David P. Godden

Climate change and Australian wheat yield

Nicholls reported that 30-50% of the increase in Australian wheat yields in the period 1952-92 resulted from climate change. He estimated a simple linear relationship where a 1°C fall in diurnal temperature range increased Australian wheat yield by 0.52 t ha−1. This effect, taken with the trend in diurnal range, accounted for 45% of the yield increase between 1952 and 1992. In an extended model with three climate variables, Nicholls found that changes in minimum temperature had had most impact on wheat yield and that rainfall change had contributed little. In our view, Nichollss results need qualification and should be interpreted with caution. They are only estimates, and do not include standard errors to indicate their precision.

Attenuating indigenous property rights: land policy after the Wik decision

In December 1996, the High Court of Australia handed down its judgment in the Wik case finding, by a 4:3 majority, that pastoral leases did not necessarily extinguish native title. An intense political campaign by both pastoral and indigenous interests, and their political representatives, was aimed, in the case of the former, at legislative extinguishment of native title on pastoral leases and, in the case of the latter, at defending property rights which the High Court found had never been extinguished. In this article it argued that an efficient re-allocation of property rights is unlikely to result from extinguishment, but requires Coasian-type bargains between pastoral and indigenous interests.

Induced institutional innovation: Plant variety rights, patents and genetic engineering

Abstract The operation of Plant Variety Rights (PVR) can lead to unexpected consequences. Issues of current interest include the governments role under PVR with respect to genetic conservation, public breeding and variety evaluation; farmers’ rights’ in germplasm in centres of genetic diversity; and the potential impact of genetic engineering on a plant breeding industry with PVR, and especially the interaction of patents with PVR. A useful way of investigating issues associated with the evolution of PVR systems is to consider PVR as an institution, and to investigate causes of ‘institutional innovation’. Ruttans theory of induced institutional innovation explains evolution in terms of changes in relative factor and/or product prices; the effect of new technologies on income distribution; the effect of changed income distribution on the allocation of resources to maintaining and/or creating institutions; and exogenous institutional innovations spawning subsequent institutional developments. The methodol...

Elegy, ode, or panegyric? Practising agricultural economics in Australia, 1975-99

Changes are investigated in the Australian agricultural economics profession, 1975–99, using a conventional microeconomics framework of supply and demand for agricultural economists. Aggregate exogenous factors such as changes in the agricultural and tertiary education sectors, and changes in beliefs about the proper role of government, have changed both supply and demand conditions for agricultural economists. The profession has responded by shifting its focus away from narrowly agricultural policy, especially marketing policy, towards areas of market failure such as environmental and natural resource issues.

Plant Variety Rights and the Incentive to Innovate

Abstract An existing seed industry is considered which faces competition from an innovator who has developed a higher yielding plant variety. Issues examined are: the incentive to innovate; the pricing and dissemination of existing and new varieties through time; and the economic welfare implications. Numerical game theoretic models are developed to illustrate how answers depend on whether the existing industry is competitive or monopolistic, and whether the innovator is accorded plant variety rights.