Sawmill production in the interior of British Columbia: A stochastic ray frontier approach

We examined the productive efficiency of the interior sawmilling industry in British Columbia using stochastic frontier analysis. Prior sawmilling studies using this method have neglected the multi-output nature of sawmills. To accommodate both lumber and chips as outputs, we used a ray production function and adopted it into the stochastic frontier framework. A translog functional form was specified with three inputs (i.e., capital, labour, and roundwood) and applied to five years (2003–2007) of mill specific production data. The ray production function is flexible allowing factor productivity to vary with the output mix. Results indicated the presence of both economies of scale and technical inefficiency. This suggested that a long-run equilibrium had not yet been reached during this time and might explain recent restructuring occurring in this region.     

FACTOR SUBSTITUTION IN AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE

Studies of the ease of substitution between inputs in production have generally been carried out within a production framework of an explicit functional form. In this study, a somewhat different approach is followed. A model of derived demand for primary factors of production, land, labour and capital is formulated to enable inferences to be made about the characteristics of the unspecified production function. The model is used to obtain estimates of the pairwise Allen-Uzawa substitution elasticities which are secondary parameters of the underlying production function. The reported FIML estimates from aggregate time series data for the period 1920/21 to 1969/70 indicate very low and marginally different substitution elasticities between different pairs of factors, suggesting that both the Cobb-Douglas and CES production function specifications for the Australian agricultural sector are inappropriate.     

INPUTS,OUTPUTS AND PRODUCTIVITY CHANGE IN THE AUSTRALIAN SHEEP INDUSTRY

Tornqvist quantity indexes of output and input are computed for the period 1952/53 to 1976/77 from Australian Sheep Industry Survey data. The computation includes estimating the annual service flow from durable inputs. Total productivity in the sheep industry is estimated to have increased by 2.9 per cent per annum during this 25-year period. While the ratio of capital employed per unit of labour has increased, materials, services and livestock have been the inputs for which the quantity used has increased most rapidly. On the output side, there has been a move towards greater diversification with both crop and cattle enterprises on 'sheep properties' increasing in relative importance.     

Empirical investigation of investment behaviour in Australia's pastoral region*

Optimal intertemporal investment behaviour of Australian pastoralists is modelled using panel data for the period 1979–1993. Results indicate that quasi‐fixity of inputs of labour, capital, sheep numbers and cattle numbers is characteristic of production in the pastoral region. It takes about two years for labour, four years for capital and a little over two years for both sheep numbers and cattle numbers to adjust towards long‐run optimal levels. Results also indicate that, after accounting for adjustment costs, own‐price product supply and input demand responses are inelastic in both the short and long run.     

Agriculture: a case study in industrial relations reform

Organised Australian labour first demonstrated its power in the shearing industry just over 100 years ago. The system of arbitration developed over the last century continues to have a profound impact on agriculture. This article profiles the Australian rural labour market and identifies some continuing regulatory impediments to the proper functioning of the rural labour market. A brief review of the links between agriculture and other industries in Australia concludes that the greatest improvement in farm profitability from a better functioning labour market is to be had from productivity increases in industries outside the farm gate.     

LABOUR SUPPLY AND OFF-FARM WORK BY FARMERS: THEORY AND ESTIMATION

Off-farm employment has become increasingly important as an aspect of resource adjustment and a source of income in Australian agriculture. However, it is surprising that there is a paucity of work on this topic reported in the agricultural economics literature. Therefore, we have drawn upon recent developments in labour economics in order to investigate off-farm employment in Australia. A conceptual model of the allocation of a farmer's labour between farm and off-farm work is developed and applied to cross-sectional data from the Australian Agricultural and Grazing Industries Survey. A Tobit maximum likelihood procedure is utilised to test the influences of the life cycle, level of human capital, wealth, non-wage income and farm income on the off-farm labour supply of farmers.     

