat Basin. A choice modelling experiment was conducted to assess the trade-offs Brisbane residents would make (in monetary terms) between the economic benefits and the associated costs of increased mining activity on local communities. The results identify the strength of concerns about community and environmental impacts and can potentially be used to help evaluate the net benefits of resource development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first continental-scale climate change adaptation strategy for biodiversity conservation has been adopted in Australia. The Great Eastern Ranges Initiative (GERI), aims to bolster the resilience of biodiversity by enhancing connectivity in eastern Australia for species migration in a changing climate. The Initiative is now being carried out on the ground, and is among the earliest national-level adaptation strategies for biodiversity conservation advanced by policymakers. In this paper we explore the implications of the rapid progression of the Initiative through the policy process, providing insights useful for decision makers advancing adaptation policies elsewhere in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Australia is currently facing a serious water crisis. Saving water is not the government''s solo effort, it also requires support from individual households. The use of rainwater tanks for rainwater storage has been highly recommended for both outdoor and indoor uses. This paper investigates cost effectiveness on the use of rainwater tanks for Australian residential environment. Seven cities are examined in this paper, including Gold Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra. Cost for installing and operating rainwater tanks and cost from alternative water sources including building additional dams and desalination plants are compared. It is found that using rainwater is an economical option for households in Gold Coast, Brisbane, and Sydney. Recommendations of suitable tank sizes for different household environments are also proposed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Tourism Holdings Limited (THL), with 14 locations in Australia and New Zealand, operates a fleet of approximately 4,000 recreational rental vehicles of many types. It allocates vehicles to bookings centrally. If demand for a particular vehicle type at a location exceeds supply, THL may substitute vehicles of similar types or relocate vehicles from other locations to the location that needs the vehicles. The static problem that THL faces daily is to determine a vehicle schedule that minimizes the tangible and intangible costs of such substitutions and relocations. The dynamic problem is to determine--sometimes as the customer waits--whether a vehicle will be available to cover a potential booking and to incorporate that booking into the schedule. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has researched, developed, and supplied software, VASS and D-VASS, to solve the static and dynamic aspects of THL's schedule creation and maintenance. This paper describes the THL problem, the systems that CSIRO implemented, and how THL embedded these systems into its operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environment is an asset that provides essential services. Like any other asset, its services will diminish as it depreciates. The environmentally sustainable income of a nation depends on a sustained flow of these services, and can be estimated by including the environment in a macroeconomic framework, with a goal to achieve both full employment and sustainability. The relationship of national income to employment is estimated at full employment, actual employment and the employment level that is necessary to maintain sustainable income, for the Australian economy. There proved to be a widening gap between actual income and environmentally sustainable income, and between actual income and income to guarentee full employment. Wage reduction and improvement of technology are analysed as possible ways to meet the goal of an environmentally sustainable income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To better understand what is most important to people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLWH) when choosing their treatment. We assessed how PLWH trade off the potential risks and benefits of oral and long acting injectable (LAI) treatments.Participants and Methods: Firstly, in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 PLWH to develop a holistic understanding of experiences and determine attributes that contribute to treatment decision-making. Secondly, a discrete choice experiment (DCE) was used to understand the treatment preferences for PLWH with n = 99 PLWH aged 18 years or over with a diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and who were currently using anti-retroviral therapy (ART). Study participants were presented with 12 scenarios and asked to select their preferred treatment among two hypothetical injectable treatment alternatives, "injection 1" and "injection 2" and their current oral ART treatment. The DCE data were modelled using a latent class model (LCM).Results: The model revealed significant heterogeneity in preferences for treatment attributes among study participants. Two segments/classes of PLWH were identified. The first segment expressed a strong preference for their current oral treatment; the second segment showed strong preference for the injection treatment and for it to be administered in a GP clinic. Overall, out-of-pocket cost was the most important attribute for participants. One-third of PLWH were willing to switch to an LAI.Conclusion: Not all PLWH valued the same treatment attributes equally. Overall, out-of-pocket costs for treatments were considered by respondents