Are returns to research quality lower in agricultural economics than in economics?

We compare effects of research quality and quantity on the salary of academics in agricultural economics and economics departments of the same universities. Agricultural economists get a significantly lower payoff to research quality, whether measured by quality‐weighted journal articles (based on nine different weighting schemes) or by citations. Instead, salary depends on the quantity of journal articles, while article counts have no independent effect on economist salaries. These differences in the reward structure for research are not due to either the extension focus of agricultural economists or to disciplinary differences in publishing with students and instead may reflect institutional factors that govern incentives within universities. One‐third of academics in the agricultural economics departments studied here have doctoral training in economics; the very different disciplinary reward structures may cause frustration for these faculty due to the muted returns to research quality that agricultural economics departments seem to offer.     

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE ROLE OF THE AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS PROFESSION IN AUSTRALIA*

Does the seemingly disproportionate growth in Australia of agricultural economics, relative to other branches of applied economics, represent a misallocation of educational and research resources? Probably not, since (i) it may be better–because of the existence of increasing returns–to concentrate one's limited resources of economist brainpower in a few fields than to spread them widely; and (ii) the growth of agricultural economics has helped to correct certain weaknesses–particularly in micro-economics and econometrics–in the Australian economics profession as a whole. However, it is suggested that in the future agricultural economists might apply their skills increasingly to non-agricultural problems.     

Social capital and loan repayment performance in Northern Vietnam

This study analyses the effects of social capital on the loan repayment behavior of borrowers in Vietnam. In the context of agricultural economics, an innovative data collection approach is used that originates from the field of sociology. A personal network survey is carried out to measure the individual social capital of borrowers. Social capital variables are defined according to tie strength (bonding/bridging) and social distance (linking) between the respondent and his/her network member. Social capital has a significant and positive influence on the rescheduling of loans. However, we find no significant evidence for an effect of social capital on late payment of principal or interest.     

RURAL SOCIOLOGY AND ITS RELEVANCE TO THE AGRICULTURAL ECONOMIST: A REVIEW*

Following a discussion of the relationship between agricultural economics and rural sociology, the current status of the latter is discussed, including the differences between European and American approaches. The background to an emerging ‘sociology of agriculture’ is described and recent developments in the sociological analysis of some of its constituent components are considered. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between landholding and the social structure and to the development of ‘agribusiness’ as a vertically-integrated food-production complex. The impact of these on labour relations in agriculture and on the rural community are outlined. The article concludes with an assessment of future trends in rural sociology, concentrating on themes of rural development, the sociology of agriculture and the sociology of natural resources.     

Conceptualising multifunctional agriculture from a global perspective: Implications for governing agricultural trade in the post-Doha Round era

The notion of multifunctional agriculture has been researched from diverse disciplines including economics, sociology, political economy, and geography since the URAA. In particular, the economics approach represents an attempt to tailor the concept of multifunctional agriculture to market- oriented WTO trade regime. The approach has been fundamentally troubled by the lack of concord among WTO member countries on the question of what constitutes multifunctional agriculture. This article redefines multifunctional agriculture as a concept encompassing six components that are extremely heterogeneous in their nature of external benefits. Upon examining different positions taken by the US, the EU, the Cairns group, LDCs, and the G10, this article develops a conceptual model explaining why the notion of multifunctional agriculture is conceived so differently across countries. The model posits that institutions, natural resources endowment, ecological conditions, farm policies, and culture/history unique to each country would determine the state of economic development and agricultural competitiveness in a country, which in turn shape the pattern of social demand for various components of multifunctional agriculture. The theorizing undertakes to overcome the Euro- centrism that has dictated the discourse of multifunctional agriculture since the URAA. Implications are discussed for the governance of agricultural trade in the post-Doha Round era.     

AN APPROACH TO UNIVERSITY TEACHING IN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

In our complex industrialised society there can no longer be a clear cut distinction between education and the training for a profession. Pressure from society for highly specialised knowledge and from students for satisfaction of vocational needs has resulted in the greater development of applied subjects. The aim of teaching in Agricultural Economics is to present a variety of subject matter within the framework of cohesive degree structures consistent with an academic discipline, while as far as possible fitting a student for a professional career in the field of Agricultural Economics. In the ever widening range of professional activity a distinction which has relevance to teaching can be made between the practising agricultural economist and the academic agricultural economist. For the former some professional training has to be incorporated in the first degree scheme. The need in industry and government is for economists who are prepared to make direct economic appraisals and the practising economist will therefore be involved in problem solving in a sphere where non-economic consideration have also to be weighed. He can best be fitted for his environment if he is aware of the interaction between economics and other relevant disciplines.     

