IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea03/22097.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Agency Perceptions Of Alternative Salinity Policies: The Role Of Fairness

Author

Listed:
  • McCann, Laura M.J.
  • Hafdahl, Adam

Abstract

Economics has looked at the decision process of politicians but the decision process of agency staff has primarily been the purview of sociologists. Agencies affect the final form of regulations, they may enforce or ignore regulations that exist, and they provide information to the political process. Policies recommended by economists for nonpoint source pollution control are seldom supported by government agencies. This study examined the relationship between preferences for a particular policy and perceptions of farmer cost, farmer resistance, efficacy in salinity reduction, fairness, and administrative costs. The latter were included to find whether transaction costs of implementing policies affect preferences and whether this could help explain the existence of current policies. To test this hypothesis, a survey of people working on the salinity issue in Western Australia was conducted and structural equation modelling was used to examine the relationship between perceived policy attributes. As expected, fairness had a direct and significant effect on policy preference and also affected farmer resistance and administrative cost. Administrative cost was also positively affected by farmer cost and farmer resistance. Interestingly, other analyses showed there was no direct effect between farmer cost and policy preference or between effectiveness and farmer resistance.

Suggested Citation

  • McCann, Laura M.J. & Hafdahl, Adam, 2003. "Agency Perceptions Of Alternative Salinity Policies: The Role Of Fairness," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22097, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea03:22097
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.22097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/22097/files/sp03mc02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.22097?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrett, Christopher B., 1996. "Fairness, stewardship and sustainable development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 11-17, October.
    2. Blount, Sally, 1995. "When Social Outcomes Aren't Fair: The Effect of Causal Attributions on Preferences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 131-144, August.
    3. Jeremy Clark, 1998. "Fairness in Public Good Provision: An Investigation of Preferences for Equality and Proportionality," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 708-729, August.
    4. Steven Suranovic, 1997. "Why Economists Should Study Fairness," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 109-124, September.
    5. McCann, Laura & Easter, K. William, 2000. "Estimates of Public Sector Transaction Costs in NRCS Programs," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(3), pages 555-563, December.
    6. Wilen, James E. & Homans, Frances R., 1998. "What do regulators do? Dynamic behavior of resource managers in the North Pacific Halibut Fishery 1935-1978," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2-3), pages 289-298, February.
    7. Richard B. Howarth, 1997. "Sustainability as Opportunity," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 73(4), pages 569-579.
    8. Oberholzer-Gee, Felix & Bohnet, Iris & Frey, Bruno S, 1997. "Fairness and Competence in Democratic Decisions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 89-105, April.
    9. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Environmental and Resource Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 801.
    10. Tietenberg, Tom, 1998. "Ethical influences on the evolution of the US tradable permit approach to air pollution control," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2-3), pages 241-257, February.
    11. Peter Kennedy, 2003. "A Guide to Econometrics, 5th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 5, volume 1, number 026261183x, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wilson, Matthew A. & Howarth, Richard B., 2002. "Discourse-based valuation of ecosystem services: establishing fair outcomes through group deliberation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 431-443, June.
    2. Joan Pasqual & Emilio Padilla, 2006. "Environmental Management Problems, Future Generations And Social Decisions," The IUP Journal of Public Finance, IUP Publications, vol. 0(3), pages 15-59, August.
    3. Padilla, Emilio, 2002. "Intergenerational equity and sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 69-83, April.
    4. Hong, Kessely & Bohnet, Iris, 2007. "Status and distrust: The relevance of inequality and betrayal aversion," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 197-213, April.
    5. Christopher Jeffords, 2011. "Constitutional Environmental Human Rights: A Descriptive Analysis of 142 National Constitutions," Economic Rights Working Papers 16, University of Connecticut, Human Rights Institute.
    6. Kampas, Athanasios & White, Ben, 2003. "Selecting permit allocation rules for agricultural pollution control: a bargaining solution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2-3), pages 135-147, December.
    7. Gary E Bolton & Jordi Brandts & Axel Ockenfels, 2005. "Fair Procedures: Evidence from Games Involving Lotteries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(506), pages 1054-1076, October.
    8. Laura M. J. McCann & Adam R. Hafdahl, 2007. "Agency Perceptions of Alternative Salinity Policies: The Role of Fairness," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 83(3), pages 331-352.
    9. James Konow, 2003. "Which Is the Fairest One of All? A Positive Analysis of Justice Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1188-1239, December.
    10. Jinsuk Yang & Qing Hao & Mahmut Yaşar, 2023. "Institutional investors and cross‐border mergers and acquisitions: The 2000–2018 period," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 553-583, September.
    11. Simon G�chter & Arno Riedl, "undated". "Moral Property Rights in Bargaining," IEW - Working Papers 113, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    12. Hadi Sasana & Imam Ghozali, 2017. "The Impact of Fossil and Renewable Energy Consumption on the Economic Growth in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 194-200.
    13. Jesper Stage, 2002. "Structural Shifts In Namibian Energy Use: An Input‐Output Approach," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(6), pages 1103-1125, September.
    14. Styan, Jacob & Boerngen, Maria A. & Barrowclough, Michael J., 2021. "Factors Influencing Increased Usage of Cash Rent Leases in Illinois," Journal of the ASFMRA, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, vol. 2021.
    15. Jason Barabas, 1998. "Wage Erosion, Economic Assessments, and Social Welfare Opinions," JCPR Working Papers 56, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    16. repec:kap:iaecre:v:17:y:2011:i:2:p:157-168 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. David M. Brasington & Diane Hite, 2005. "Demand for Environmental Quality: A Spatial Hedonic Approach," Departmental Working Papers 2005-08, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    18. Amrei Lahno & Marta Serra-Garcia, 2015. "Peer effects in risk taking: Envy or conformity?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 73-95, February.
    19. Yakubu, Ibrahim Nandom, 2022. "Exploring the Drivers of Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Interactive Effect of Globalization and Financial Development," MPRA Paper 115230, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Arik Levinson, 2009. "Technology, International Trade, and Pollution from US Manufacturing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2177-2192, December.
    21. Salvati, Luca & Carlucci, Margherita, 2011. "The economic and environmental performances of rural districts in Italy: Are competitiveness and sustainability compatible targets?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2446-2453.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea03:22097. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.