Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics最新文献

Rural transformation is important for economic growth and is characterised by the reallocation of labour from farm to non-farm sectors. However, there is limited evidence on how farming efficiency affects rural transformation at the household level. In this study, we explore the effects of farming efficiency on rural transformation and investigate the influence of farming efficiency on the shift from full-time to part-time farming at the smallholder farm level. We use panel data from the Thailand–Vietnam Socio-economic Panel. Our sample includes 10,549 observations collected in Thailand from seven survey waves between 2007 and 2019. Our results reveal that farming efficiency positively and significantly affects the share of farm income, per capita farm income and per hectare agricultural machinery expense, while it has a negative and significant effect on the share of non-farm income, per capita non-farm income and the share of livestock income in farm income. These results imply that more efficient farmers tend to stick to farming and apply mechanisation in crop production, while less efficient ones seem to shift to non-farm sectors. Policies designed to encourage farm enlargement and labour allocation to accelerate rural transformation are recommended.

The importance of social and ethical communication as a regulatory instrument to nudge more sustainable consumption patterns is advocated at the European and global policy levels. Little is known about the effectiveness of identity labelling, an innovative form of information provisioning leveraging the individual self-perception to encourage virtuous behaviours. We conducted a framed field experiment using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism to investigate consumers' responses to social identity labelling, that is, identity labelling hinging upon sensitivity to social issues. This study is the first application to test social identity labelling in an incentive-compatible food experiment. The results show that overall consumers are indifferent to the presence of social identity labelling, as their willingness to pay for an ethical product does not increase when this information tool is applied. However, environmentally conscious consumers exhibit a premium for products with social identity claims, while social consciousness shows no significant effect. Moreover, the effectiveness of identity labels is not mediated by personality traits conceptualised as the Big Five.

The wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax) is the largest bird of prey in Australia. It has a unique Tasmanian subspecies (Aquila audax fleayi), which is listed as endangered. Conservation efforts are hampered by the Tasmanian subspecies being notoriously shy breeders that can easily be disturbed by human activity such as forestry, resulting in nest abandonment. Conservation efforts are currently focussed on restricting forestry activities around nesting sites. Other potential policies could target the use of rat poisons (especially single-dose, second generation rat poisons) which have the potential to bio-accumulate as wedge-tailed eagles are known to scavenge. Evaluating the potential benefits of these conservation strategies has been complicated by recent research which suggests that the two subspecies are genetically similar, and therefore the species' genome is not at risk of endangerment. This impacts the perceived ‘uniqueness’ of the Tasmanian subspecies. A research question that emerges from this conservation problem is whether respondents value conservation efforts differently depending on whether the subspecies is perceived as ‘unique’, with either differences or the similarities of the subspecies emphasised in a stated preference survey. We sample south-eastern states of mainland Australia (New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia) as well as the island state of Tasmania to investigate differences in preferences across states based on proximity to the target species. The results suggest a positive willingness to pay for expanding reserve areas around nests, restricting forestry activity in proximity to nests, and restricting rat poisons, with some variability across mainland states relative to Tasmania.

We study the impact of oil windfalls on fiscal accountability, vis-à-vis the case of regimes with no term limits. A political economy model of oil windfalls, accountability and term limits indicates that term limit regimes distort the impact of windfalls on accountability, motivating a focus on regimes that impose no term limits. Employing a panel of US states with no term limits over the period 1963–2007, we show that oil windfalls trigger fiscal effects similar to those observed under binding term limits. Namely, taxes and spending increase, lowering state growth in a robust and economically meaningful magnitude, yet only when a Democrat is in office. We show that these patterns hold over the course of several years. Our results shed light on the potential adverse effects of oil windfalls in advanced democracies, as well as more generally on the disciplining effect of elections.

Sustainable intensification (SI) has been receiving policy attention for its potential to transform agri-food systems and improve rural livelihoods. However, little is known about how SI technology bundles influence system productivity, profitability and household welfare in the coupled rice-wheat crop rotations of the Indo-Gangetic Plains in South Asia. We investigate the combined impacts of direct seeded rice (mDSR) and zero-tillage (ZT) wheat on system productivity, profitability and household welfare in the rice-wheat system of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. Using a multinomial endogenous switching regression model to address selection bias, we find that the joint adoption of mDSR and ZT wheat significantly improves cropping system productivity by 19% (1148 kg per hectare), reduces production costs by 18% (US$ 159 per hectare), increases farm profits by 84% (US$ 502 per hectare) and raises household per capita income by 56%. However, these benefits are unevenly distributed, with poorer farms benefitting less from rice-wheat farming and more from off-farm income compared to richer farms. Our findings underscore the need for policy support to promote broader SI adoption and emphasise the importance of fostering off-farm jobs for equitable development.

Rising and unstable prices of rice and other staple foods threaten the food security of millions worldwide. These fluctuations raise concerns about market response to price changes, especially regarding incentives for food production. This study investigates how the price dynamics in the Asian rice markets are affected by crises in low-quality rice by analysing monthly export price data for 25% broken rice for Vietnam, Thailand, India, and Pakistan. We test the rice price transmission and rice market integration of these countries using a vector autoregression (VAR) model. The results reveal a tendency for price signals to move together across our sample countries, despite variations in their rice production and consumption patterns. This suggests that rice price shocks are transmitted between Asian exporting countries, particularly for low-quality rice. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that price dynamics in these markets are primarily influenced by crises affecting domestic agro-food chains and government policies related to price and trade. To improve production incentives during crises, governments could promote competition among traders, wholesalers, and input providers, and support farmers' income through supply oriented policies, including input vouchers and agricultural credit. These policies can mitigate price and trade distortions that can negatively affect price incentives and food security.

We investigate the economic implications of divergence between U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic certification procedures applied to U.S. producers and the certification procedures applied to products imported from abroad in the context of the U.S. honey market. The USDA does not have a process to recognise domestically produced honey as ‘USDA organic’. Thus, the consumer market for USDA organic-certified honey can only be accessed by foreign producers. To investigate the economic implications of this regulatory disharmony, we employ a choice experiment to assess the price premiums associated with organic certification for foreign honey imports. Our results indicate that disparate organic certification procedures generate a substantial premium for foreign producers—honey labelled as USDA organic receives a $7.13 price premium, relative to unlabelled honey. However, when respondents are aware that all organic-certified honey is imported from abroad, WTP for organic honey decreases by $1.32. These findings highlight a key distinction and potential hidden cost associated with standard ‘equivalence’—that is, mutual recognition that standards in one jurisdiction are ‘substantially similar’ to the standards in another jurisdiction—versus standard ‘harmonization’—that is, making regulations consistent across jurisdictions.