COMBINATIONS OF BUFFER-STOCKS AND BUFFER-FUNDS FOR WOOL PRICE STABILISATION IN AUSTRALIA*

In this paper a preliminary analysis is presented of a combined buffer-fund and buffer-stock as an alternative to a pure buffer-fund or a pure buffer stock for stabilising wool prices. The alternatives analysed are designed so that each provides the same prices to producers as did the Reserve Price Scheme over the period of analysis. Least-cost combinations of policy instruments are derived. The results show that there is considerable potential for cost savings to be made by combining buffer-fund and buffer-stock instruments.     

农牧户兼业、规模异质与生产技术效率变化*——基于5省452户细毛羊养殖户的实证研究

［目的］利用5省452户细毛羊养殖户调研数据，分析规模异质下农牧户兼业化对细毛羊生产技术效率的影响。［方法］文章采用SBM模型和Tobit模型分别测算了农牧户细毛羊生产技术效率及不同规模下兼业化对生产技术效率的影响。［结果］（1）在其他条件不变的情况下，兼业化会显著促进农牧户生产技术效率的提升，且非农兼业程度越强对细毛羊生产技术效率的正向影响作用越大。（2）分规模来看，农业兼业形式对散养户、中规模和大规模养殖户生产技术效率具有负向影响，对小规模养殖户生产技术效率具有正向影响，但影响均不显著； 由于非农兼业形式在散养户和大规模养殖户中所带来的“劳动力流失效应”与“收入投资效应”的强度的不同，对散养户生产技术效率具有显著的负向影响，对大规模养殖户生产技术效率具有显著的正向影响。（3）受教育程度、养殖年限、养殖方式、是否接受技术培训均对养殖户总体生产技术效率具有显著的正向影响，年龄变量对养殖户总体生产技术效率具有显著的负向影响。［结论］应全面推进细毛羊标准化规模养殖进程，加大细毛羊养殖技术培训的开展与推广，加强对养殖专业合作社的法律宣传和政策引导，完善国家层面的畜牧养殖的扶持政策。     

The politics and economics of wool marketing, 1950–2000

The history of marketing, research, development policies and intervention in marketing of the wool clip is reviewed from the perspective of an insider. The overall theme is that politics took over comprehensively from clear economic policy advice on wool marketing in the past 50 years and woolgrowers paid a high price for this. The idea of 'integrated marketing' including an export monopoly, a buffer stock scheme and coordinated promotion and R&D, collectively a strong interventionist philosophy, has waxed and waned. Having borne most of the costs of these failed policies, remaining woolgrowers can now look forward to a market less distorted by political interference.     

Implementing Pillar II of the Common Agricultural Policy in England: Geographies of the Rural Enterprise Scheme and Processing and Marketing Grant

This paper examines the geography of two policy instruments – the Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES) and the Processing and Marketing Grant (PMG) – that formed part of the second ‘pillar’ of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in England between 2000 and 2006. It starts by outlining the ongoing debate over the role of geography in policy research, an outcome of which has been a call for more empirical work that explores the ‘difference that place makes’ in the implementation of public funding mechanisms. The paper argues that the CAP is ripe for geographical analysis, as the Agenda 2000 reforms can be interpreted as moving it away from a ‘sectoral’ (agricultural) approach to a more ‘territorial’ (rural development) one. After outlining the place of the RES and PMG in the reformed CAP in England, the paper discusses three factors – farm size, proportion of land rented and location – that may have influenced their geographies. The distribution of grant approvals under these schemes is then mapped using location quotients. Following this, the potential influence of the factors outlined above is tested using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistic. The conclusion revisits the opening discussion by reflecting on the difference that place has made to the implementation of the PMG and RES.     

SOME ASPECTS OF INCOME STABILIZATION FOR PRIMARY PRODUCERS

The objectives of this paper are two-fold. The first is to discuss the basic economics of an aggregate industry income stabilization policy for primary producers. The second is to examine post-World War II income instability in Australian wool, wheat, and beef and to apportion it into its price and output components. This analysis provides a basis for discussing income stabilization in the Australian context.     

