Risk is often perceived by farmers as being more formidable in new technologies emanating from agricultural research than in more traditional practices. Consequently risk may tend to act as an impediment to adoption of improved practices as well as a general friction on efficient use of...

Decision analysis, the practice of Bernoullian decision theory and Bayesian statistics, is reviewed in relation to its application in management. Aspects of the scaling of beliefs (probabilities) and preferences (utilities) are discussed, focussing on practical problems. It is concluded that the...

As part of a review of changing patterns of variability in cereal production around the world, the situation in Australia is examined both by major cereal crops and by State in which they are grown. The Australian results are generally consistent with those found in parts of both the industrial...

The Department at the University of New England is presently planning a series of internal and external reviews of its performance. This note was prepared as part of the background material pertaining to one particular aspect of performance, namely professional publication. It is contributed to...

A framework is sketched for exploring the pervasive impacts of variations in climate on the uncertainties and instabilities of the Australian rural sector. Low rainfall is identified as the dominating climatic variable. Effects of climatic variation are investigated and measured at farm,...

In this paper, the main socio-economic concepts and their applications in the study of soil degradation are reviewed under three broad headings: soil conservation as an input in agricultural production; topsoil as a natural resource somewhere between being renewable and nonrenewable; and the...

Simple functions of random variables, such as sums, products, quotients and powers, arise in many applications in stochastic economics. It is sometimes convenient to determine the moments of such functions. Cases where this has been or can be done analytically are reviewed, and comments offered...