The Uruguay Round agreement on agriculture was a milestone, bringing this important sector under the disciplines from which it had escaped in the early days of the GATT. The agreement limits the distortions that countries may impose on: market access, on export subsidization and domestic...

In February 1994, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) endorsed a strategic framework for water sector reform in Australia to be implemented by the year 2001. In response to the COAG strategy, a project was initiated in association with the NSW Agriculture and the Victorian Water Bureau...

The structure of the agriculture sector in Australia appears to pose a fundamental constraint to 'product marketing' and 'value-adding' initiatives of the kind for which many are calling. A case is presented in this paper for the search for differentiation opportunities (as a rubric for product...

As resource conflicts grow, resource managers are increasingly faced with trade-offs among environmental assets. The management of the Columbia River system in the US Pacific Northwest is illustrative of such conflict. The Columbia River was developed to provide benefits of flood control,...

Current arrangements for pricing water for power generation are often deficient in providing signals in which to base investment decisions and in allocating water to its highest valued use. To address these shortcomings, a framework is proposed which relies on a two-tier pricing systern....

The water of the Great Artesian Basin is an important resource for the grazing industry in the semi-arid and arid areas of the Basin. The initial development of the Basin was a "free for all" in an open access environment. State governments now license bores to restrict the use of water, but...

The recent acceleration of regional and global integration of national economies has brought with it greater scrutiny of domestic policies that affect the competitiveness of industries in the international marketplace. Simultaneously, concerns about resource depletion and environmental...

Environmental policy is evolving rapidly in the international arena with an increasing number of multilateral environmental agreements being negotiated in a range of forums. The issue of risk management has figured prominently in these processes, with the OECD risk reduction strategy for lead...