In many Asian countries, women play a significant but varying role in the management of livestock and the use of common resources plays an important role in animal husbandry, and can affect the health of some types of livestock. This paper concentrates on village livestock in Thailand and makes...

We formulate a dynamic framework for an individual decision-maker within which discovery of previously unconsidered propositions is possible. Using a standard game-theoretic representation of the state space as a tree structure generated by the actions of agents (including acts of nature), we...

In this chapter, we compare the experience of Australia and New Zealand over the period of microeconomic reform that began in the early 1980s. Of particular concern is the question of how New Zealand, with what were seen at the time as the ‘best’ set of economic policies in the OECD,...

The paper begins with a schematic survey of the historical background, which provides the context for the changes embodied in WorkChoices, briefly described in Section 2. The core of the paper, Section 3, examines the role of choice and constraint in the design of the reforms. This analysis is...

We explore the relationship between the choice of the strategy space and outcomes in Tullock contests. In particular, in a framework where one of the contest's participants moves first, we show that there is an equilibrium where this individual wins the contest with probability one. We also show...

Funds for public programmes for control of animal diseases are limited and especially so in less developed countries. Therefore it is important from an economic point of view to get the 'best value for money' from such control expenditure. After briefly reviewing the economic rationale for...

This discussion paper is designed to provide an introduction to the various methods of valuing so-called ‘non-market goods’ for economic analysis of animal health programs. The concept of non-market values is examined, with examples in relation to animal health. Various techniques for...

We provide a very different way to think about how consensus may arise. We deliberately skimp on the micro-processes of persuasion usually emphasized in constructivist accounts, instead highlighting the structural aspects of the cross-national networks through which experts communicate with each...

The debate over theFree Trade Agreement with the United States has produced a book, How to Kill a Country, primarily concerned with intellectual property and related issues (Weiss, Thurbon and Matthews 2004). In arguing that Australia will be worse off, Weiss, Thurbon and Matthews examine four...

The worldwide scare over the 'Y2K bug result in the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars on Y2K compliance and conversion policies. Most of this can be seen, in retrospect, to have been unproductive or, at least, misdirected. In this paper, the technological and institutional factors...