Australasian environmental economics: contributions,conflicts and ‘cop‐outs’*

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non‐market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much of the controversy has centred on the validity of valuations generated through the application of stated preference methods such as contingent valuation. Suggestions to overcome some shortcomings in the work of environmental economists include the commissioning of a sequence of non‐market valuation studies to fill existing gaps to improve the potential for benefit transfer.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS PROFESSION IN ENGLAND

An historical sketch of the professionalisation of agricultural economics since the mid-1920s placing special emphasis on the close links between government and universities, the pioneering role of the Ministry of Agriculture's economists during the inter-war years, and their changing post-war status and functions as compared with other economists in Whitehall. Other topics considered include the composition and functions of the Agricultural Economics Society, recent academic trends in agricultural economics, and the implications of the current crisis in economics for the future of the discipline.     

Are we risking too much? Perspectives on risk in farm modeling

Risk and uncertainty have been extensively studied by agricultural economists. In this paper we question (a) the predominant use of static frameworks to formally analyse risk; (b) the predominant focus on risk aversion as the motivation for considering risk and (c) the notion that explicitly probabilistic models are likely to be helpful to farmers in their decision making. We pose the question: for a risk‐averse farmer, what is the extra value of a recommendation derived from a model that represents risk aversion, compared to a model based on risk neutrality? The conclusion reached is that for the types of the decision problems most commonly modelled by agricultural economists, the extra value of representing risk aversion is commonly very little.     

Editorial - An international association of forest economics

While forestry issues and forest economists' interests are increasingly global, the costs of creating an international association have plummeted. These twinned trends suggest that the time is ripe to form an international association of forest economics.Anecdotally, forest economists have expressed considerable interest in international debates and scholarly exchanges. This anecdotal evidence includes expressed interest in a series of informal conversations with forest economists from around the world, the success of international journals such as the Journal of Forest Economics, and the success of international conferences and meetings organized by ad hoc committees. This increasing interest in international activities appears to reflect on-going trends of increased international trade, standardization of forest economic approaches, and increased mobility of forest economists, many of whom are accepting positions outside of their native country or region.Historically, the costs of organizing and sustaining an international association were extremely high. However, the improvement of communication technologies during the past two decades in the form of e-mail, the internet and fax machines have dramatically decreased the costs of many of the basic functions of an international association including interactions between members on scholarly issues, meeting and conference announcements, and members' direct participation in an international organization. These technological advances have been important to the success of the Journal of Forest Economics and to ad hoc organizing committees of international conferences and meetings. Associations can now be primarily virtual in the sense that the only non-electronic aspects of the organization are delivering paper copies of journals, and actual attendance at a conference and meeting.Currently no organization effectively serves as an international organization of forest economics. Existing forest economics associations are regional or national by design. International forestry organizations such as IUFRO, EFI and CIFOR are generally not led by forest economists, are not designed to promote timely scholarly exchanges among forest economists, and usually are unable to change rapidly in response to the changing needs of forest economists.Over the past few years at several meetings a number of forest economists have either discussed organizing an international association of forest economics or expressed strong interest in becoming a member of an international association of forest economics. The Journal of Forest Economics Editorial Board has expressed support of an international association with some members willing to assist the organizing effort. Other forest economists not associated with the Journal of Forest Economics have offered to help organize an association. Some of these forest economists have expressed particular interest in assisting with setting up internal communications for an international association, or organizing a conference under the auspices of an international association.Although previous discussions and preliminary attempts at organizing have not successfully created an international association of forest economics, they have helped uncover strong interest in an international association. There is reason to be more optimistic about the current organizing effort. Probably the most important source of optimism is that it appears likely that IUFRO will now assist efforts to form an international organizational of forest economics by providing both organizing effort and financial resources.A number of significant issues need to be resolved to form a viable international association of forest economics. These issues include:Clarifying the benefits and responsibilities of membership in an international association.Developing a mutually supportive relationship with both regional associations of forest economists, forest economics research centres and international forestry organizations.Determining the range of activities that the international association will routinely address including internal and external communications, the possibility of association sponsored conferences or meetings, organization details and other possible activities.Forming an international association of forest economics is both timely, and will enhance scholarship in forest economics. If you have interest in joining with others to form an international association of forest economics, I urge you to e-mail, brazee@uiuc.edu, the current initial contact point for the organizing effort.     

