Resource management decisions influence not only the output of the economy but also the distribution of utility between groups within the community. The theory of Benefit Cost Analysis provides a means of incorporating this distributional change through the application of distributional or...

Ensuring the continued viability of rural and regional communities in Australia has become a high priority politically. Economic and environmental forces are perceived as threats to viability. Declining terms of trade for agricultural commodities along with decreased relative prices for...

This report presents results of research designed to investigate variations in willingness to pay (WTP) estimates across different scales and scopes of environmental investments. The goal is to help catchment management authorities better prioritise their natural resource management actions at...

The survey was designed to estimate environmental values suitable for integration into MOSAIC, a bio-economic model for catchment and farm level planning. Local residents, as well as distant rural and distant urban communities, were surveyed in three NSW catchments (Lachlan, Namoi and...

Integrated catchment policies are widely used to manage natural resources in Australian catchments. Integration of environmental processes with socio-economic systems is often difficult due to the limitations of decision support tools. To support assessments of the environmental and economic...

This paper will briefly describe the history and intent of the NTA 1993; survey outcomes flowing from its implementation, especially in reference to economic implications of agreements between parties; and consider future prospects, particularly by reference to the amended legislation which came...

Many environmental policy issues involve conflicts between nature conservation and economic development. The economic rationale behind deciding among alternative options is predicated on some form of benefit-cost analysis (BCA). Key issues to date have been non-market valuation, the...

Evaluating land use change in economic frameworks often requires non-market values to be assessed. However non-market valuation experiments can be sensitive to the way the trade offs are framed. The aim of the research reported in this paper was to examine the influence of varying the valuation...

Improving smallholder welfare in the rural sectors of developing countries requires improving access to both input and product markets. Success, however, in developing sustainable and mutually beneficial links between smallholders and agribusiness has been variable. Two recent ACIAR studies...

As Australia begins to implement the National Water Initiative, there are lessons to be learned from past experience in rural adjustment and rural assistance schemes. The experience is rich and the messages powerful. Government intervention in the process of adjustment and change can impede,...