CSES Seminars 2009

4 November 2009
TITLE:  Earnings Transformation of Employment Relations in Transitional Economies: The Case of Vietnam
PRESENTER:  Dr. Ngan Collins, School of Management, RMIT

Synopsis: The aim of this study is to investigate the factors which have influenced the process of transformation of employment relations in Vietnam during the years of economic reform beginning in 1986. Through investigating case studies in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the study examines the relationship between several key elements, including globalisation, government political interests, national culture norms, market, managerial ideology, and firm self-interests, during the economic reform process. The interactions between these forces are the key factors that have influenced the process of change in employment relations. The study not only looks at changes in employment relations practices at enterprise level but also investigates the purpose for the adoption of certain new labour management models in particular enterprises. It seeks to gain a better understanding of the formation of employment relations practices in transitional economies.

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28 Octoberr 2009
TITLE:  Earnings and Languages in the Family: Second-Generation Australians
PRESENTER:  Dr. George Messinis, Senior Research Fellow, CSES

Synopsis: This paper uses HILDA data to assess the performance of second generation Australians in full-time employment in 2007. It examines the role of job mismatch and cultural and linguistic diversity (CALD) at the individual and family level. The study accounts for non-random sample selection. The new evidence shows that (i) overeducation and overskilling carry a wage penalty; (ii) there are significant but heterogeneous second generation effects; (iii) language effects explain most of the disadvantage associated with non-English speaking background, and (iv) second-generation Australians of English-speaking background consistently appear to be disadvantaged.

Dr. Messinis is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies. Dr. Messinis presented a paper that has recently been published in the Economic Record.

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14 October 2009
TITLE:  Globalization and the Making and Remaking of Transnational Lawyers
PRESENTER:  Dr James Faulconbridge, Lecturer, Economic Geography, Lancaster University

Synopsis: His work examines a range of issues relating to the globalisation of professional and financial service firms with a particular focus upon the way knowledges and practices are reproduced and transformed as they move across space. James' research has been funded by organisations including the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the Sloan Foundation. Current research develops his interest in professional services and knowledge by exploring the use of training in global law firms to reproduce Anglo-American legal cultures in Continental European jurisdictions.

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23 September 2009
TITLE:  Economic Analysis of Climate Change: Substantive Evidence on China’s CO2 Emissions-Growth Trade-off and IPCC Policy Relevance
PRESENTER:  Prof. Tran Van Hoa, Professorial Fellow, CSES

Synopsis: Major energy models such as the IPCC/SRES which are used for global scenario and policy settings currently overlook developing Asia (Ruijven et al. 2008) and especially its major high-growth and high-energy consumption economies such as China and India (IPCC 2009). More serious is the lack of rigorous evidence-based analysis of the growth-CO2 emission causal link in an integrated economy-wide framework (Stern et al. 1996) to support not only global but also, and more relevantly, country-specific CO2 emission reduction policy recommendations and informed policy debate. The paper significantly addresses the gaps by introducing an endogenous growth-energy theory and improved system modelling methods (for earlier related applications, see Tran Van Hoa, 2008, 2009) to model this causal link and, using available historical data, to quantify China’s growth-CO2 emission trade-off and impact on its recent economic development in the context of regional trade agreements and global financial crises and recession. The findings are useful for an informed growth-CO2 emission debate, global warming negotiations, and policy discussions by climate change researchers, analysts and government as well as corporate policy-makers in China and major IPCC member countries.

Prof. Tran Van Hoa is Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies and Director of the Vietnam and ASEAN+3 Research Program (CSES). His extensive track record can be viewed at: http://www.cfses.com/staff/jtran.htm.

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15 September 2009
TITLE:  Working for the Climate: Renewable Energy and the Green Job [R]evolution
PRESENTER:  Mr Sven Teske, Renewable Energy Campaign Director, Greenpeace International

Synopsis: The discussion focused on what policies will be required to bring about a shift towards greater production of energy from renewable sources and the creation of a clean energy workforce, as well as what the community needs to do for these policies to be realised.

Mr Sven Teske is Greenpeace International's Renewable Energy Campaign Director. An engineering graduate, Mr Teske has worked in the field of renewable energy for over 20 years, most of that time being associated with Greenpeace. He informs and advises a range of energy industry associations, including the European Renewable Energy Council, Global Wind Energy Association and the International Energy Agency. Mr Teske is the author of numerous reports, most notably Greenpeace's Energy [R]evolution scenarios, which model how various world regions can shift from a fossil fuel-based energy supply to one based on renewable energy and energy efficiency. Living in Germany, Mr Teske has witnessed first hand the decline in employment in the German coal sector in the 1990s and, as a result of some of the most progressive renewable energy industry development policies in the world, seen the German renewable energy workforce grow to 250,000 employees.

