This paper will examine the interrelationships between the position, role and performance of New Zealand in the global economy. In particular, the paper deals with the challenges faced by New Zealand which are associated with its economic geography, and examines how these challenges are mediated...

Simulation models are valuable tools in the analysis of complex, highly constrained economic systems unsuitable for solution by mathematical programming. However, model size may hamper the efforts of practitioners to efficiently identify the most valuable configurations. This paper investigates...

In the context of continuous droughts, the search for alternative water sources and increasing environmental restrictions on discharge of treated wastewater into natural water bodies, treated wastewater recycling offers a potential solution. In this paper the methods needed to assess the...

Laos is a mountainous country with poor roads and a high rate of poverty incidence, especially in rural areas. It is obvious that better roads could reduce poverty, but by how much? And what forms of road improvement reduce poverty the most? The economic effects of road improvement are complex...

In response to demand from China, rubber smallholdings are being established by shifting cultivators in Northern Laos, encouraged by government land-use policy. We examine the economics of smallholder rubber production in an established rubbergrowing village and model the likely expansion of...

Watershed degradation is a major environmental concern in the steeply sloping uplands of the Philippines. Land use in these upland regions is dynamic and there is growing interest in how livelihood strategies bring about land-use change in the uplands, with impacts on other resource users...

The willingness to pay (WTP)/willingness to accept (WTA) disparity raises serious questions about preference elicitation techniques based on the Hicksian model of decision-making. In this paper we investigate the possibility of incorporating the strategies suggested by Plott and Zeiler (2005) in...

Human activity has modified the environment at all scales from the smallest ecosystems to the global climate systems. In the analysis of the Murray-Darling Basin, it is necessary to take account of effects of human activity ranging from local changes in water tables and soil structure through...

A bioeconomic model of reservoir aquaculture in northern Vietnam is used to investigate the impacts of price and yield risk on the level, variability and skewness of expected net revenue and utility. Prices and yields are assumed to follow lognormal and beta distributions, respectively. Net...

Avian influenza is a deadly disease that can spread rapidly through poultry. There are many documented cases of transmission from birds to people, but as yet only rare instances of human to human transmission. Nonetheless, public health officials are concerned about the possibility of a human...