ESTIMATING SOURCES OF FLUCTUATIONS IN THE AUSTRALIAN WOOL MARKET: AN APPLICATION OF VAR METHODS

Vector autoregression (VAR) methods are used to analyse the contribution of supply, demand and policy shocks to unpredictable fluctuations in the market for Australian wool. VAR procedures are compared with conventional structural econometric models as methods for decomposing sources of instability. While each has advantages and disadvantages, VAR procedures might be viewed as preferable when the underlying market structure is complex and uncertain, as it is in the case of wool. Based on the results obtained, demand shocks are the dominant source of uncertainty in the wool market in the absence of Australian Wool Corporation intervention, but intervention has blunted their effects, reducing market uncertainty and increasing the average level of prices and revenues.     

PROFITABILITY OF INCREMENTAL EXPENDITURE ON FIBRE PROMOTION

In this paper the impact of changes in wool promotion expenditure and changes in expenditure on the promotion of competing fibres are examined using an equilibrium displacement model. The emphasis is on examining impacts on producer profits net of promotion expenditure and on benefit-cost ratios measuring changes in producer surplus relative to changes in promotion expenditure. It was found, for example, that incremental expenditure on apparel wool promotion on the domestic market is unprofitable but incremental expenditure on promotion of apparel wool on the export market is generally profitable. Further, it was found that increased promotion of cotton and man-made fibres on the export market, with promotion of apparel wool unchanged, would reduce profits to apparel wool producers. Finally, a case is made for improved data availability in order to allow more comprehensive ex-ante and ex-post evaluations of promotion programs, thereby increasing the intensity of scrutiny of promotion programs to a level more in line with that for investment in rural research and development.     

COORDINATING PRODUCTION AND DISPOSAL OF COMMODITY STOCKPILES WITH APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA'S WOOL INDUSTRY

Following the dismantling of a price-support program, a central bureaucracy is left with a commodity stockpile to dispose. It happened with wheat and feed grains in the U.S. in 1986 and wool in Australia in 1991. It soon may happen in Europe with grains, manufactured dairy products and other commodities which have supported prices. Obvious policies include privatising the stockpile, disposing of the stockpile by a central bureaucracy and quarantining the stockpile from the market. Each policy imposes constraints on disposal based, perhaps, on judgments of political acceptability to producers and government. In this article, optimal rules for production and disposal are derived and solved and a new policy is proposed. Then the model is applied to the disposal of Australia's wool stockpile. Results show that centralised disposal will almost always be preferred to privatisation of the stockpile. Centralised disposal is also preferred to quarantining the stockpile if interest rates are high, but quarantining is preferred if interest rates are low. Centralised disposal and quarantining are not optimal, however. Optimal production and disposal combines the efficiency of privatisation with the market power of centralised disposal. To achieve this, the property rights to the stockpile can be redefined using payment-in-kind certificates and individual transferable entitlements. The payment-in-kind certificates assign ownership of the stockpile to individual producers who then make both production and disposal decisions. The individual transferable entitlements allow the industry to produce efficiently and extend market power from the central bureaucracy to producers. For the Australian wool stockpile, optimal production and disposal would benefit the industry by an estimated $2.7 billion.     

President Biden's international trade agenda: Implications for the Canadian agrifood sector

The 4 years of the Trump administration was marked by a number of events and policies that affected the Canadian agrifood sector. Changes to preferential trade agreements, the collapse of the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement framework, increased domestic support for US farmers, and diplomatic tensions between the United States and China all shaped international trade flows and created an environment of policy uncertainty. The Biden administration will change course on several important trade policy issues. We discuss how these changes could affect the Canadian agrifood sector along a number of dimensions, including a return to multilateralism, (re)engagement in preferential trade agreements, and movements toward a less combative and more predictable trade policy agenda. We expect Canadian agrifood trade flows under the Biden administration to exceed what they would have been under a second Trump administration.     

The ownership of vacant land by public agencies

Summary

This paper considers in detail the government's Land Register Scheme. Land Registers were established under the Local Government Planning and Land Act 1980 and aim to bring unused and underused public land holdings into use. The background of the initiative, its method of operation and the nature of the information it provides is outlined. In particular, this paper looks at the unique information on public sector land holdings that has been provided as a result of the Land Register Scheme.     

ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF THE FARM WOODLAND SCHEME IN SCOTLAND

This paper describes an economic evaluation of planting under the Farm Woodland Scheme in Scotland based on the calculation of the Scheme's net UK Exchequer cost (NEC) and its relationship to the benefits observed through a survey of first-year Scheme entrants. It was found that the motivation in planting was primarily for ‘environmental’ benefits such as landscape, amenity, wildlife and sport. Income and timber production were much less important. On average, payments under the Scheme under-compensated farmers for their direct and opportunity costs associated with planting. When based on agricultural savings in the year of planting, the annual NEC was #58 per ha, but this cost increases substantially if the additionality principle is applied. Anticipated benefits in terms of farm output reduction, income diversification, employment and timber production are identified but the effects are not large. Environmental benefits were not included in the evaluation and these may provide greater justification for the expenditure.     

刍议国际碳交易体系对我国的启示及发展趋势

中国是全球第二大温室气体排放国和核证减排量一级市场最大供应国,却处于国际碳交易体系碳价值链的最底端,没有形成像欧盟排放交易机制(EU ETS)那样比较完善的碳交易体系。本研究在介绍国际碳交易体系基础上,结合我国国情,分析得出中国目前尚未具备建立全国性强制型碳交易市场的条件;CDM一级市场严重受制于国际气候政策导向,依托我国已发展的大规模CDM一级市场,培育碳现货市场;针对中国区域经济发展不均衡,优先建立区域性碳交易市场;基于碳现货市场,大力扶持碳衍生产品市场等启示。分析自2013年1月1日生效的《京都议定书》第二承诺期国际气候政策变化,并预测未来国际碳交易市场发展趋势。     

PRICE EFFECTS OF WOOL MARKETING INNOVATIONS: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Conflicting claims are often made about the price effects of specific wool marketing innovations. In this paper, a regression model is used to estimate the price effects of two innovations, namely, computerised selling by separation and pre-sale, dense packaging of wool. The results are indicative of aggregate price differentials between wool sold via the 'normal' system and via an innovative system for the particular wool types and sale dates analysed. The extent to which price effects may be offset by differences in selling charges is also considered. In addition, some underlying reasons for price differences, where they exist, are proposed.     

PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS AND ARBITRAGE IN THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND WOOL MARKETS*

The physical characteristics of wool are important determinants of its spinning properties, yarn quality and end use. The degree to which wools from different countries of origin may be substituted has important implications for the domestic marketing policies of Australia and New Zealand. The hypothesis examined in this paper is that the differences in wool prices can be explained by differences in the physical characteristics of the wool and that objective measures of these characteristics allow for effective arbitrage between these markets. The alternative hypothesis is that premiums or discounts exist owing to country of origin. A hedonic price analysis was conducted on wool prices in Australia and New Zealand using a balanced sample of sale lot data from the 1986-87 selling season. In the year examined, there was no evidence of any price premiums associated with country of origin.     

The incidence of agricultural policy on the land market in Poland: Two-dimensional and multilevel analysis

Research has shown that the reform of the CAP which broke the link between subsidies and production (the decoupling reform) has had little effect on farmers’ demand for land under the SPS (Single Payment Scheme) system. For this reason, in the conditions of the SPS, there is petrifaction of the structure of agricultural land, and an upward trend in prices on the market for agricultural land should not be expected to continue in the long term. Under the conditions of the SAPS (Single Area Payment Scheme), which applies in the EU-12 new Member States, the position in the market for agricultural land is different. However, most research carried out in Europe relates to the SPS system, where marginal changes in the value of land are identified as a result of the incidence of agricultural policy, as well as quantitative and qualitative attributes of particular properties. Under SAPS, these issues have not been sufficiently investigated. The authors have attempted to fill that gap, constructing a two-dimensional and multilevel econometric model for land prices in a leading agricultural region of Poland based on a sample of 653 transactions in the years 2010–2013. The aim is to determine how policy, as well as various quantitative and qualitative features, including location factors, affect the prices of land under SAPS. The results indicate, among other things, the key importance of the functional type of rural areas – properties in agrotouristic areas gained 43% higher prices on average than those in agricultural areas. Another finding of interest is that LFA and agro-environmental payments decapitalise the value of land.     