Going Beyond Impact Factors: A Survey‐based Journal Ranking by Agricultural Economists

A consistent and comprehensive ranking of journals relevant for agricultural economists cannot rely on impact factors for at least two major reasons: (i) the scientific database by Thomson Reuters, on which the standard impact factor is based, includes only a very limited number of relevant journals; (ii) the standard impact factor cannot be compared across research fields of different sizes. Survey‐based journal rankings may overcome these problems. We report on such a survey‐based ranking initiated by the Agricultural Economics Associations of Germany and Austria. Results of the ranking and a classification of journals, i.e. a rating, are provided for 160 selected journals. Scientific quality is assessed by an index based on the researchers’ perception of the quality standards of each journal and of the quality of its published articles. The survey‐based ranking allows a much more comprehensive and consistent ranking than the impact factor, as specific agricultural economics journals can be directly compared with neighbouring economic and interdisciplinary journals to which agricultural economists submit their work. The low impact factors of core agricultural economics journals are put into perspective. The scientific quality of the top agricultural economics journals is assessed as being rather high and above most of the relevant interdisciplinary journals from agricultural and food sciences that are typically characterised by higher impact factors. Agricultural economists’ perceptions on the scientific quality of the journals vary more across journals than perceptions of their relevance.     

Agricultural and resource economics and economic development in Aboriginal communities

Economic development is seen as the best way for Aboriginal communities to improve their welfare and lessen the considerable disadvantages they suffer. Unfortunately, the economics profession has shown little interest in their plight. Agricultural and resource economists have much to offer in helping to foster economic development in Aboriginal communities throughout Australia. Suggestions are made as to various ways in which our particular interests and experiences can hopefully be applied.     

ECONOMIES OF SIZE REVISITED

Empirical and theoretical investigations as to how firms evolve in size have been of interest to economists, agricultural economists and policymakers for decades. While returns to size have been frequently estimated, measurement has been carried out using a wide range of methodological approaches. This paper offers a critique and discussion of the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the measurement of size economies.     

Interdisciplinary Agricultural Research in Canada

The activities and accomplishments of agricultural economists conducting interdisciplinary research in association with other agricultural scientists in Canada are reviewed and evaluated. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada instituted an interdisciplinary research program with the placement of agricultural economists at Research Centres in the early 1970s. University- and government-employed agricultural economists have produced a large number of important studies for the benefit of the agricultural industry in Canada. However, less than 3% of the articles published in this journal since its inception in 1952 report on interdisciplinary research. Interdisciplinary research in agriculture has been hampered by organizational weaknesses and inherent difficulties associated with conducting this type of research.     

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON SOME PROBLEMS OF PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION*

Within the profession of agricultural economics are found academics, government economists, farm organization economists, and others. Although the profession is based on general acceptance of principles and judgements, the outlook and activities of an individual are conditioned by his occupational status. Employment affiliations give rise to certain restraints and strains to communication between functional groups. The paper examines this problem, and presents a case for better understanding between the major institutional groups.     

Agricultural economics: Key commitments and institutional alertness

This presidential address highlights the foundational and ongoing importance of the historical commitments of agricultural economists to applied research and outreach programs. In addition, I stress that institutional alertness increases the pragmatic approach. When research, extension, and institutional alertness are fully integrated, agricultural economists have the potential to generate grounded knowledge, which has meaningful implications to our effort to improve life. I develop these ideas generally and with specific reference to my own research.     

TOWARD A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH*

Agricultural economists need to evaluate their own research priorities. The main difficulty in doing so is to value the types of information generated by economic research. Bayesian decision theory provides a framework for valuing information, and the results of selected studies using this methodology are collated. Most of the other determinants of research priorities can be encapsulated in a target return ratio measure. How such a framework might be used is illustrated by three 'hypotheticals'.     

AGRICULTURAL POLICY ISSUES AND ECONOMIC ANALYSES

In this paper a number of wide-ranging matters, which provide the background to much of the work of agricultural economists, are surveyed. Apart from their interest to the profession they are also issues attracting widespread public comment. The purpose of this paper, however, is not to add to that comment, but rather to stimulate more detailed analyses and balanced discussion of them. In this way the hope is that a fuller appreciation of the difficulties and the consequences that alternative approaches might involve will emerge.     

