School of Accounting and Finance

Yapa Bandara is a Lecturer in Economics in the School of Management and Marketing at Charles Sturt University (CSU) over the last five years and has been teaching at university level in Australia and overseas over many years. Prior to the commencement of his PhD research work at the University of Queensland in 1998 and later joining the CSU, Yapa had been an Academic Staff member at the University of Sri Jayewardenepure, Sri Lanka and had performed many academic and administrative responsibilities. He has taught/coordinated a wide range of subjects in Business and Economics including Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Managerial Economics, International Economics, Development Economics, Economic Philosophy and Policy, Economics for Business, Business Forecasting and Business & Economic Environment both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Teaching Responsibilities

• ECO120 Macroeconomics
• ECO240 Forecasting for Business
• ECO501 Business Economics
• ECO511 Economics for Business
• ECO518 Business Forecasting

Administrative Responsibilities

• Coordinator BBus (Honours) program in Wagga Wagga Campus
• Member of the Learning and Teaching Committee of the School of Commerce

Research Focus

Yapa's research interests are primarily on Foreign Direct Investment, Trade and development, Growth and productivity, Productivity and Efficiency Analysis. Some of his past research has focused on Trade liberalisation and productivity growth in manufacturing sector in Sri Lanka, Technical Efficiency growth in manufacturing Industries in Sri Lanka, Role of FDI in China's Economic Development and Determinants of Australian Outward Foreign Direct Investment.

His recent contribution to Teaching & Learning includes the DVD /CD on "Report Writing in Economics" developed with Professor Eddie Oczkowski, School of Management and Marketing, Charles Sturt University.

Areas of research interest

• Trade Liberalisation
• Foreign Direct Investment
• Productivity and Efficiency Analysis
• Factor use efficiency in Regional Industries

Grants and Awards:

SU Competitive Grant of A$ 12000 in 2006 for the project, "Determinants of Australia's Foreign Direct Investment" with Associate Professor Kishor Sharma as the principal Researcher. CSU Learning & Teaching grant of A$ 2000 in 2006 for developing a Flexible Learning and Teaching material on 'How to write an Analytical/Research/Project Report in ECO 120 Macroeconomics'. The DVD/CD on "Report Writing in Economics" was produced, revised and made available to both DE and internal ECO120 students from spring 2008.

Teaching Buy-out Grant of A$28000 for spring 2007 from Institute of Land Water & Society (ILWS) to identify and develop research projects that promote regional development. Under this project, I have focussed two projects: one on "Land Use Change in Regional Australia" with Professor Eddie Oczkowski, and another on "Economics of Australian Cotton production".

ARC- Asia-Pacific Futures Research Network grant of $10,000 in 2007 for the project 'Health and Education Implications of China's Accession to WTO" with Associate Professor Kishor Sharma. Under this project we organised the International Conference on Socio Economic Development in China at CSU Wagga Wagga campus during 21-22 April 2008.

Research Project Supervision

Thesis Supervision

• "Development Strategies and Structural Change: An analysis of Trade Orientation and Foreign Direct Investment of Mongolia" PhD Thesis; Associate Supervisor, commenced 2008.
• "Efficiency performance of Kenyan Insurance firms" - DBA Thesis; Principal Supervisor, commenced 2008.

Thesis Examination

• "Nominal Exchange Rate Neutrality for Australia: A Structural Vector Auto-regression Approach", Master of Economics thesis (2008), University of New England.
• "Oligopsony in the Tyre Industry: A study of its Impacts on the Natural Rubber Industry in Thailand", DBA dissertation (2009), Charles Sturt University.

Selected Publications

Books

• Parikshit K Basu and Yapa M W Y Bandara (2009). WTO Accession and Socio-Economic Development in China. Chandos Publishing Limited, Oxford OX28 4BN, United Kingdom (June 2009): http://www.woodheadpublishing.com/en/book.aspx?bookID=1879&ChandosTitle=1 This is the final outcome of the project initiated under the ARC-Asia Pacific Futures Research Network grant mentioned above.

Book Chapters

• Parikshit K Basu and Yapa M W Y Bandara (2009). Socio-economic development in China: WTO accession and related issues. Chapter 1, in PK Basu and Yapa Bandara (2009), Eds "WTO Accession and Socio-Economic Development in China", Chandos Publishing Limited, Oxford OX28 4BN, United Kingdom (June 2009).
• Wang Wei and Yapa M W Y Bandara (2009). FDI spillovers - the strategy for Chinese economic development. Chapter 7, in PK Basu and Yapa Bandara (2009), Eds "WTO Accession and Socio-Economic Development in China", Chandos Publishing Limited, Oxford OX28 4BN, United Kingdom (June 2009).
• Parikshit K Basu and Yapa M W Y Bandara (2009). Concluding remarks. Chapter 12, in PK Basu and Yapa Bandara (2009), Eds "WTO Accession and Socio-Economic Development in China", Chandos Publishing Limited, Oxford OX28 4BN, United Kingdom (June 2009).
• Neil D Karunaratne & Yapa M W Y Bandara (2000). Inflation in Sri Lanka since independence. Chapter 12 in Sri Lanka's Development since Independence: Socio- Economic Perspectives and Analyses, Eds C.A Tisdell & W.D. Lakshman, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., NY.