as the most determining factor in making treatment choices. Results have important implications for healthcare policy and will serve to better inform patients and stakeholders involved in the treatment decision-making process about the treatment preferences of PLWH. Clinicians are encouraged to consider shared decision-making to establish the treatment course that best aligns with PLWH's treatment goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African Swine Fever (ASF) has spread rapidly across different continents since 2007 and caused huge biosecurity threats and economic losses. Establishing an effective risk assessment model is of great importance for ASF prevention, especially for those ASF-free countries such as Australia. With a vast territory and an economy heavily relying on primary industry, Australia faces a threat from the spread of ASF. Although ordinary quarantine measures have been well-performed throughout Australia, there is still a need to develop an effective risk assessment model to understand the spread of ASF due to the strong transmission ability of ASF. In this paper, via a comprehensive literature review, and analyzing the transmission factors of ASF, we provide a fuzzy model to assess the epidemic risk of Australian states and territories, under the assumption that ASF has entered Australia. As demonstrated in this work, although the pandemic risk of ASF in Australia is relatively low, there is a risk of irregular and scattered outbreaks, with Victoria (VIC) and New South Wales (NSW) - Australia Capital Territory (NSW-ACT) showed the highest risk. The reliability of this model was also systematically tested by a conjoint analysis model. To our knowledge, this is the first study to comprehensively analyze the ASF epidemic risk in a country using fuzzy modeling. This work can provide an understanding of the risk ASF transmission within Australia based on the fuzzy modeling, the same methodology can also provide insights and useful information for the establishment of fuzzy models to perform the ASF risk assessment for other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensory perception and food preferences change as we age. This paper encompassed two studies with the aim being to investigate meal and snacking behaviour of older adults towards food, especially meat products, and understand the desirable characteristics of those products. A qualitative multivariate analysis (QMA) focus group with Australian and Chinese older (60–81 years old) adults was conducted. A conjoint concept database was used to determine older consumers' wants and needs for food in Australia and China. The QMA suggested that Australian consumers are not eating a proper breakfast or dinner but are 'snacking' throughout the day. In contrast, Chinese consumers are eating three regular meals through the day and occasionally snacks. For both groups, texture and flavour were key drivers for food choice. Difficulty in eating meat products was evident, e.g., beef jerky was found too dry and hard. Older consumers in China and Australia differed in responses to the four food categories investigated in terms of product traits and segmentation. Both the conjoint analysis and QMA showed that demographics have an impact on consumer preferences towards food. This research suggested that there is an opportunity to create ready-to-eat, nutrient dense products to enhance the wellness of older consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transferable offsets are a means of mitigating the adverse environmental impacts of resource developments. Based on insights from institutional economics, there are three elements that need to be in place for offsets to be effective: (1) property rights over the mitigating good can be defined and assigned; (2) a difference exists between the marginal cost of supplying the mitigating good and the community's marginal value for it; and (3) the transaction costs of exchanging the mitigating good are less than the trade benefit. We suggest that these elements can be used to evaluate the design and performance of offset schemes and illustrate how this can be done using two Australian environmental offset schemes. Trade-offs between cost and environmental outcomes are apparent in the design and operation of these schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recycled water use in urban areas is viewed as one part of the solution to Australia''s water shortage. The effectiveness of policies designed to promote recycled water systems depends on the acceptance by the community of the price, colour, odour and salt content of the recycled water. In Australia and other countries, limited research has been conducted that investigates community attitudes to and willingness to pay for recycled water, especially in urban settings. Community acceptance of recycled water and the economic feasibility of such projects have not been widely evaluated, even though the long-term feasibility of many projects is dependent on such information. This paper examines the attitudes of an urban Australian community living at Mawson Lakes in South Australia, to using recycled water for non-potable domestic purposes. Conjoint analysis (CA) was used to evaluate participant''s () preferences for various attributes of recycled water (colour, odour, salt content and price) for various uses (garden watering, toilet flushing and clothes washing). The analysis was used to estimate the respondent''s willingness to pay (WTP) for quality increases for each of the attributes. Differences in WTP were investigated according to various demographic variables including income and education. Results indicate that for garden watering having ‘low salt levels’ is the most important attribute of recycled water, for clothes washing ‘colourless’ is the most important attribute, and for toilet flushing a ‘low price’ was the most important attribute. Respondents were willing to pay for increases in the quality of recycled water. The amount they were willing to pay varied depending on applied use and the attribute in question. Respondents were most willing to pay for an increase in quality of recycled water when used for clothes washing (willing to pay Australian dollars (A$) 0. 