Land outsourcing and labour contracting: Labour management in China's capitalist farms

Difficulty in labour supervision has been considered to be one of the obstacles to the development of capitalist agriculture. This paper presents two distinctive labour management strategies in China's large‐scale agriculture, which contribute to the development of agrarian capitalism in China. As shown in these cases, agribusiness companies engaged in grain crop production retreat from direct labour management by outsourcing crop cultivation, while acquiring profits from upstream and downstream activities. On the other hand, capitalist producers, who are involved in the labour‐intensive and capital‐intensive crop production, tend to mobilize local elites to manage the farmworkers. Although independent labour contracting services have not emerged, a specialized group of labour contractors is being cultivated. Rural social resources are utilized in labour recruitment and supervision to minimize the labour management costs in both strategies. However, the conflicts between capital and labour are covered or replaced instead of being settled.     

Encountering Order and Disjuncture: Contemporary Anthropological Perspectives on the Organization of Development

This paper presents new estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Chinese industry over the past half century that seek to improve on earlier estimates in several respects: better data series are developed for capital and labour; the production function is estimated with fewer restrictive assumptions and corrected for serial correlation; and the TFP estimates are adjusted for cyclical fluctuations. The paper also offers a broader than usual interpretation of TFP growth. Its main findings are: (i) that over the whole period 1952–2005 the main source of industrial output growth was capital accumulation; (ii) that during the period since 1980 TFP growth also contributed significantly to industrial output growth; and (iii) that TFP growth in Chinese industry accelerated from the late 1980s, probably as a result of changes in the pattern of ownership and increased integration into the world economy.     

The distributional effects of the Hilmer reforms on the Australian gas industry*

We analyse changes in the Australian gas industry during 1990s that were motivated by the Hilmer Reforms. We estimate the effects on real household income of the changes by combining a computable general equilibrium model with a microsimulation model. Although the structural changes were significant in their effects on the gas industry, they are estimated to have had minor effects on real household income in all Australian regions owing to the small size of the gas industry and household gas consumption at that time, and low importance of gas as an input to other industries. The changes are estimated to have slightly increased income inequality owing to the redistribution of income from labour to other primary factors.     

林产加工业要素投入与影子价格及其影响分析——以江西林产加工业为例

以江西林产加工业为例,利用经验估计的生产函数和成本函数及其参数,对林产加工业的投入产出水平、生产要素和资源的影子价格及其影响进行了分析。得到结论:现有条件的林产加工业资金投入相对不足、劳力要素利用不充分,资源消耗过大;要素和资源市场机制的价格引导作用不灵敏。认为提高资源的利用效率和资源培育的林地产出效率是促进林产工业和资源培育产业良性循环发展的重要因素。     

TAXES,INVESTMENT INCENTIVES AND THE COST OF AGRICULTURAL INPUTS

This paper examines the effects of taxes and investment incentives on relative capital/labour costs on farms of different sizes. Income tax relief reduces the cost of purchased non-capital inputs to farmers, while investment incentives reduce the cost of capital items. A framework is developed for calculating the relative magnitudes of these effects and it is shown that capital costs have been reduced relative to labour costs throughout the post-war period in the U.K. and on large farms (paying a higher tax rate) more than on small farms.     

林业技术效率及其影响因素研究——基于随机前沿生产函数

文章运用随机前沿生产函数估计了林业生产投入要素劳动力和资本的产出弹性,测量了各省区2002～2009年的林业技术效率,并分析了林业技术效率的影响因素。结果表明:林业产业存在明显的技术效率损失,随机前沿生产函数的误差主要是由技术非效率引起;林业产业劳动力和资本的产出弹性分别为0.58和0.47,林业生产仍处于规模报酬递增阶段。总体上,各省区林业技术效率水平相差不大,且林业的平均技术效率水平呈现缓慢上升的趋势;森林病虫鼠害的发生率显著降低了林业技术效率,而基层林业工作站人员文化水平的提高能有效的改善林业生产的技术效率。     

Britain's food Manufacturing industry And Its Recent Economic Development

The paper starts by examining the importance of the food manufacturing industry-to the economy, to British agriculture and to consumers. It goes on to consider the economic nature of the industry's products and how the industry has expanded its market by launching new products and increasing its international competitiveness. Food manufacturing is then compared with manufacturing industry generally as regards size of business, value added and productivity of labour and capital. Finally the profitability of large listed companies in both food and all manufacturing industry is discussed and compared with the cost of capital.     