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15 July 2009
TITLE:  A Panel Data Analysis of the Military Expenditure-External Debt Nexus: Evidence from Six Middle Eastern Countries
PRESENTER:  Prof. Russell Smyth, Head of the Department of Economics at Monash University and Director of the Asian Business and Economics Research Unit in the Faculty

Synopsis: While a number of studies examine the nexus between military expenditure and economic growth, little consideration has been give to the effect of military expenditure on external debt. This article examines the impact of military expenditure and income on external debt for a panel of six Middle Eastern countries; namely, Oman, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, and Jordan, over the period 1988 to 2002. The Middle East represents an interesting study of the effect of military expenditure on external debt because it has one of the highest rates of arms imports in the world and it is one of the most indebted regions in the world. The study first establishes whether there is a long-run relationship between military expenditure, income and external debt in the six countries using a panel unit root and panel cointegration framework and then proceeds to estimate the long-run and short-run effects of military expenditure and income on external debt. The study finds that external debt is elastic with respect to military expenditure in the long-run and inelastic with respect to military expenditure in the short-run. For the panel of six Middle Eastern countries, in the long-run a 1% increase in military expenditure results in between a 1.1% and 1.6% increase in external debt, while a 1% increase in income reduces external debt by between 0.6% and 0.8%, depending on the specific estimator employed. In the short-run a 1% increase in military expenditure increases external debt by 0.2%, while the effect of income on external debt is statistically insignificant.

Russell Smyth is Professor of Economics and Director of the Asian Business and Economics Research Unit at Monash University. He is also Adjunct Professor at Dalian Nationalities University and North-Eastern University of Finance and Economics in the P.R. China. His research interests encompass Asian economies, Chinese economic reform, empirical legal studies, law and economics, migration and applied time series econometrics. From 1998 to 2008 he was Editor of Economic Papers, the policy journal of the Economic Society of Australia and was a member of the Central Council of the Economic Society of Australia. In 2008 he received the Honorary Fellow Award of the Economic Society of Australia.

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1 July 2009
TITLE: Application Driven Technologies: The Case of Geospatial Technologies
PRESENTER:  Dr.  Dana Nicolau, Research Fellow, CSES

Synopsis: We are used to considering intelligent machines as the computers and equipment used in Artificial Intelligence and related fields. In fact many more technologies now-a-days are intelligent. Examples are emerging technologies such as nanotechnology and medical technologies. As studied in a recent CSES project, geoinformation systems are moving to real time monitoring and control. Should they be classified as Intelligent Technology? This presentation looks into trends and parallels between modern scientific fields. Parallelism between fields presents no advantage unless we analyse the interactions between those fields. The speaker aims at initiating an insight into the complex patterns of technological development and the measures needed to accelerate it.

Dr Dana Nicolau is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies. She received her PhD from Murdoch University and has published on innovation and knowledge transfer in the areas of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology.

17 June 2009
TITLE: Climate Change: Are We Up to the Challenge?
PRESENTER:  Dr. Graeme Pearman, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Monash University, Director GP Consulting, Chief of CSIRO Atmospheric Research in Australia (1992 to 2002)

Synopsis: Climate change was described by Professor Garnaut as a "diabolical" issue. Factors that contribute to this are the complexity, uncertainty and inequities. But so too are the many aspects of human behaviour and institutional arrangements that may act as barriers to what might be otherwise be seen as a "rationale" response to the issue. This seminar will explore some of these from the perspective of a physical scientist wishing to develop a better understanding of the human challenges of the issue and to encourage an holistic approach.

Dr Graeme Pearman was Chief of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia) Division of Atmospheric Research, 1992-2002. He contributed over 150 scientific journal papers primarily on aspects of the global carbon budget. He is now a private consultant contracting to both private and public sector organisations. He was elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science (1988), the Royal Society of Victoria (1997) and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (2005). He was awarded the CSIRO Medal (1988), a United Nation's Environment Program Global 500 Award (1989), Australian Medal of the Order of Australia (1999) and a Federation Medal (2003).