NO FIXED ADDRESS—PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

After an initial excursion into the role of Presidential Addresses, the author examines the growth and shape of the agricultural economics profession in the UK suggesting that, over nearly one hundred years, there have been four distinct phases — and that we might be on the threshold of a fifth. The one thread that has run through this entire history is farm management and some recent developments in the field — in particular the need for net margins as well as gross margins — are examined. The address closes with some personal reflections on ‘being an agricultural economist’.     

External validity of economic experiments on Agri-environmental scheme design

The use of laboratory experiments to study issues in agricultural policy has grown in prominence within the fields of agricultural and environmental economics. Such experiments are often conducted with university students and framed in an abstract manner. This raises questions about whether the findings of these experiments provide reliable insights on the behaviour of actual agents in real settings. We contribute to this methodological debate by analysing the impacts of sample population and framing on behaviour in the experiment and on two policy effects: the direction and the magnitude of the policy impact. We also examine the channels through which differences in results may occur. For this, we test if behaviour is correlated with a set of covariates collected from our samples, including socio-demographics, social and risk preferences. Our main finding is that the type of subject significantly affects the magnitude of the policy impact. The two populations differ substantially in the representation of key characteristics and preferences, which in consequence affects behaviour in the experiment. We find no significant impact of framing on behaviour.     

On the foundation of agricultural policy research in the United States

This paper identifies three scientific research programs in agricultural economics. The farm management approach (1870-1933), the farm problem approach (1933-1982) and the domestic and global welfare approach (1982-). In respect to agricultural policy research two competitive research programs developed out of the farm crisis of the 1920s. One program argued for government intervention in agriculture. The other argued for stability in the general economy. The former program degenerated during the 1970s because of countervailing empirical evidence and a change in the understanding of positive economics. The latter program stayed progressive by adding the international dimension and by applying welfare economic analysis. Two other important factors influenced the development of agricultural policy. First, the unique institutional set up of the land grant system in which agricultural economics was founded as an applied science with a bias to help farmers. Second, the convergence of agricultural economics towards general economics that shifted the approach from applied to basic.     

认识农业的一种新视角——《农业社会学》的启发与思考

《农业社会学》对农业特性的分析和农业发展规律的探讨,填补了我们对农业认识的空白。农业社会学认为农业的价值不仅在于提供产品,而且体现为一种生活方式,农业在生态保护、文化保存、维系社会稳定以及对人的教育方面具有不可替代的作用。由农业的社会学特点出发,有助于人们深刻理解农业组织的特征及其发展趋势,理解全社会支持农业、关心农业的理由和政府的农业责任。     

CRITIQUE OF THE METHODOLOGY OF AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

In this article attention is drawn to serious methodological weaknesses in Australian agricultural economics. It is frankly polemic in style and after a discussion of the philosophies of science of Popper and Kuhn the author argues that Australian agricultural economists ought to be more critical of the assumptions on which current theory is based and should be seeking to establish a new approach to the problems of the agricultural economy which would place more emphasis on social justice than on 'growth and efficiency'.     

THE FARM AS A FAMILY BUSINESS: A REVIEW

Although the great majority of UK farms are run as family businesses, the family dimension of these businesses is frequently neglected. There are nevertheless important inferences to be drawn from studying the farm family, its forms and functions, and the way that the family and the business interact. This calls for a multidisciplinary approach and the review attempts to draw together insights from industrial economics, social anthropology, history and rural sociology as they apply to the farm family business. It then relates these insights to considerations of the family development cycle, processes of inheritance and succession, roles of farmers' wives and multiple-job farming families. The literature review points to opposing tendencies within the population of farm businesses. Family forms of organisation and relationships may have become less relevant to farming at the lower end of the size scale but more relevant to the conduct of a successful large farm business.     

Ag econ angst crisis revisited

The present paper was inspired by and is a response to the Rola-Rubzen, Hardaker and Dillon paper 'Agricultural economists and world poverty: progress and prospects' (Rola-Rubzen et al. 2001). It is agreed that the position of agricultural economists in foreign aid and poverty programs has declined over recent decades. Such a feeling of guilt and remorse expressed by the above authors does indeed create considerable 'angst'. A major reason for this state of affairs lies in 'the flavour of the month' approach of the development agencies. These include women in development, gender-based farming systems research, household nutrition and food security, people participation, and targeting the poorest of the poor. These fads have driven disciplinary considerations to the wall and the more widely-defined objectives have reduced the drive for economic efficiency. We argue there is still a place for better designed and delivered assistance programs within the wider framework of assistance that has become fashionable. Greater application of institutional principles in both the political processes associated with assistance and the implementation agencies would improve the outcomes of many projects. Particular attention would need to be given to the interface between the development agencies and recipient governments. The present paper picks up on the market failure aspects of agriculture's rather poor contribution to development, and develops a wider perspective in terms of the new institutional economics and a continuing role for the agricultural economist.     