THE IMPACT OF FARM AND PROCESSING RESEARCH ON THE AUSTRALIAN WOOL INDUSTRY*

An equilibrium displacement model of the world wool top industry is used to estimate the returns to the Australian wool industry from productivity improvements in farm production, in top making and in textile manufacturing. The returns to the industry from these different types of research and development are sensitive to the extent of substitution possibilities between Australian wool and other inputs used by the wool processing and textile industries but it appears that research resources have to be much more efficient in off-farm activities for the Australian wool industry to receive benefits similar to those from farm research activities.     

Restructuring palm oil value chain governance in Colombia through long-term labour control

In this paper, I argue that the cumulative effects of coercive and indirect labour discipline enable firms to reorganize production. Through a historical analysis of the palm oil industry in northeastern Colombia, I identify changing forms of value chain governance in relation to transformations in labour control regimes. The combined effects of multiple labour control strategies have weakened labour power and workers' overall possibilities to shape value chain governance. In this case, labour coercion directly diminished workers' associational power and enabled labour flexibilization in the industry, limiting workers' structural power. A dialogue between the Global Value Chains framework and Critical Agrarian Studies, with a focus on labour regimes, highlights that labour flexibilization can build on past instances of coercive control to transform the structure of a value chain. This research illustrates that coercion is not necessarily “extra-economic” but is often intrinsic to the organization of the global economy.     

林业分类经营模式与公共财政支持

林业分类经营模式是实现林业可持续发展的重要途径。其理论基础是:分工与专业化理论、公共产品理论、微观经济学理论。公益林和商品林具有不同经营目标、管理模式及资金运行特点。林业是一个具有公益性和外部性的行业,又是一个弱质产业。林业生态建设和发展需要公共财政的支持。     

THE RETURNS TO INVESTMENT IN RESEARCH ON AUSTRALIAN WOOL PRODUCTION*

A production function approach is used to estimate growth in farm productivity in the Australian wool industry from an estimated level of expenditure on wool production R & D. A market equilibrium model of the wool industry is then used to measure the share of total benefits from this productivity growth accruing to Australia and its wool growers. A net return is estimated after allowing for lags in the development and adoption of technology.     

PRODUCTION RISK AND INPUT USE: PASTORAL ZONE OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA

Few attempts have been made to estimate production functions for the Australian grazing industries. The question of the nature of the effect of input levels on production risk has been broached even more rarely. Previous investigators had to employ models and methods of estimation which embody highly restrictive implicit assumptions about the nature of risk effects. A typical restrictive feature has been the implication that increasing input intensity leads to increasing risk. In this paper, a much less restrictive model and corresponding estimation techniques are brought to bear on individual farm data for 38 properties with 10 continuous years of production records. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is found that some inputs (especially those capital inputs which might normally be thought of as increasing the safety of production) tend to reduce risk.     

东部地区商业性地质工作发展态势与运行特点——山东、福建商业性勘查的调查与思考

在例举大量实际材料的基础上,从勘查技术劳务市场、矿业权市场、矿业资本市场三个方面,介绍了山东、福建两省商业性地质工作运行态势.东部地区勘查技术劳务市场初具规模,矿权运作形式多样,商业性勘查资金来源多渠道.     

国外珍珠产业发展对广东南珠产业发展启示

论文对日本、澳大利亚、越南、缅甸、法属波利尼西亚等在世界珍珠产业中具有一定地位的珍珠产业国发展状况进行深入论述后,总结其成功经验,表明大量的资本注入、优秀人才的聚集、良好的产业基础、稳定的创新系统、政府的大力支持、独特的珍珠产业文化环境和品牌等因素是珍珠产业发展不可缺少的条件。国外珍珠产业可持续发展的成功经验是广东南珠产业健康发展的导航仪。