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With increasing pressure on firms to deliver shareholder value, there has been a renewed emphasis on devising measures of corporate financial performance and incentive compensation plans that encourage managers to increase shareholder wealth. One professedly recent innovation in the field of internal and external performance measurement is a trade‐marked variant of residual income known as economic value‐added (EVA). This paper attempts to provide a synoptic survey of EVA's conceptual underpinnings and the comparatively few empirical analyses of value‐added performance measures. Special attention is given to the GAAP‐related accounting adjustments involved in EVA‐type calculations.

Model finance-seeking behaviour and outcomes by Australian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using firm-level panel data. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Using firm-level three-year panel data for more than 2,000 SMEs from the Business Longitudinal Database compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the authors estimate separate models for the seeking of finance (debt and/or equity) and the outcomes of finance seeking (successful or unsuccessful). Key explanatory variables include declared business focus (on financial, cost, operational, quality, innovation, and human resource measures), presence of business plans and other documentation related to successful finance seeking, innovation, indicators for family and foreign-owned businesses, and profitability. Control variables include sales, the number of employees, length of operations, export and import activity, government financial assistance, and industry classification.

Business objectives together with a large number of firm-level characteristics, including firm age, size, industry and sales, profits, growth and exports, significantly affect both finance-seeking behaviour and outcomes. The authors find evidence that the pecking-order and agency cost theories of capital structure at least partly explain the financial behaviour of Australian SMEs.

Several of the responses in the underlying survey data are qualitative so the authors are unable to assess how the strength of these relationships varies by the levels of sales and profitability.

The findings show that business objectives significantly affect SME finance-seeking decisions and outcomes. SMEs that focus on profitability or growth have a strong willingness to seek additional finance; in comparison, SMEs that focus on the quality of their products or services are less likely to apply for additional finance. As only half of the SMEs in the sample considered profitability or growth to be a major business focus, core business objectives greatly affect SME financing decisions. Further, pecking-order theory not trade-off theory better explains the financial behaviour of SMEs, yielding evidence that SMEs continue to face financial constraints when pursuing growth. Some evidence also of agency cost theory in the positive effects of family ownership on debt seeking.

One of very few studies to examine finance seeking by SMEs, especially in Australia. Further, only study known to include declared business strategy, presence of business plans and other finance-related documentation and innovation in addition to the usual focus on growth and profitability to explain financing behaviour. Very large panel of longitudinal data used to explain financial decision making over time.

A bivariate probit model is used to predict the choice of an economics major in a sample of first‐year, undergraduate business students. The paper examines the statistical significance of a number of student‐related characteristics on the likelihood of choosing an economics major, along with the role of student personality and perceptions of the profession. Factors analysed include secondary studies in economics, accounting and business, grade point average and attendance pattern, along with perceptions of the economics profession arrayed along dimensions of interest, independence, structure and precision. It would appear that the primary influences on the selection of a major in economics comprise student personality and level of interest in the profession.

Model the drivers of Australian housing affordability and forecast equilibrium affordability. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Uses autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to model housing affordability measured by the Housing Industry Association's Housing Affordability Index (HAI) and the housing price-earnings multiplier (HPE). Six sets of explanatory variables, including housing finance, housing construction activity and costs, economic growth, population, alternative investments and taxation.

Primary long-run drivers are housing finance, dwelling approvals and financial assets. Economic and population growth only have a short-run influence, while housing taxation has limited impact in long run. Forecasts indicate long-run HAI equilibrium values of 109 (above the historical minimum of 107) and a HPE of seven (below the recent historical maximum of 8.2).

Reduced form model encompassing both demand and supply factors involves complicated interpretation given direct and indirect effects on affordability. Analysis at national level ignores regional impacts that may also affect housing affordability.

The impact of the low rate of new dwelling approvals (public and private sector in the long run and public sector in the short run) points to a persistent structural gap between the demand and supply of housing. Strong economic and population growth often blamed for the worsening of housing affordability, at least in the 2000s, has no impact at the aggregate national level.

Only known paper to provide quantitative estimates of macro drivers of Australian housing affordability over a long period using alternative measures of relative housing affordability.

This paper examines the short and long‐term comovements among UK regional property markets over the period 1976‐2001. The markets examined are London, Outer South East, East Anglia, South West, East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside, North and North West. Multivariate cointegration procedures, Granger non‐causality tests, level VAR and generalised variance decomposition analyses based on error‐correction and vector autoregressive models are conducted to analyse relationships among these markets. The results indicate that there is a stationary, long‐term relationship and a number of long‐term causal linkages between the various UK property markets. In terms of the percentage of variance explained, other regional markets are generally more important than innovations in a given region, though this is not the case for the Outer South East. The Outer South East market is segmented from the other regional markets, though also extremely influential in explaining forecast variance in these markets. The overall suggestion is that opportunities exist for portfolio diversification in the UK regional property market, and the Outer South East market should be seen as containing valuable information for forecasting performance in the regional markets.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the record on housing affordability in Australia over the period 1985 to 2010, conceptually link this with the purported demand and supply drivers given in the literature, and comment on government policy responses. The paper also provides a suggested framework for future research on housing affordability.

The paper employs descriptive analysis of measures of affordability using commercial and other information. In addition, the paper undertakes analysis of the affordability drivers and government responses using recent governmental inquiries and other research into housing affordability.

Housing affordability in Australia has worsened significantly in the past quarter century, including in both urban and regional areas, and is now among the world's most unaffordable. The main contributor at the national level has been the escalation of housing prices because of continuing strong demand arising from strong economic and population growth, the availability of cheaper and more accessible finance, and tax and other incentives for home and investor housing ownership. An additional contributor is unresponsive housing supply resulting from an extensive governmental role in land release and zoning, infrastructure charges, and building and environmental regulation.

As an analytical paper, the central aim is to summarise the findings and conclusions of other work and provide a suggested framework for future research. Accordingly, no attempt made to model directly the relationship between housing affordability, its demand and supply drivers and government policy responses.

There is a need to reassess government policy at all levels as it relates to population, economic, urban, and environmental planning and government regulation and taxation and housing affordability. Need for future empirical work to quantify the causes and consequences of housing affordability.

This study provides a complete account of housing affordability and policy and the literature on housing affordability in Australia over the past 25 years.

Over the past decade Australian local government has undergone drastic change. The sheer pace of reform has made it difficult for practitioners and scholars alike to document and evaluate these rapid changes and even most recent extant analyses are now dated. Given the urgent need to review trends in Australian local government, this paper examines the recent programs of legislative, structural, workplace and financial reform.