The paper explains the large differences in cross-country productivity performance by modeling and testing the effects of social barriers to communication on productivity and capital accumulation. In an optimal growth model, social barriers to communication that impede the formation of knowledge...

The paper analyses the economic payoffs from marine reserves using a stochastic optimal control model. The results show that even if the reserve and harvested populations face the same negative shocks, harvesting is optimal, the population is persistent and with no uncertainty over current stock...

Using data from what was once one of the world’s largest capture fisheries the economic value of a marine reserve is calculated using a stochastic optimal control model with a jump diffusion process. The results show that with a stochastic environment an optimal-sized marine reserve can...

The paper provides the first ex-post estimates of the effects on technical efficiency of input controls in a fishery. Using individual vessel data from the northern prawn fishery of Australia for the years 1990–1996 and 1994–2000, a stochastic production frontier is estimated to analyse the...

The paper presents the first ex-post analysis of profit and productivity of individual vessels following a vessel or licence buyback in a fishery. Using individual firm-level data for the period 1997-2000, the paper analyzes a “natural experiment" of the effects of a 1997 scheme to reduce...

This paper analyzes the dramatic increases in rice output and productivity in Vietnam due in large part to market reform, inducing farmers to work harder and use land more efficiently. The reform process is captured through changes in effort variables and a decomposition of total factor...

Unpredictable environmental fluctuations are a major problem in fisheries. To mitigate these uncertainties, reserves are advocated to help ensure population persistence, reduce population and harvest variance and to provide a ‘hedge’ against management failures. Using recent insights from...

We contribute to the understanding of marine reserves and the management of renewable resources with uncertainty. We show that the key benefit of reserves is that they increase resilience, or the speed it takes a population to return to a former state following a negative shock. Resilience can...

Uzawa (1968) first introduced a simple and appealing method for reducing problems with variable rates of time preference to single-state systems by transforming the time scale from t to ., a utility discount factor. This transformation has been used extensively, particularly in models of...

The dairy industry plays an important role in both Australia and the world dairy market. Domestically, it is one of the most important agricultural industries, valued at $A3.7 billion a year. Internationally, the industry exports more than $A3 billion a year, making Australia the third largest...