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    Towards a framework for educational change : state deregulation, citizen empowerment, and strategic partnership : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2000) Smith, Donald Kingsley
    This thesis is an interweave of global, national, and local issues. It is about the nature of motivation that turns dissatisfaction with the status quo in teacher education into action for change. It is also about the opportunity for change to occur. Themes, both top-down and bottom-up, relate to new perspectives in the field of Development Studies including development from below, the retreat of the slate, empowerment, and community motivation. The study focuses on innovation in teacher education, and views the activities of three institutions as one 'project'. The study investigates circumstances of change within the context of the local scene and international trends. Recent literature seems to indicate decreasing involvement of the state in many facets of everyday life has resulted in a range of commercial and social responses. A number of driving forces are involved. From above there are concerns about increasing inability to afford to pay for public services in the future. From below there are calls for rights, choices, and empowerment. Both perspectives evidence diminishing confidence in the assurances offered by grand theory, and both result in a marked shift away from a dominant state-run model. Narrowing further into education locally, there have been changes in many aspects of New Zealand education including school governance, curriculum, types of courses, qualifications, and opportunities for new players. This has occurred within the context of concerns about declining academic and behavioural standards. The research question is: What factors have motivated change in a New Zealand teacher-education development project? Participant observation and structured interview methods have been used to examine possible motivations. The objective has been to identify and quantify benefits to the community derived from more involvement, sense of ownership, mission and purpose. The findings indicate strength of commitment and involvement by participants in the purposes and activities. The study found there was a sense of success connected with what participants had achieved. There was also an optimistic view of the future, which seems likely to involve increased government-community partnership and a more consultative approach towards ongoing development.
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    Impacts of power sector reforms on rural electrification in the Philippines : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2004) Corpus, Ronaldo F
    Inspired by neo-liberal principles, waves of electricity industry reforms have swept the world over the last two decades. To a great extent, the traditional government-extended electrification service was transferred to the hands of private actors and market forces. While these reforms are expected to bring about efficiency gains as a result of market liberalization and private competition, the provision of electrification service to relatively poorer rural areas is less certain. In this light, it is of great interest in development studies to therefore understand the impacts of these reforms on the delivery of public service goals in cash-strapped developing countries like the Philippines. Through assessments of relevant Philippine government data and case study findings, this thesis outlines how the restructured Philippine electricity industry has impacted on the accessibility, service quality and affordability of electrification, especially in rural areas. In a nutshell, electricity industry restructuring in the Philippines resulted in better delivery of public service goals to the rural beneficiaries, but not necessarily resulting from privatization, competition and deregulation that is fostered by a free market regime.
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    Competition and contestability in trans-Tasman liner shipping industry : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Applied Economics at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1997) Li, Gang Richard
    This study examines competition and contestability in trans-Tasman liner shipping industry for the period of waterfront deregulation. Contestability, often known as a benchmark in markets, is one of the most controversial issues of industrial organization theory. In this study, contestability in trans-Tasman liner shipping industry is analyzed, since this industry had been highly regulated and protected by trade union policy and practice until the recent waterfront reforms. Using a normative analysis, the study finds that parts of the trans-Tasman liner trade exhibit characteristics of contestability, such as frequent entry/exit, an absence of sunk costs, and pricing behaviour. In contrast to the predictions of contestability theory, actual competition, rather than potential competition has been found to have a substantial effect on market performance. Hence, the study further employs a "Conjectural Variations" model to examine firms' strategic behaviours. The simulation results indicate that since post-deregulation, a period of intensive competition has occurred. The study suggests that contestability theory may not be robust with small deviations from the assumptions. Instead, contestability theory supplements industrial organization theory with a new device specializing in performance implications of competition. In practice, the study concludes that deregulation has brought very substantial benefits to the shippers and to the national economy. As a result, a new wave of restructuring in the liner shipping industry and in the whole ports/shipping network is just beginning.
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    Dairy deregulation and low-input dairy production: A bioeconomic evaluation
    (Western Agricultural Economics Association, 1999) Tozer PR; Huffaker RG
    Deregulation of the Australian dairy industry could affect the utilization of resources by milk producers and the profitability of dairy production. In this study we examine the feed mix that dairy producers use, both pastures and supplements, under partial and total deregulation. We are particularly interested in the interaction of pasture utilization and farm profitability. The results of this research demonstrate that profitable low-input dairying is constrained by the most limiting resource, feed supplied by pasture, and that the interactions between economic and biological processes are critical to farm profitability.
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    Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Banking Studies at Massey University, Manawatu Campus, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2015) Ngo, Dang Thanh
    The thesis reviews the (triangular) relationship between financial liberalization, economic growth, and banking development. It points out the causality effect where financial liberalization could improve the efficiency of the banking sector, but on the other hand, it also could lead to instability in the banking system. The recent Global Financial Crisis raised questions as to how and at what level financial liberalization could be done so that for banking development, improvements are achieved but instabilities are avoided. The thesis answers these questions employing a new sample (the Vietnamese banking system), covering a long period (1990-2010), and consistently applying different approaches and models. Three different approaches are used, namely ratio analysis, stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), and data envelopment analysis (DEA). Our findings suggest that the performance of the Vietnamese banking system generally improved during 1990-2002, worsened during 2003-2008, and recovered in 2009-2010. However, there was no statistical association between this performance and the regional or global financial crises in 1997 and 2007/08. Although future studies are needed (since our sample was small and thus, the results may not be accurate), there was evidence that the state-owned commercial banks were less efficient than the joint-stock commercial banks and hence, equitization of the state-owned commercial banks should be speeded up in order to transform their ownership, reducing their size, and improving their performance. There are consistencies between these approaches in terms of defining the efficiency scores, trends, and best and worst performers. Our findings also suggested that the timetrend- DEA, as well as the Fisher Index-DEA models, could be an alternative to the panel- DEA and Malmquist Index-DEA models since they could provide additional information on the performance measures, especially in case of data limitation. However, we could not find consistent results between the ratio analysis model and the ratio-based DEA ones (Panel- and Malmquist Index-DEA) in terms of scores, trends, and determinants.
