Recent low estimates of total factor productivity change for wool producers in the Australian sheep industry indicate that they are struggling to improve their performance. This evidence is at odds with the views of many technical observers of industry performance, prompting us to re-estimate...

In modelling retail meat demand and supply equations it is difficult to identify close substitutes or competing products. However, close substitutes can be identified through a comparison of meat attributes, especially cooking method and sensory attributes. The Meat Standards Australia (MSA)...

Lamb carcass value is widely reported to be a function of lean meat yield, which is the relationship between muscle, fat and bone. Five retailers and five wholesalers assessed 47 lamb carcasses from diverse genotypes and scored seven attributes. A hedonic model reveals that conformation...

Recent low estimates of total factor productivity change for wool producers in the Australian sheep industry indicate that they are struggling to improve their performance. This evidence is at odds with the views of many technical observers of industry performance, prompting us to re-estimate...

Recent meat demand models incorporate demand functions for cuts of meat rather than whole carcasses. However, parameters for “meat quality” are seldom included in such models. Modelling difficulty arises as meat cuts are heterogeneous in their quality attributes. Meat quality may be assessed...

In this paper, we assess the potential for rehabilitation of comparative analysis under its new guise of benchmarking. After a brief description of comparative analysis, we discuss the deficiencies that surrounded its fall in reputation: neglect of economic principles, limited scope for action,...