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The primary chemicals used by Western Australia's horticultural industries with respect to field control and post-harvest disinfestation procedures for the Mediterranean fruit fly are soon to be withdrawn from use because of public health concerns., When this occurs, the necessary switch to alternative control methods such as bait sprays and intensive fruit fly trapping will involve additional producer costs., The present study demonstrates that these costs are likely to exceed the costs of eradication using the sterile insect technique., Given this result, eradication cost sharing arrangements between government and industry are discussed that could produce mutual benefits in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the modified form of ad valorem royalty recently announced by the WA government in relation to gold production, which features a threshold price below which there is no tax liability and compares this royalty with a profit-based royalty. The level at which the threshold price is set plays an important role in determining the performance of the royalty in relation to its impact on production and the expected level and variability of tax revenue. It is argued that the higher this price is set, the stronger the grounds for preferring a profit-based royalty, even taking into account the reliability of each form for generating tax revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method of quantifying variation in quality in an amenity as a component of an hedonic property amenity valuation. The paper considers the residential land amenity of an ocean view, a situation where there is typically substantial variation in the quality of the view between sites. The method is effectively a scoring system based on three sub-characteristics of the ocean view. It is illustrated by application to a coastal housing subdivision in Western Australia. The results provide an estimate of the increase in the sale price of a site attributable to the quality of the site's ocean view. The method has a potential role in coastal land use management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]