Consumer Behavior, Public Policy, and Country-of-Origin Labeling

Recent work by agricultural economists has failed to adequately identify why consumers desire country-of-origin labeling, a key piece of information needed to determine whether a market-failure exists. This paper brings to the attention of agricultural economists a sizable body of literature on country-of-origin effects from the marketing and business disciplines. Based on this literature, we draw a distinction between several consumer motivations for origin labels and we identify which of these is cause for public policy. We propose several research questions that require answers if the consequences of country-of-origin labeling policy are to be fully understood.     

DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS OF INPUT-OUTPUT RELATIONS FOR IRRIGATION WATER

Recent developments in climatology mean that economists now have a highly acceptable physical theory which can underlie their analysis of the economic aspects of water as an input to the production process, as a source of production instability, and as a major component of error in their estimated crop production functions. This paper presents a model and a procedure for synthesising and analysing irrigation water crop input output relations based on this theory. The importance of time of application of water as well as quantity is shown. Different frequencies of irrigation are optimal at different times of the growing season.     

Elegy,ode or panegyric? Practising agricultural economics in Australia, 1975–99

Changes are investigated in the Australian agricultural economics profession, 1975–99, using a conventional microeconomics framework of supply and demand for agricultural economists. Aggregate exogenous factors such as changes in the agricultural and tertiary education sectors, and changes in beliefs about the proper role of government, have changed both supply and demand conditions for agricultural economists. The profession has responded by shifting its focus away from narrowly agricultural policy, especially marketing policy, towards areas of market failure such as environmental and natural resource issues.     

RESOURCE POLICIES,PROPERTY RIGHTS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST*

Chicagoan theories of and policies for unpriced natural resources have gathered momentum over the past twenty years and have reached a fair degree of acceptability among some agricultural economists and some governments. The critical evaluation of the logic, explanatory and predictive power of these theories, which is undertaken in this paper, shows that this acceptability is not well founded. It is demonstrated that these theories embody substantial logical shortcomings and rely on hypotheses which may be falsified. These limitations have important implications for Chicagoan resource policies. Game theory is used to show that Pareto optimality cannot be reached when Chicagoan policies are implemented by a government, contrary to the contention of Chicagoan economists.     

THE GEOGRAPHY OF AGRICULTURE

This paper is a review of the work of agricultural geographers, with particular reference to Great Britain and to points of contact with agricultural economics. After a consideration of objectives and of the geographer's approach to the study of agriculture, contributions made by geographers to an understanding of regional differences in British agriculture are reviewed. Developments made possible by the advent of the electronic digital computer and automated cartography and by improvements in the statistical analysis of spatial data are then examined and topics where geographers and agricultural economists might co-operate to their mutual benefit discussed.     

The Implications for Agricultural Statistics of Changes in the System of National Accounts

Recent changes to the internationally-agreed system of national accounts carry implications for the aggregate production accounts for agriculture in the EU, notably a shift away from using the ‘national farm’ concept. They have also encouraged the development, within the national accounts framework, of accounts for the agricultural households subsector. These changes not only impose new tasks on producers of agricultural statistics but also provide new material which is likely, in some instances, to challenge policy-makers, economists and other users to revise their thinking about the nature of this industry and the problems that are faced.     

The Generic Advertising Controversy: How Did We Get Here and Where Are We Going?

Since the 1980s, generic advertising programs for dozens of farm commodities have been entangled in a great deal of litigation. The author looks at the history of generic advertising policies, discusses why the litigation arose when it did, and argues that the current round of litigation is simply an inevitable outgrowth of fairly recent Supreme Court rulings on commercial speech. The author further examines some of the economic studies that have been performed. The author predicts an increase in generic advertising litigation based upon the degree of collectivization in an industry and urges economists to bring the controversy into their modeling.     

A Selective Review of the Economic Analysis of Animal Health Management

Economists and veterinarians use similar approaches to analyse animal health threats, but veterinarians are concerned primarily with providing practical guidelines to peers and/or policy‐makers, while economists focus more on understanding the benefits to society as a whole and often provide only general guidelines to policy‐makers and little specific direction to practicing veterinarians. Despite the benefits of working together, differences in perspective and analytical approach often cause economists and veterinarians to struggle in dialogue and to lose some of the mutual gains that could be achieved through collaboration. This article discusses the use of economics in animal health management, identifies several useful literature reviews, and analyses a number of recent studies to explore the advantages and disadvantages of different conceptual and methodological approaches.