Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics最新文献

The long-run task of Australian power system planners is to identify the structural adjustment pathway associated with retiring the National Electricity Market's (NEM) coal fleet. System planning models seek to do this at minimum cost subject to a reliability constraint. This involves the deployment of low-cost intermittent wind and solar resources with a mix of dispatchable, flexible ‘firming’ assets. Coal's energy-producing role is thus replaced by renewables, and firming duties by short-duration batteries, intermediate duration pumped hydro and the last line of defence—gas turbines. As it turns out, the mix of firming assets is crucial. In this article, we examine 12 (anonymised) electricity market model forecasts in the post-coal era and find all have a surprisingly heavy reliance on gas turbines during critical event winter days. Using a dynamic partial equilibrium model of the east Australian gas market, we test the severity of what appear to be demand shocks from an emergent gas turbine fleet. The episodic demand shocks present as intractable, particularly if batteries and pumped hydro plant are ‘underweight’ within the aggregate generating portfolio. Adequate time is available for policymakers to respond in an orderly manner.

The long-run task of Australian power system planners is to identify the structural adjustment pathway associated with retiring the National Electricity Market's (NEM) coal fleet. System planning models seek to do this at minimum cost subject to a reliability constraint. This involves the deployment of low-cost intermittent wind and solar resources with a mix of dispatchable, flexible ‘firming’ assets. Coal's energy-producing role is thus replaced by renewables, and firming duties by short-duration batteries, intermediate duration pumped hydro and the last line of defence—gas turbines. As it turns out, the mix of firming assets is crucial. In this article, we examine 12 (anonymised) electricity market model forecasts in the post-coal era and find all have a surprisingly heavy reliance on gas turbines during critical event winter days. Using a dynamic partial equilibrium model of the east Australian gas market, we test the severity of what appear to be demand shocks from an emergent gas turbine fleet. The episodic demand shocks present as intractable, particularly if batteries and pumped hydro plant are ‘underweight’ within the aggregate generating portfolio. Adequate time is available for policymakers to respond in an orderly manner.

Individuals have cognitive limits and systematically rely upon heuristics when making decisions. One such example is threshold-based heuristics where decision makers use attribute cut-offs to screen and eliminate alternatives from their choice set that do not satisfy their cut-off levels for critical attributes. Failure to account for information on attribute cut-offs can generate biased estimates in choice models. This study addresses stated attribute cut-offs in discrete choice experiments using eye-tracking technology. We assess the relationship between hard stated attribute cut-off levels and visual attention data extracted from eye tracking. We then investigate how incorporating this information into choice models affects willingness to pay. Three main results can be reported: (1) a considerable number of individuals stated that they have attribute cut-offs, (2) attention increased for attributes that individuals stated they have a cut-off for and (3) stated cut-off levels and visual attention independently affected individuals' willingness to pay, with weak interaction effects. We discuss the implications of the results for researchers and business practitioners.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a significant source of economic growth. Two important factors for attracting FDI are endogenously determined environmental policies and domestic policy stability, which we define as the ability of policymakers to continue established policies. We contribute to the literature by investigating the welfare implications of attracting FDI in a polluting sector where a government chooses a pollution tax given a policy stability level. We modify Helpman et al.'s (2004) FDI model with heterogeneous firms to determine the optimal pollution taxes and the welfare implications with or without FDI. Our model includes a heterogeneous polluting sector, a homogeneous non-polluting sector, consumers negatively affected by pollution, and a policymaker who has a positive probability of being removed from office. We find that the pollution tax is higher when the polluting sector opens to FDI across all policy stability levels compared to the closed sector case. The pollution tax rate is reduced when the policy stability level increases. Welfare is generally higher when not allowing FDI in the polluting sector. The welfare loss due to uncertainty is reduced as the policy stability level increases because we approach the socially optimal pollution tax level. The difference in realised welfare between the closed and open FDI polluting sector cases is largest when there is low marginal pollution damage, high foreign entry cost, or a high elasticity of substitution.

This paper investigates the influence of the digital economy on farmers' involvement in rural environmental governance, using microdata from over 2800 farming households in the China Rural Revitalization Survey. The study focuses on three dimensions of the digital economy: digital infrastructure, digital business and digital life. The results show that the digital economy plays a significant role in promoting farmers' environmental governance behaviours. Among the three dimensions, digital infrastructure and digital life have a stronger impact, while digital business shows a more limited effect. Mechanism analysis identifies three primary pathways through which the digital economy influences governance behaviours: expanding social networks, increasing income and enhancing environmental awareness. However, digital business does not significantly contribute to environmental awareness, pointing to its limited effectiveness in driving behavioural change. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that farmers with larger-scale operations, higher digital literacy and those in western regions are more positively impacted, whereas farmers in central regions show little effect. These findings highlight the need for region-specific strategies that account for local conditions and demographic characteristics. The paper offers three policy recommendations: (1) tailor digital strategies to regional needs to enhance farmers' participation in environmental governance, (2) provide targeted training and support for low-literacy and large-scale farmers and (3) improve the alignment of digital business initiatives with environmental governance goals to foster greater synergy between technology and rural ecological management.

We compare the effects of three potential hybrid policies (cap-and-trade system with a ceiling-price collar, a floor-price collar and bilateral price collars) and two basic instruments (cap-and-trade system and effluent tax) for emissions control when the regulator has asymmetric information about emissions abatement costs. The optimal mix for each hybrid policy is characterised. Given the linearity of both marginal abatement costs and marginal damage costs, all hybrid policies strictly outperform both basic instruments and a hybrid policy with bilateral price collars dominates those with a unilateral collar, which perform equivalently. A simple empirical illustration for China's national carbon market shows that all hybrid policies result in appreciable cost savings compared to the current cap-and-trade system, with the bilateral price collars policy achieving the lowest price volatility.

Technology revolutionises modern agriculture. Bangladesh's agriculture still relies heavily on manual labour for most operations, lacking full mechanisation. Given the pressing need for sustainable production and ongoing food security concerns, the country urgently requires agricultural technologies adoption. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap by examining the economic viability, determinants and impacts of adopting rice combine harvesters (RCH) in the wetland ecosystem. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from three haor districts of Bangladesh in 2023—encompassing 300 Boro rice farmers, among whom 204 were RCH adopters and 96 were non-adopters. Results revealed the use of RCH saved USD 75/ha, leading to a 6.47% decrease in total costs and a 5.06% higher gross return for adopters compared to non-adopters. Additionally, it reduced human labour use in rice farming by 24.61%. The probit model analysis revealed that adoption factors encompassed age, yield, upland cultivation, harvester availability, repair services, perceived labour scarcity mitigation, family labour usage and harvesting losses. Propensity score matching confirmed the significant impacts of RCH adoption, showing reductions in production costs (113.97–176.23 USD/ha) and labour usage (30.04–32.08 man-days/ha), along with increased net returns (444.05–503.57 USD/ha) for adopters. Major constraints to adoption identified through the constraint facing index were timely unavailability and unsatisfactory repair services, damage of straw, heavy weights and seasonal use only. Overall, RCH is cost-effective and economically viable while also mitigating climate risks in the study area. The study findings will assist in achieving the target of doubling farmers' income under Sustainable Development Goal 2.3.

JEL Classifications: Q12, Q16