07/cubic meter (m3) for removal of colour, A$0. 065 per cubic meter for an increase in quality of recycled water from ‘salty’ to ‘low salt,’ and A$ 0. 06/m3 for removal of odour (1A$=0. 75US$ and 0. 62€, August 24, 2005)). Segmentation of the price attribute by demographic sectors reveals that those in the higher income bracket, higher education sector, middle age group, and who are male, had a higher marginal valuation on price. The results of this study provide important information for recycled water retailers and water policy developers, helping achieve greater economic feasibility for future recycled water projects, to the satisfaction of the communities involved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years, economists and others have returned to the question of how best to measure a country's level of well-being. This article summarises a contemporary attempt to construct an Australian index of well-being and discusses the key conceptual and methodological tradeoffs faced when seeking to be rigorous, engaging and useful in considering policy alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the determinants of corporate cash holdings in Australia and the impact on shareholder wealth of holding excess cash. Our results show that a trade-off model best explains the level of a firm's cash holdings in Australia. We find that 'transitory' excess cash firms earn significantly higher risk-adjusted returns compared to 'persistent' excess cash firms, suggesting that the market penalises firms that hoard cash. The marginal value of cash also declines with larger cash balances, and the longer firms hold on to excess cash. The results are consistent with agency costs associated with persistence in excess cash holdings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates capital structures of Australian firms in relation to firm characteristics. Using an unbalanced panel of 367 firms observed over a 15-year period from 1992 to 2006, our panel data regression results show that debt-asset ratio is positively related to asset tangibility but inversely related to growth prospects and business risk measured by unlevered beta of equity. We also find that although levered firms are generally more profitable than unlevered firms, profitability decreases the debt ratio of levered firms. We do not find that firm size affects the capital structure of Australian firms. These results are consistent with the pecking order and the agency cost theories but contradict the trade-off theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To describe and compare women's and health professionals’ preferences for prenatal screening tests for Down syndrome. Design: Cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Participants and setting: Women ( n = 322) attending for a glucose challenge test at 26 weeks gestation and health professionals (266 midwives and 34 obstetricians) at the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, between 13 December 2002 and 30 April 2003. Outcome measures: The relative value participants attach to attributes of Down syndrome screening tests as determined by conjoint analysis and ranking scales. Results: Women and health professionals shared similar relative values regarding the importance of detection rate of screening tests, according to coefficients from conjoint analysis models. However, health professionals placed higher relative values on timing of prenatal tests and risk associated with the subsequent diagnostic test than did women. Comparison of coefficients suggests that, compared with health professionals, women would wait longer and accept a greater decrease in detection rate for a test if it was safer. Using the more traditional ranking scale, the safest test was ranked first by 56% of women while 47% of health professionals ranked a test with the highest detection rate first. Equal proportions (∼10%) in both groups ranked the earliest test first. Conclusion: There is a general agreement between pregnant women and health professionals regarding the relative importance they attach to different attributes of a test. However, health professionals appeared to favour earlier timing of tests while women placed greater emphasis on safety. Utilising two different measures of preference demonstrated the complexity of decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contrasts divergent attitudes toward tax competition and tax harmonization in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Despite strong arguments on each side, competition and harmonization are not necessarily conflicting goals except at the extremes. The most troublesome issue is the tradeoff between promoting efficiency in the public sector and in the private sector. Due to the difficulty of measuring and comparing efficiency in both sectors, this issue is not likely to be resolved objectively. However, tax-base harmonization appears to be the best compromise in pursuing both goals. Some fundamental problems remain regardless of the policy direction taken, including limiting "micro-level" competition and addressing environmental and redistributive concerns in regional and local arenas. Improved intergovernmental cooperation and experimentation are viewed as the key to resolving these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]