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3 June 2009
TITLE: Revisiting World Energy Intensity Convergence: Regional Differences AND Institutional Influences
PRESENTER:  Dr.  Brantley Liddle, Senior Research Fellow, CSES

Synopsis: World convergence in energy intensity is revisited using two new large data sets: a 111-country sample spanning 1971-2006, and a 134-country sample spanning 1990-2006. Both data sets confirm continued convergence. However, the larger data set, which adds the former Soviet Union republics and additional Balkan countries, indicates greater convergence over its more recent time-frame. Further investigation of geographical differences reveals that the OECD and other Eurasian countries have shown considerable, continued convergence, while the Sub-Saharan African countries have converged amongst themselves, but at a slower rate than the OECD and other Eurasian countries; by contrast, Latin American and Caribbean and Middle East and North African countries have exhibited no convergence to divergence in energy intensity. Lastly, economic structure, economic growth stability, and quality governance are shown to be linked to energy intensity convergence.

Brantley is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre who received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has published widely in the areas of energy and transport economics and urban sustainability.

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27 May 2009
TITLE: Complexity, Uncertainty and the Assessment of Climate Risk
PRESENTER:  Dr Benjamin Preston, CSIRO Research Scientist, Marine & Atmospheric Research

Dr Benjamin Preston's research focuses on the development and application of methods for problem orientation around the challenges of climate change, with a particular focus on the spatial dimensions of climate risk.  Dr Preston was one of the inaugural recipients of the CSIRO’s Julius Early Career Researcher Award and has also been recognised for his work in climate change risk assessment, science communication and stakeholder engagement.

Synopsis: A broad range of institutions are embracing risk management as a means of identifying appropriate responses to the perceived challenges of climate change. However, decision-making around climate risk management is challenged by the complexity of coupled human/environmental systems and the 'deep uncertainty' associated with future socio-economic and environmental states.  Hence, climate risk management invariably involves some degree of bounded rationality, whereby complexity in the conceptualisation of climate challenges is constrained to reduce the cognitive burden of decision-making.  The downfall of this human trait is the potential for the boundaries placed on decision-making to exclude critical variables, processes or participants, resulting in actions that fail to achieve desired outcomes.  To counter this phenomenon, integrated, 'systems' approaches to climate risk assessment have become increasingly popular in certain circles. However, such approaches are challenged to deliver analytical outcomes that are perceived to be useful in an evidence-based policy environment.  These trade-offs between complexity and precision suggest different approaches are needed to accomplish different goals.  It's argued that holistic, expansionist approaches to risk assessment are useful for problem orientation as they enable researchers and stakeholders to view systems in all their glorious complexity allowing more robust determination of appropriate boundaries.  Subsequently, within the confines of those boundaries, reductionist approaches using traditional tools (such as probabilistic risk analysis, cost/benefit analysis, and multi-criteria analysis) are useful for decision-making around the selection of options for treating risk.

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6 May 2009
TITLE: On Emissions Trading, Toxic Debt and the Australian Power Market
PRESENTER:  Dr Paul Simshauser, Chief Economist & Group Head of Corporate Affairs at AGL Energy

Dr Paul Simshauser has overall responsibility for energy regulation, regulated pricing, government affairs, carbon and sustainability. Paul has over 18 years experience in the energy industry having commenced his career with the Queensland Electricity Commission.  His prior roles include CEO of power generators Babcock & Brown Power, NewGen Power, and between 1997 and 2005 was General Manager of Energy Trading at Stanwell Corporation Limited. He is also Adjunct Professor of Finance at Griffith University’s Business School. 

Synopsis: Implementation of emissions trading will have profound effects on the financial stability of coal generators. While the impact on equity capital is well understood, the potential fallout in the market for project finance is not. During the current global financial crisis, the form and quantum of transitional assistance to coal generators will be crucial to ensure ongoing participation of domestic and foreign project banks in the power markets.

Dr Simshauser’s seminar was particularly timely given policymakers are currently grappling with how best to implement at Emission Trading System (ETS) whilst dealing with ongoing turmoil in capital markets and ensuring a secure supply of electricity.

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29 April 2009
TITLE: Systemic and Adaptive Governance. The Case for Social Learning
PRESENTER:  Prof. Raymond Ison, Open University (UK) and Monash University):

Professor Ray Ison holds chairs at Monash University, where he is Professor, Systems for Sustainability (located in the School of Geography and Environmental Science) and the Open University (UK) where he has been Professor of Systems since 1994. At Monash his research contributes to the activities of Monash Sustainability Institute and Uniwater. Ray has an established international reputation in Systems scholarship in relation to natural resource management issues including water.

Synopsis: Consistent with the views of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Report  2007, it is argued  that water managing is a paradigmatic domain for making climate change adaptation ‘real’ and a systemic issue of global concern at the core of sustainable development.  In the seminar Ray will address how contemporary governance is constrained by inappropriate framings of situations and an adherence to fixed forms of knowledge.  Social learning will be advanced as an alternative governance mechanism as well as a process of systemic learning and change drawing on European research associated with water managing and the implementation of the ‘holistic’ European Water Framework Directive.  It is argued that climate change adaptation is best understood as a co-evolutionary dynamic, principally, but not exclusively between human beings and the biophysical world.  Within this conception managing and changing are key concepts as they denote the need to develop and sustain praxes (theory informed actions) that are effective within an on-going co-evolutionary dynamic. 