Food Choice in an Interdisciplinary Context

Reform of agricultural policies, notably the continuing elimination of production‐enhancing subsidies, makes it possible for policies to respond to social issues such as the rural environment and health in future. In this paper, we draw on a Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) research project which is examining the potential for the development of healthy food chains and the implications for human health and the environment. One of the key issues to be addressed is consumers’ willingness to pay for the nutritionally enhanced food products from these new chains, but it is evident that only a partial understanding can be gained from a traditional economics approach. In the paper, we discuss how economists are beginning to incorporate views from other disciplines into their models of consumer choice.     

Measuring the social costs of suboptimal combinations of policy instruments: A general framework and an example

Since most agricultural programs employ two or more policy instruments simultaneously, it is notable thai little research has attempted to find optimal instrument combinations and no research exists which evaluates the social costs (unrealized benefits) of combining instruments suboptimally. In our paper we report a simple and feasible method to find optimal policy instrument combinations, and we provide the first general, formal approach to measuring the social costs of suboptimal policy instrument combinations. Our approach is illustrated in an analysis for live major U.S. crops (corn, feed grains, wheat, rice, cotton). The simple model we employ for the illustration suggests that except lor the feed grains program, the observed programs combined policy instruments quite suboptimally. We conclude that agricultural economics research now can and should begin placing increased emphasis on studying optimal policy instrument combinations.     

Comparing Compliance Behaviour of Students and Farmers. An Extra-laboratory Experiment in the Context of Agri-environmental Nudges in Germany

Increasing popularity of economic experiments for policy impact analysis has led to an on-going debate about the suitability of students to substitute professionals as experimental subjects. To date, subject pool effects in agricultural and resource economics experiments have not been sufficiently studied. In order to identify differences and similarities between students and non-students, we carry out an experiment in the form of a multi-period business management game that is adapted to an agri-environmental context. We compare the compliance behaviour of German agricultural students and German farmers with regard to water protection rules and analyse their responses to two different green nudge interventions. The experimental results reveal that the direction of the response to the policy treatments is similar. Even unexpected behaviour could be reproduced by the student sample. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the treatment effects differed between the two samples. This implies that experimenters in the field of agricultural and resource economics could use the subject pool of students to analyse the direction of nudge policies. If predictions should be made about the magnitude effects, we suggest using a professional subject pool.     

农业经济学的科学进化

以常规科学基本理论的发展为主导,以边际平衡这一理论核心为焦点,探索农业经济学科学化的过程。其中主要涉及生产函数、经营函数、状态分析、行为分析、状态行为分析和随机控制等基本概念。作为学说史,阐述的逻辑主线集中在这些概念的形成及其进展的条件上,目的在于揭示农业经济学理论进化的基本途径。     

Problems and Challenges in Reforming International Agricultural Economics

Starting from the premise that the agricultural economics profession is defined primarily by the range of problems on which it works, as opposed to the initial or developmental training of the individuals, the traditional analyses base narrowly on the neoclassical paradigm are increasingly insufficient for the problems commonly found in the agri-food industry. Two areas in which the profession is particularly weak are the economics and evolution of institutions, and the human capital component in economic development. For the latter, it includes both matching training to the nature and scope of problems facing individuals and the economics of human capital development and maintenance for a viable and growing agri-food industry. As well, new areas of endeavour such as environmental sustainability and property rights associated with biotechnology offer opportunity for leadership from the profession. Finally, with increasingly complex and interdependent problems in the agri-food sector, as well as the need to integrate processes for change into the analytical tool kit of the profession, the concept of strategic linkages across disciplines and professions will need to be pursued. Without such a multidisciplinary interdisciplinary approach, professional analysis founded narrowly on the neoclassical paradigm defeats the problem solving strength the profession has nurtured     

Social Capital and Market Imperfections: Accessing Formal Credit in Thailand

Social capital matters in the economy. This study shows how different forms of individual social capital affect access to formal credit in rural Thailand. Social capital is defined as interpersonal network (ties) resources. A data collection approach is used that originates in the field of sociology and is innovative in the context of development economics: the personal network survey. Four social capital variables are defined according to the tie strength and social distance between the respondent and his/her network members, resulting in four different social capital variables: (1) bonding (strong ties to persons of similar social standing); (2) bridging (weak ties to persons of similar social standing); (3) bonding_link (strong ties to persons of higher social standing); and (4) bridging_link (weak ties to persons of higher social standing). It has been found that bonding_link social capital reduces the chances of being credit access-constrained. Political patronage or nepotism as the driving force behind the result is ruled out. Nevertheless, some evidence for elite capture was found.     

村民合作问题研究的内容和方法建议

孤立地使用某一学科的内容和方法去研究社会经济问题,往往只能得到对社会经济现象的片面理解。村民合作涉及多方面的因素,需要采用多学科、多元的理论与研究方法。文章以村庄共享资源合作治理为例,对村民合作的研究内容和方法提出若干建议。