The increasing use of agricultural contracts and processor concentration raises concerns that processors may offer lower contract prices in absence of local competition. This study examines the price competitiveness of marketing and production contracts depending on the availability of...

On the verge of EU accession, Poland’s agricultural sector is characterised by anumber of distinct structural weaknesses, which are a major reason for the unsatisfactoryincome situation of rural households. Among these weaknesses are thatfarm productivity is substantially below EU standards,...

The purpose of the paper is to understand the soci-economic factors affecting the distribution of community reinvestment act loans across four income groups using county level information from 1996-2004 for the delta region. The specific objectives of the paper1) Estimate an seemingly unrelated...

In most urban cities across Australia, water restrictions remain the dominant policymechanism to restrict urban water consumption. The extensive adoption of waterrestrictions over several years means that Australian urban water prices have consistently not reflected the opportunity cost of water...

Stated preference approaches are widely used in non-market valuation. However, their potential uses extend far beyond valuation. In particular they can be used to assess efficiency of resource allocations and to design optimal resource allocations. Changes to the government budget were evaluated...

R&D spending in New Zealand is a mixture of private and public investment undertaken to improve productive activity and efficiency. Investment is split fairly equally between private business, government organisations and the universities. It is a long term investment with some uncertainty about...

The objective of this paper is to study the link between rural regional development strategies and unemployment reduction in agricultural regions. Based on empirical data, the paper presents the assessment of the "diversification effects" for the regional labor demand achieved through the...

This paper looks at the relationship between economic inequality and urban environmental quality in developing countries, with specific reference to the provision of water and sanitation services. The paper explores the consequences of “dual” systems, in which a proportion of a city’s...

This paper is based on an ongoing joint work with David Sahn and Xiaobo Zhang.