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    Toward competition in New Zealand telephony : for the degree of Master of Arts in Economics at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1995) Roddick, Anjanette Sarah
    Dramatic changes have occurred in the telecommunications sectors of most industrialised countries over the past decade. So too have their regulatory and government policy environments in the worldwide trend towards deregulation and open competition. The New Zealand market is now claimed to be the most deregulated, open, and competitive in the world with all government-imposed barriers having been removed. An economist's Utopian vision for telecommunications would be a set of highly competitive markets, subjected to very minimal interference, to enable the full impacts of technological change or demand variation to be reflected in market adjustments. Ideally, telecommunications would be a dynamic and demand-responsive industry subject only to the restrictions of capital and consumer markets. Progress towards a fully competitive telecommunications industry was never anticipated to be simple. The effectiveness and appropriateness of New Zealand's general competition legislation, namely the Commerce Act 1986, has regularly been called into question. One is often reminded of the Commerce Commission’s gloomy conclusion in 1992 that reliance upon the Commerce Act "may be of some help - but of a protracted, expensive and uncertain kind, and with definite limitations on its scope" (Commerce Commission, para. 437, 1992). The battle towards open competition in New Zealand telecommunications has clearly been impeded by the application of 'light-handed' regulation with primary reliance on the country's general competition legislation. New Zealand's experiences provide valuable lessons for other countries, in particular, the danger of placing too heavy a reliance on the judicial system operating under the country's general competition legislation, as industry regulators. In New Zealand, competition has become something akin to an ideology - a complete faith that if a market is structured so as to involve multiple participants, competitive conduct will result to bring about superior, efficient performance. We can but hope, that as competition becomes more widespread in all telecommunications markets, its real benefits in terms of overall economic efficiency, will indeed accrue to all sectors within society.
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    The development and performance of airports in New Zealand as commercial entities : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2011) Lyon, David Keith
    This investigation sets out to identify what commercialisation has meant within a New Zealand airport context and how the requirements of the Airport Authorities Act 1966 have been achieved. Section 4 (3) of the Airport Authorities Act 1966 states that "[e]very airport operated or managed by an airport authority must be operated or managed as a commercial undertaking." No definition of what commercial, managed or operated means is provided within the Act. This objective will be achieved by initially outlining the developments of airports in New Zealand from the end of World War I until 1985, discussing the drive to commercialise them from 1985; providing a contemporary management perspective of managers within some of those airports; considering case studies of the largest seven airports in New Zealand, and analysing the sum of these seven companies for the first 20 years. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the commercialisation that has occurred. Since the mid-1980s the airport industry in New Zealand has been substantially reformed. This occurred as part of the public sector reforms during the 15 year period from 1984 and was intended to decrease the role of central government in business activities and to foster a more commercial perspective to various sectors. These developments can be traced back to the fourth Labour Government that came into power in 1984 and instigated wide ranging economic reforms. In terms of the management and operation of airports within New Zealand a major policy development occurred in 1985 when the Minister of Civil Aviation announced airports, owned at that time as joint ventures by both local and central government, would be encouraged to become limited liability companies. This commercialisation of the principal airports subsequently took place during a three year period from 1998-1990 (Minister of Civil Aviation and Meteorological Services, 1985). Following to this commercialisation the ownership of these companies has undergone significant change to include private and institutional shareholding. In some instances central government no longer has any equity in major New Zealand airports, such as Auckland and Wellington, but local government ownership has increased. There is currently no clear and articulated national airport policy within New Zealand. Since the initial commercialisation, and subsequent partial privatisation in some cases, the major airport companies have largely chosen their own paths to follow in terms of how they develop individually as commercial entities. A consequence of the ability of the airport companies to develop as businesses in the absence of price regulation has been of increasing concern to airlines, wary that airport companies may be abusing their position as monopoly providers in particular regions, in terms of charges imposed upon airline users. These concerns resulted in the New Zealand Commerce Commission completing a study in August 2002, that had earlier been initiated in 1998, regarding the need, or otherwise to regulate airports. The Commerce Commission (2002) in its report recommended price regulation at Auckland Airport but did not state the form that such regulation should take. This recommendation has not subsequently been implemented by central government. However during the life of the study, the government implemented a set of Disclosure Regulations that applied to companies earning more than $10 million per financial year. Later in 2007 the government announced that it was commencing a study into ways in which the aeronautical charges levied by the major airport companies could be controlled via new provisions in the Commerce Act 1986. It is not anticipated that any such changes to the existing legislation will come into effect before 2012.