Journal Articles

• Kishor Sharma and Yapa M W Y Bandara (2010). Trends, patterns and determinants of Australian foreign direct investments. Journal of Economic Issues (Category A), forthcoming.
• Yapa Bandara and Neil D. Karunaratne (2009). An empirical analysis of Sri Lanka's manufacturing productivity slow-down. To be sent to the Journal of Asian Economics (Category B) after revision.
• Neil D. Karunaratne & Yapa M W Y Bandara (2004). Technical efficiency of Sri Lanka's manufacturing industries post-trade liberalisation. Sri Lanka Economic Journal, 5(1), June 2004, 3-36.

Review of Journal articles

• District Level Total Factor Productivity in Agriculture: Western Cape Provinces, South Africa, 1592-2002. Journal of Agricultural Economics.
• Trade Liberalisation, Exit, and Output and Employment Adjustment of Australian Manufacturing Establishments. Review of Industrial Organisation.

Refereed Conference Papers

• Yapa M W Y Bandara (2009). Innovative flexible teaching/learning materials for economics undergraduates-An experiment. The paper to be presented at the ???CSUED09'-Teaching & Learning in University Education Conference to be held in November 2009 in collaboration with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
• Yapa M W Y Bandara (2008). FDI spillovers in China, The case of Tianjin and other selected provinces. The paper presented at the International Conference on Socio-Economic development in China. Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, during 21-22 April 2008. The paper was a joint work with Wang Wei from Tianjin University of Commerce, China.
• Yapa Bandara (2007). Geographic determinants of Australian foreign direct investments. With Kishor Sharma, Conference Proceedings, International Conference on Trade and Industry (IECTI) 2007. 3-5 December, 2007, Penang, Malaysia. This paper was a joint work by Kishor Sharma and Yapa Bandara.
• Yapa M W Y Bandara (2006). Structural Transformation and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) Growth in Manufacturing: The Case of Sri Lanka, 35th Australian Conference of Economists, 26th -28th September, 2006, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia.
• Yapa Bandara (2004). Technical efficiency of manufacturing industries: Sri Lanka's experience in the post-trade liberalisation period. P)aper presented at the Asia-Pacific Productivity Conference 2004, 14-16 July, Brisbane, Australia.

Working Papers

• Yapa M W Y Bandara (2007). What caused Sri Lanka's manufacturing productivity slow-down by the turn of the century, technical inefficiency or lack of technical progress? Working Paper Series No.11/07, Faculty of Commerce, Charles Sturt University.
• Yapa M W Y Bandara (2006). Trade liberalisaton and productivity growth in the manufacturing sector: The Case of Sri Lanka" ; Working Paper No. 12/06, School of Commerce, Charles Sturt University, September 2006.

Seminars

• Yapa Bandara (2007). Decomposition of TFP growth of Sri Lanka'm Manufacturing industries. Seminar presented at the School of Commerce, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, September, 2007.
• Yapa Bandara, Eddie Oczkowski, and Deb Murdoch (2007). Developing innovative teaching/learning materials: Report writing in economics, the Seminar presented at the School of Commerce, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. September 2007.
• Yapa Bandara (2005). Trade liberalisation and productivity performance of Sri Lankan manufacturing industries, the Seminar presented at the School of Commerce, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. July, 2005.
• Yapa Bandara (2005). Australia-Thailand Trade Relations. The presentation to the Regional Forum, held at the Wagga Wagga City Council on 12th October 2005, in the event of the visit to Wagga Wagga by Her Excellency Miss Suchitra Hiranprueck, Ambassador of Thailand to the Commonwealth of Australia.
• Yapa Bandara (1998). Inflation and the exchange rate in the post-independent Sri Lanka: A VECM analysis. The paper presented at the Symposium on Sri Lanka's Development Since Independence, held at the University of Queensland, on 18th December, 1998.

Ongoing Projects

• Eddie Oczkowski and Yapa Bandara, "Modelling the Economic Drivers of Agricultural Land Use Change in Australia". This is one of the projects commenced under Teaching Buy-out grant mentioned above.
• Revising and re-writing the research proposal on "Economics of Cotton Production in Australia". Expected outcome: Few conference papers and journal articles.
• Professional associations, professional activities and consultancies: Economic Society of Australia, NSW Branch.