ECONOMIC ISSUES FROM THE BROADS GRAZING MARSHES CONSERVATION SCHEME

The paper examines two key issues relating to the use of fixed-price conservational contracts of the type embodied in the new Environmentally Sensitive Area policy in the UK. It uses data for the Broads Grazing Marshes Conservation Scheme (BGMCS). The budgetary costs of the fixed-price contract are compared to those of (i) public purchase of land with leaseback for grazing, and (ii) of individual management agreements. Using a net present value criterion, public purchase emerges as the cheapest option, and management agreements as a superior option in defined circumstances. The paper also explores equity and efficiency issues arising from fixed price contracts. It is concluded that for many farmers and landlords in the BGMCS the fixed payment exceeded what was necessary to achieve the conservational objectives, while at the same time it was less than the profit foregone by farmers who might possibly have switched to arable farming.     

福建政和蛙岩崩塌遗迹景观特征及其旅游开发分析

福建政和蛙岩是一处罕见的大型崩塌地质遗迹,也是佛子山地质公园的重要组成部分。本文在分析蛙岩崩塌地质遗迹形成过程的基础上,归纳总结崩塌遗迹的类型与特点,进而从资源对比、资源组合、区位条件、政策扶持角度分析遗迹资源开发的条件,最后设计地学科考、探险体验、农业观光三条旅游路线,为政和县的旅游开发建设提供重要参考。     

The Rural Environment Protection Scheme of the Republic of Ireland

Agricultural modernisation has had an impact on the Irish environment but official policy to address this developed only slowly. The reform of the EU CAP provided the incentive for the formulation of the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS). This is a wide-ranging scheme to promote environmentally friendly farming through application of 11 measures and six supplementary measures. Significant characteristics of the REPS include its: universal availability, voluntary nature, comprehensiveness, payment limitation, tailoring to individual farms and inclusion of training. There has been a high level of adoption, with participation being greatest in the small-farm west with its cattle and sheep enterprises.     

The costs of global tariff barriers on wool products: 1997–2005

The Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations commits World Trade Organization (WTO) members to improving market access for both agricultural and nonagricultural goods. Tariff barriers on wool products represent a small but important subset of these negotiations. To inform the debate on the round, we analyze the distortionary effects of recent (1997–2005) tariff barriers on wool products using a model that applies a comprehensive analytical approach with regard to the production, trade, and consumption of wool products. We also account for any indirect effects of wool tariff barriers on the nonwool economy by incorporating the production, trade, and consumption of nonwool products, that is, the framework is a comparative‐static global general equilibrium model with a detailed representation of the world wool market. Changes in wool tariffs over 1997–2005 lead to positive welfare effects for most regions; Italy, China, and the UK are estimated to have gained the most from the changes. The results indicate that the nature of recent wool tariffs severely distort the size of wool industries in different regions. The changes in the output of wool commodities are extreme reflecting the discriminatory nature of the tariffs.     

Class and Social Policy: the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Karnataka,India

The literature on India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has tended to focus on institutional and technical issues more than on the social relations of production. This paper argues for a class‐relational approach to NREGS and, by extension, to social policy more generally. By locating NREGS in a broader context of antagonistic class relations, it becomes clearer why, where, when and how it either contributes to pro‐labouring‐class change or to reproducing the position of the dominant class. This is particularly important in the South Indian state of Karnataka, where (i) national sample survey data indicates that NREGS has performed relatively badly and (ii) the recent rate of decline of poverty has been amongst the slowest in the country. Based on longitudinal fieldwork in villages in two North Karnataka districts, this paper's class‐relational approach explains significant differences in NREGS outcomes across time and place – primarily with regard to intra‐ and inter‐class relations, which are interlinked with caste and gender relations. In one fieldwork district, high levels of implementation have declined due to increased (but uneven) dominant class control over the scheme. In the other, initial subversion of the scheme has been partially challenged by collective labouring‐class action.