Fishers are faced with multiple risks, including unpredictability of future catch rates, prices and costs. While the latter are largely beyond the control of fisheries managers, effective fisheries management should reduce uncertainty about future catches. Different management instruments are...

The wine industry is one of the oldest commercial activities in South Africa. The South Africanwine grape industry annually produces more than a million tonnes of grapes, making the countrythe ninth largest producer in the world. The total area under wine grape production is divided intoeight...

The MODERE, the Ministry of the Environment Irrigation Decision Model, is a simulation tool whichuses mathematical programming methods to reveal the implicit multiattribute objective function lyingbehind the observed cropping decision. The model takes different criteria such as profit...

Cooperative business firms are prevalent in agribusiness, yet no concise generalizedmodel exists to demonstrate how and why cooperative firms differ from, and may beselected over, the more common investor owned business firm. It is shown within ageneric transaction game that cooperatives fill...

According to Karl Popper, economics and agricultural economics should be deemed scientificif the theories (hypotheses) are subject to strict tests. The testing of agro-economic theories goes back 50 years in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Japan, and these methods are becoming increasingly part of...

Market liberalization at the domestic level and at the boarder level has been a dominant feature of market reforms in most developing countries including Bangladesh during the last two decades. A pre-requisite for producers and consumers to benefit from this new and changing market environment...

This study investigates the case of a Zambian institution providing credit for smallholder agribusiness commercialization and compares this lender’s model with the major microfinance institutions, to identify specific mechanisms employed by the lender and how these have been adapted to suit...

This dissertation studies the role of the collective action sector for rural development. A combination of formal modeling, historical and institutional analysis, and econometric methods is used in this research. I develop microeconomic models to analyze the determinants of peasants' decisions...

Contingent valuation (CV) is a surveying technique used to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) by individuals for non-market goods (goods for which no market of exchange exists). Many CV studies have shown the existence of hypothetical bias which occurs when individuals are asked a...

This research examines groundwater protection programs as a case study of investments to address long-term environmental health risks. The value individuals place on reducing their risk of exposure to chemical contaminants is estimated using stated preference methodology, accounting for the...