Growth in agriculture depends on many things but one of the most important is investment in agricultural research. Decision making in the agricultural research policy area can only be aided by access to better information. This article overviews a recent endeavor to move policy dialogue beyond...

The diverse modelling activity coming under a defined concept of Simulation is reviewed first through a general outline of suggested methodology and secondly through a survey of applications in agricultural economics and kindred disciplines. The review concludes with a consideration of present...

A method is developed for assessing the monetary value of additional information in the framework of a response process which involves interaction between controlled and uncontrolled factors. The method is illustrated through an analysis of the value of a rainfall predictor in determining...

A planning methodology is developed based on Monte Carlo sampling of plans and sorting out inefficient plans according to the rules of stochastic dominance. Illustrations and methodological comparison are made in a context of farm planning under risk, and an application in income stabilization...

Decision analysis, the practice of Bernoullian decision theory and Bayesian statistics, is reviewed in relation to its application in management. Aspects of the scaling of beliefs (probabilities) and preferences (utilities) are discussed, focussing on practical problems. It is concluded that the...

Some empirical problems which tend to receive inadequate attention in response analysis are discussed. These include the variation not explained by fitted production functions, the sensitivity of optima and profits to price changes, the cost of developing production functions and the value in...

Analysis of actual observations of response processes is a routine procedure in applied econometrics but methods of dealing with purely subjective probability distributions as response 'data' have seemingly not hitherto been worked out. The models and methods developed here go some way to...

Formerly a rich-county preoccupation, dealing more explicitly with environmental concerns around agriculture is becoming a mainstream concern for developing countries. Concerns arise with all the major resources underpinning farming, such as land and water which are selectively reviewed here but...