External Research Funding
- Policy Options for Improving the Value of Land Use in Smallholder Agriculture in the Fijian Islands
- The Determinants of Food Choice in Fiji
- Modelling Factors Affected the Long-Term Demand for and Supply of Professional Accounting and Allied Services in Rural and Regional Australia
- Research Project: Evaluating Households Willingness to Pay for Water and Waste Water Service Attributes in Victoria
- Career Aspirations and Destinations of Accounting Graduates: Implications for Course and Career Development Strategies
- Privatisation and Efficiency: An Evaluation of the Impact of a Change in Ownership Structures on Organisations within the Australian Finance Sector
- Credit Default Swap Spread in Australia - An Empirical Examination
- Panel Data Estimation of Tourism Demands Models
- Financial Reporting and Accountability in Charitable Organisations
Title: Policy Options for Improving the Value of Land Use in Smallholder Agriculture in the Fijian Islands
Team: Associate Professor Phillip Hone, Henry Haszler and Professor Hristos Doucouliagos from Deakin; Sakiusa Tubuna, Paula Taukei, Apenisa Tuicakau, and Waisiki Gonemaituba from the Fiji Islands Ministry of Agriculture, Sugar and Land Resettlement; Epeli Waqavonovono from the Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics; and Chris Ryan and Garth Parry from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community based in New Caledonia.
Funding body: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
Description: Following a recent WTO ruling, the price support for Fiji s sugar production under the current EU sugar regime is set to be phased out with possibly devastating effects on the industry and the economy in general. The chances of developing and implementing appropriate agricultural policies in Fiji to deal with this and related problems are currently constrained by the lack of the fundamental economic information required for informed decision making. For example, policy makers do not have access to reliable information on critical market parameters such as the responsiveness of producers and consumers to food price changes. Nor is there is any framework for quantifying the likely impacts of food and agricultural policy changes on community well-being. And at the most fundamental level, policy makers have no reliable information on the production, sales and consumption of smallholder or subsistence farmers and fishermen who are generally counted among the poorer people in Fiji. This means there is no basis for reliably estimating either the present size of the agriculture and fishing sectors as a whole, or the full dimension of the impacts of policy changes on these sectors. This project is aimed at building the capacity of the local policy community to deal with these problems through a series of targeted collaborative research projects.
Title: The Determinants of Food Choice in Fiji
Team: Associate Professor Phillip Hone
Funding body: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
Title: Modelling Factors Affected the Long-Term Demand for and Supply of Professional Accounting and Allied Services in Rural and Regional Australia
Team: Professor CB Ferguson, Professor BJ Cooper, Associate Professor GL Wines and Associate Professor BF Jackling. Additional investigators P. Hellier and R. Carr
Funding body: 2006 ARC Linakage Project
Linkage Grant Partner: CPA Australia
Description: Rural and regional areas accommodate more than a third of Australia's population and generate two-thirds of its net export income. While accounting firm services provide substantial economic benefits to society, there are significant differences in the provision of these accounting services in rural and regional areas compared to metropolitan areas in Australia. Rural and regional accounting firms face servicing difficulties arising from industrial restructure, changing population densities, and difficulties in professional staff recruitment, but there has been little systematic analysis of rural and regional accounting and allied services. This research aims to build and test a model of factors affecting the demand for and supply of accounting services. The model can be used to monitor and manage accounting firm services to advance regional development in Australia.
The project will assist the accounting profession in establishing effective strategies and policies for the education, training and recruitment of professional staff in regional communities. The project will assist in ensuring that professional accounting and allied services can meet future regional demands, with the potential for the modelling developed by the research to be applied to other rural and regional services.
Title: Research Project: Evaluating Households Willingness to Pay for Water and Waste Water Service Attributes in Victoria
Team: Professor Gamini Herath
Funding body: Consumer Utilities Advocacy Centre (CUAC)
Description: The main objectives of this study are to:
- Estimate the consumer's willingness to pay (WTP) for reduced frequency, timing and duration of interruptions in drinking water and wastewater services in Victoria.
- To examine how the WTP for improved service attributes vary among different demographic groups (eg. high income-low income, large family-small family, more children- less children)
- Establish the relationships between socio-economic, demographic and psychographic variables and customers WTP for service attributes, and
- derive implications of the results for improving water service attributes and the appropriate prices for improved services to consumers.
Title: Career Aspirations and Destinations of Accounting Graduates: Implications for Course and Career Development Strategies
Team: Associate Professor Beverley Jackling and Tracey Mc Dowall
Funding body: AFAANZ
Title: Privatisation and Efficiency: An Evaluation of the Impact of a Change in Ownership Structures on Organisations within the Australian Finance Sector
Team: Margaret McKenzie and Associate Professor Monica Keneley
Funding body: AFAANZ
Description: In the 1990s Commonwealth and State governments privatised a number of publicly owned banking and insurance institutions. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the operation of these enterprises since the date of privatisation. Performance is considered in relation to that of the other major deposit taking and insurance institutions in Australia, as well as relevant changes in the regulatory framework.
A key issue is comparability of appropriate measures before and after privatisation. An event methodology will be used to analyse privatisation outcomes across institutions. An assessment of the impact of privatisation on the broader development of the financial markets will be made.
Title: Credit Default Swap Spread in Australia - An Empirical Examination
Team: Dr Hoa Nguyen and Professor Gerard Gannon
Funding body: AFAANZ
Description: This project aims at investigating the factors that determine the credit default swap spread in Australia. The credit default spread, expressed as a percentage, is what the buyer of a credit default swap pays the seller in exchange for protection in the event of default on a reference asset. This project will empirically examine various factors including credit ratings, time to maturity, interest rates and liquidity that potentially determine this spread. The findings of the project are important for Australia where the credit default swap market is in an early stage of development but is showing signs of enormous growth.
Title: Panel Data Estimation of Tourism Demands Models
Team: Professor Paresh Narayan
Funding body: University of South Pacific
Title: Financial Reporting and Accountability in Charitable Organisations
Team: Associate Professor Steven Dellaportas, Professor Brian West and Mr Jonathon Langton
Funding body: CPA Australia
Description: The not-for-profit sector is made up of approximately 700,000 entities employing around 600,000 people and controlling assets up to $70 billion, with the largest charities comparing favourably in size and value to big business. While it is expected that many charitable organisations are well-managed and make a significant contribution to society, a lack of good governance and/or accountability could have devastating affects on the community. Official inquiries into the not-for-profit sector have questioned the lack of transparency and accountability created by a complex legal and regulatory regime. Critics of the existing regime have called for reforms including mandatory financial reporting requirements and an independent regulator to enhance public accountability and organizational efficiency and performance. The purpose of this research is to investigate accounting practice and related issues in the charity sector in Australia. The specific objectives of this study are twofold. The first aim is to undertake a content analysis of publicly available information from large charitable organisations in order to describe current technical accounting practices. The second aim of the study is to elicit opinions from key personel in large charitable organisations on issues associated with accounting for charitable organisations.