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16 April 2009
TITLE: On Emissions Trading, Toxic Debt and the Australian Power Market
PRESENTER:  Terry White, Western Alliance for Greenhouse Action (WAGA)

Terry talks about his efforts to develop a rapid response climate protection program for Western Melbourne. This gives us all a valuable opportunity to see what efforts are being made - and discuss what policies ideas may be possible - at a local scale to address and respond to climate change.

1 April 2009
TITLE: Valuable Skills for Innovation and Adoption of New Technologies
PRESENTERS:  George Messinis (CSES) and Abdullahi Ahmed (CSES)

Dr Messinis and Dr. Ahmed discuss the relevance of their findings to policy areas where the capacity to adopt new technologies and innovate is critical, such as climate change and health.

Synopsis: This paper develops a new latent index of human capital identified as valuable skills for seventy countries for the period 1970-2003. The index is compared to existing measures of human capital in assessing the Benhabib and Spiegel (2005) model of logistic technology diffusion. The study undertakes extensive sensitivity analysis and accounts for alternative production functions, capital-skill complementarity (CSC), skill-unskilled labour complementarity (CNC), and skill-biased-technical-change (SBTC). The evidence shows that (i) the new index outperforms existing indicators; (ii) the index also facilitates innovation and technology diffusion, and is consistent with the theoretical model; (iii) the valuable skills-education gap has widened in Africa and advanced OECD countries, and (iv) the CSC, SNC and SBTC hypotheses are confirmed but the effects are nonlinear.

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25 March 2009
TITLE: Diary of an Obama Campaign Footsoldier
PRESENTER:  Michelle Lichtenberg

Michelle Lichtenberg was a volunteer in the Obama campaign and gives an insider's perspective on how Obama's army of volunteers were able to reach out to new voting groups with such great effect.

18 March 2009
TITLE: The Effects of Medical Care Quality and Behavioral Risk Factors on Health Outcomes
PRESENTER:  Prof. Frank Lichtenberg, Courtney C. Brown Professor of Business, Colombia University Graduate School of Business and Adjunct Professor CSES

Prof. Lichtenberg discusses the effects of medical care quality and behavioral risk factors on health outcomes in some or all of the following studies:
• The impact of pharmaceutical innovation on disability in U.S. using longitudinal data on regions.
• The impact of pharmaceutical innovation, diagnostic imaging innovation, and physician quality on longevity in U.S. using longitudinal data on regions.
• The impact of diagnostic imaging innovation on longevity in Australia using longitudinal data on demographic groups.
• The impact of pharmaceutical innovation on longevity in U.S. using longitudinal data on demographic groups.
• The impact of pharmaceutical innovation on hospitalization and mortality due to cardiovascular disease in 20 OECD countries using longitudinal data on regions.

4 March 2009
TITLE: Energy, Climate Change and Transport Futures
PRESENTER: Chris Cormack, Manager of Carbon and Renewables in Retail Energy, AGL Energy
2 April 2008

Chris spoke about his experience and understanding of the "convoluted" Australian energy industry and some of the challenges and opportunities flowing through from climate change policies, including the role of gas, renewables and the electric car.

Background: Chris Cormack is an Eco-Markets trader with responsibility for trading both mandatory and voluntary carbon for AGL. Chris is also responsible for managing AGL's membership of, and trading on, the Chicago Climate Exchange. Prior to his current position, Chris was a Wholesale Energy Analyst and Retail Energy Trader for AGL Electricity and previously he worked at KPMG Consulting in London and as an economist with the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business.

2 March 2009
Special Lunchtime Seminar
TITLE: Family Payments and Income Mobility Among Working Poor Families with Dependent Children
PRESENTER: Prof. R. G. Gregory, Economics Program, Professorial Fellow, CSES and Emeritus Professor, ANU

Synopsis: There has been increasing concern over the last few decades for the growing number of Australian children living in poverty. One government response has been to significantly increase income tested family payments. In this paper we utilize nine years of administrative family payment data to address questions of the following type. Do working poor families with dependent children remain working poor for long periods of time? Do most working poor families move between unemployment, lone parenthood and being working poor for most of their life with dependent children? How do working poor families move up the income ladder to escape poverty?

CSES Seminars 2008

CSES Seminars 2007