摘要:

Since the abolition of the Wages Councils in September 1993, agriculture is the only sector in the UK economy covered by any form of minimum wage legislation. However, the recent denunciation of an ILO convention covering minimum wages in agriculture has paved the way for the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Boards. This paper investigates the impact of the system of minimum wages on the level and structure of earnings and employment in agriculture. On wages, our main conclusion is that the minimum wages set by the Agricultural Wages Boards are important determinants of the average level and distribution of earnings in UK agriculture. On employment, our main conclusion is that there is no evidence that minimum wages have reduced the level of employment in agriculture. If anything, our estimates imply a weak positive, though statistically insignificant, impact of minimum wages on employment. This seems to be true when we disaggregate by sex and skill.

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00748.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper provides a game theoretic analysis of Management Agreements under asymmetric information. A simple two‐period game is employed to represent the Coasian bargaining process which takes place between the farmer and English Nature over the introduction of a Management Agreement. The analysis shows that if the farmer possesses an information advantage and wishes to exploit it to gain an economic rent from the bargaining process, inefficient outcomes are possible. The implications of the analysis for the continued reliance upon voluntarism and Management Agreements for the protection of Sites of Special Scientific Interest are considere

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00749.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper analyses a market in which agents with different ownership structures compete with each other by simultaneously choosing quantities. In the first part of the paper, the government can choose to support the formation of a marketing cooperative by a group of farmers, or to establish a public marketing firm. The resulting market structures will thus be a duopoly of one marketing cooperative and one private wholesaler, or a mixed duopoly including a public firm. The equilibrium outcomes of the two market arrangements are analysed and the welfare implications compared. It is shown that both consumers' surplus and total welfare are higher in a mixed duopoly with public firm than in a mixed duopoly with cooperative, which is in turn socially superior to a pure private duopoly. In the second part, agents' incentives with regard to choice of ownership structure are discussed and analysed in a two‐stage gam

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00750.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper explores further some of the ideas put forward by McInerney (1993) in his economic perspective of animal welfare. It uses a simple economic framework to consider citizens' concerns and perceptions about farm animal welfare and the production and consumption of livestock products in society. People's perceptions that certain aspects of livestock production give rise to poor farm animal welfare are a potential source of disutility for them. This disutility may be associated with people's own consumption of livestock products and/or with other people's consumption. The latter is a negative externality of consumption in society, resulting in very real indirect costs associated with livestock production. The paper discusses the need for valuing farm animal welfare, considers techniques for evaluation and highlights some of the policy issues involved.

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00751.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The three‐step estimator of the co‐integrated system approach is used to examine the dynamic transmission of agricultural producer prices through the food marketing system in seven countries of the EU. The results suggest that even if producer and consumer prices drift apart in the short‐run, for example when producer price policy changes, market forces return them to their long‐run equilibrium. Tests do not reject the hypothesis of long‐run ‘perfect’ price transmission for two, pigmeat‐pigs and butter‐milk, out of five pairs of prices, in six of the seven member countries of the EU considered here, the UK being the exception. The tests do, however, reject the hypothesis of short‐run ‘perfect’ price transmission, even in its less restrictive form, across all pairs of

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00752.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

It is argued that the ongoing CAP/GATT reforms provide a basis for the introduction of environmental cross‐compliance (ECC). ECC enables policymakers to restrict output‐related direct support payments to those farmers who comply with specified environmental guidelines aimed at reducing the external damage effects of agricultural production.This paper is an exploratory investigation of ECC and presents the results of a farm‐level linear programming analysis of 15 North‐West England arable farms. The environmental guidelines, which relate to permanent as opposed to rotational set‐aside and to levels of fertiliser use, are widely applicable to the extent that ECC can be implemented as a voluntary policy system. They are clearly effective in achieving policy goals since all but one of the farmers investigated would comply with the full range of restrictions considered. Within this range, gross margins are reduced by up to 10 per cent while area and output of seed crops are reduced by around 22 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. Row crops area and output are more robust, each falling by just under 4

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00753.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper describes a model for assessing the aggregate level and distribution of benefits within the UK dairy industry from research aimed at reducing the costs of dairying equipment and machinery. The effect of the market structure of the farming and processing sectors is examined. It is shown, in this model, that the machinery sector always loses from a technological advance. The benefits and losses to the other sectors depend on the organisational structure of farmers and processors. Finally, the effect of imposing a levy on farmers to pay for research is discussed. The losses are shown not to be distributed in the same way as the research gains. The results have direct implications for the funding of research.

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00754.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Much interest now focuses on the use of the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to assess non‐use value of environmental goods. The paper reviews recent literature and highlights particular problems of information provision and respondent knowledge, comprehension and cognition. These must be dealt with by economists in designing CVM surveys for eliciting non‐use values. Cognitive Questionnaire Design Methods are presented which invoke concepts from psychology and tools from cognitive survey design (focus groups and verbal reports) to reduce a complex environmental good into a meaningful commodity that can be valued by respondents in a contingent market. This process is illustrated with examples from the authors' own research valuing alternative afforestation program

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00755.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A cost function is used to quantify potential sources of gains from deregulation of the Norwegian salmon farming industry, an industry that has been heavily regulated in order to achieve a regional dispersion of production and profits along the entire coastline. It now seems to be widely recognised that the regulations have led to cost inefficiencies. A region‐augmented cost function with data from 282 fish farms for 1988 is used to estimate regional productivity differences, i.e. differences in the total cost of producing salmon in one region compared to another. It is found that the potential gains from deregulation may be substantia

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00756.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Book reviewed in this article:Gaull, G. E. and Goldberg, R. A. (eds.) (1993)Geping, Q. and JINCHANG, L.Murray, M. and Greer, J. (eds.) (1993).Rural Development in Ireland. Aldershot: Avebury (Gower).BRIEF NOTES: Cook, E. and Hill,BRIEF NOTES: Desai, B. M. and Mellor, J. W. (1993).BRIEF NOTES: Kettunen, L. and Niemi, J. (1994).BRIEF NOTES: OECD (1994).Agricultural Policies, Markets and Trade: Monitoring and Outlook 1994.BRIEF NOTES: Richards, S. (1993).Wye College and its World: A Centenary History.

ISSN:0021-857X    

DOI:10.1111/j.1477-9552.1995.tb00757.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY