Some hypotheses about the timing of farmers becoming aware of an innovation and the subsequent decision to use that innovation are derived from a recently developed, decision-theoretic model of the adoption process. They are tested using empirical evidence on the time taken by early adopters of...

In September 1981, the then Minister for Primary Industry set up a Working Group under the Chairmanship of Sir James Balderstone to prepare, within one year, a policy discussion paper on agriculture. The terms of reference were wide-ranging and included the need to identify the major policy...

Theoretical problems involved in the reconciliation of the assumption of constant returns to scale with determinacy of firm size are discussed with particular reference to Australian farms. Various techniques for examining changes in the size distribution of firms are examined and their use...

This paper is mainly intended to provide a vehicle for discussion of recent research in measuring resource productivity using what has come to be known in agricultural economics as the Cobb-Douglas approach. I have attempted to draw together most of the points that have been raised by others...

The potato industry in South Australia is characterised by very unstable prices. One hypothesis for this instability is that potato growers' acreage responses follow a cobweb pattern, that is, a one year lag of acreage to price. This hypothesis is tested, together with a two year lag and a...

It is argued in this article that over the period from 1948 to 1963, lending to the rural sector by both trading banks and pastoral houses was characterized by an unsatisfied fringe of potential borrowers. Estimates are presented of the effects on rural lending by these agencies of changes in...