Urgent need for protection of New Zealand’s coastal landscape

Alarm bells for protection of coastal landscape should be well and truly ringing! This is exemplified by the great rush toward “life-style block” subdivision of large coastal tracts (simply glance at the “NZ Herald” Real Estate section), and recent cases such as the University of Auckland’s hedonistic attempt to sell prime coastal land on the scenic Coromandel coastline for development. Coastal landscape protection is already embedded in the Resource Management Act, and most explicitly stated under S6 (“Matters of National Importance”). S6a refers to “preservation of the natural character of the coastal environment” – which implicitly includes landscape - and S6b “the protection of outstanding natural features and landscapes from inappropriate subdivision….”. Unfortunately landscape protection is rarely considered seriously as a major impediment to new sub-divisional developments along areas of largely undeveloped coast. There are compelling reasons for protection of coastal landscape. These include (i) reduction in long term economic return from tourism from ribbon development along the coast, (ii) huge increases in the cost of supplying infrastructure (roading, electricity, water supply, sewage disposal) to remote coastal wild and scenic locations – which the entire community contributes major cost for rather than the select few beneficiaries at the end of the line; and (iii) the improved infrastructure amenities, facilities and economic benefits possible from concentration of capital development into nucleated coastal settlements. But the major problem is the creeping ribbon development along the coast – leading to significant irreversible impact on the “vistas of nature” – especially along the scenic coasts of Northland, the Coromandel Peninsula, the central North Island and the Marlborough Sounds

Equilibrium Participation in Public Goods Allocations

An alternative notion of individual rationality for mechanism design is studied in which mechanisms suggest public goods allocations and individuals then choose whether or not to submit their requested transfer to the central planner. The set of allocations such that unanimous participation is a Nash equilibrium is shown to be sub-optimal in a wide variety of environments and shrinks to the endowment as the economy is replicated. Therefore, any non-trivial mechanism suffers from non-participation in the selected outcome when agents cannot be coerced to contribute.

Digital Technology and Cultural Policy

This paper reviews how digital technology, and the devices and broadband networks associated with it (the Internet, for short), can be expected to a ect the ways in which books, music, the visual arts, libraries and archived cultural heritage (cultural goods, for short) are produced, distributed and consumed. The paper has four parts. First, I place the growth of the Internet in historical and comparative perspective. I argue that the United States is presently engaged in a regulatory e ort similar in intent to those imposed on earlier communications revolutions. In this context, I outline the ways that the Internet can be expected to change how people produce and consume cultural goods. I distinguish between practices the technology makes possible and practices likely to become established as typical for the majority of people. Second, I discuss some of the new arenas for cultural policy thrown up by the Internet. I argue that, just as it has bound many kinds of cultural content into a single medium, the Internet has tied together a variety of regulatory issues and brought cultural policy into contact with areas of policy-making not normally associated with culture. Third, I focus on the relationship between creativity, consumption and copyright law. Fourth, I describe a number of key conflicts over the Internet's architecture and content. How these are resolved through policy choices will have important consequences for how we consume and experience cultural goods of all kinds in the future.