John Asafu-Adjaye

The University of Queensland | UQ · School of Economics

This chapter considers the nature of the economic benefits of no-till (NT) based farming systems. The focus is on capturing the full costs of resource inputs associated with NT in achieving desired changes in productivity and resource use efficiency. We attempt to place available evidence within a broader framework of economic assessment. We draw o...

This study assesses the economic value held by recreational users for the replication of Noosa National Park, Australia. The lower bound benefits accruing to recreational users amounts to $19 per person per visit, resulting in a total annual use value of approximately $28 m-$44 m. We find a significant proportion of park users also hold non-use val...

Using a computable general equilibrium framework, this paper uses Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as case studies in examining the associated macroeconomic and sectoral impacts under two different climate change scenarios. Our results indicate that a nation's welfare deteriorates due to technical efficiency losses from climate change. Neither unilateral n...

This study analyses the economics of conservation tillage (CT) with respect to its effect on maize yield and chemical fertiliser, herbicide, and female and male labour demand. We estimate production and input demand functions using seemingly unrelated regressions on plot‐level cross‐sectional farm household data collected in the north‐west of Ethio...

This paper evaluates the role of trade liberalization and agricultural intensification in mitigating climate change cause and effects on land use and emissions using a computable general equilibrium model. Our results indicate that cropland expansion triggered by climate-induced crop productivity changes results in deforestation and increases emiss...

The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled ‘Economic Growth, Fossil Fuel and Non-Fossil Consumption: A Pooled Mean Group Analysis using Proxies for Capital’ (J. Asafu-Adjaye, D. Byrne, M. Alvarez, 2016) [1]. This article describes data modified from three publicly available data sources: the World Bank׳s World D...

Conservation tillage (CT) is one of the practices promoted to enhance sustainable agricultural production and the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers. It is a new farming practice for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. Lack of information on the existence and use of the technology, as well as its profitability, could deter its adoption. This pap...

This study employs a Pooled Mean Group estimator to examine the nexus between economic growth and fossil and non-fossil fuel consumption for 53 countries between 1990 and 2012. The global sample was divided into four categories: developed exporters, developed importers, developing exporters and developing importers. The purpose of these categories...

Many resource-rich developing countries are often faced with the challenge of generating sufficient employment for poverty alleviation due to factors such as the capital-intensive nature of resource extraction, the lack of (or weak) linkages between the resource sector and the wider economy, and potential Dutch disease effects. Using Papua New Guin...

This study analyses the factors affecting Ethiopian farmers' choice of ex-ante adaptation and ex-post coping strategies for climate risk. We use multivariate probit models to explain the choice of various adaptation and coping strategies. We find that plot characteristics such as slope, depth, soil type and soil fertility, and farm size are importa...

A Manifesto to use humanity's extraordinary powers in service of creating a good anthropocene. We offer this statement in the belief that both human prosperity and an ecologically vibrant planet are not only possible, but also inseparable. By committing to the real processes, already underway, that have begun to decouple human well-being from envir...

The African continent is projected to suffer adverse impacts from climate change, which are disproportionate to its contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions. Africa is particularly vulnerable because it is among the hottest places on the Earth and therefore any further warming will likely have adverse socioeconomic consequences; and most of...

This article examines the issue of trade reforms confronting many African Caribbean and Pacific countries such as Fiji, which are set to lose their European Union sugar price subsidy at the end of 2007. It was found that attempts to offset the adverse impacts of the subsidy removal by targeting to improve the performance of any particular sector ar...

Governments in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) have tended to rely unduly on foreign aid and debt financing for the provision of public goods such as health, basic education and infrastructure. Domestic tax revenue could play a significant role in funding such expenditures. However, to date tax revenue collection in SSA has only averaged about 15% of GDP....

Empirical results show that, for the Pacific island states, a free trade agreement with developed countries provides more benefits followed by regional trade agreement within the Pacific and then unilateral tariff reduction. While the agricultural sector expands and the manufacturing sector declines in all scenarios, to avoid second‐best outcomes,...

Using Papua New Guinea as a case study, this paper investigates the macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of various developments in its agricultural and resource sector. It was found that commodity booms from 2004 to 2009 and the proposed large liquefied natural gas project increase output growth substantially but with Dutch disease consequences. The...

This paper applies a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Thailand economy to analyse the government's recent renewable energy development plan. This plan aims to increase domestic energy use from renewable sources to replace fossil fuel imports. The study simulated specific policies contained in the plan. Among other things, we found...

Given the rising price of crude oil, some developing countries including Thailand are looking towards developing their domestic renewable energy resources, in particular biofuels. However, there are concerns about the possible adverse effects such a policy strategy would have on key variables such as sectoral output, land allocation and the effects...

The contribution of natural resources to tax revenues has generally yielded mixed results in the literature. This study asserts that the missing link to explaining these differences is the quality of institutions. More resource revenues reduce tax revenues when institutions are poor. Using an interaction term for natural resources and institutional...

These experienced economists use CGE modelling to analyse the consequences of significant contemporary economic and environmental policies in several Asia-Pacific countries and in Africa. This has not been done previously for several of the economies concerned. This path-breaking, economy-wide study assesses policies relating to agricultural develo...

A number of studies have addressed issues relating to the physiological, environmental and economic values of trees in cocoa farming systems. However, to date, little has been done to quantitatively examine the effect of crop diversity on cocoa farming efficiency. This study therefore sets out to first investigate whether and to what extent crop di...

This study simulates the macroeconomic impact of three environment-related policies: a 5% tax on the outputs of pollution intensive industries used as intermediate inputs; a 5% increase in pollution abatement expenditures in pollution intensive industries; and a 5% increase in the price of investment goods for polluting industries. These simulation...

"The objective of this paper is to use a set of varied scenarios related to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and the loss of European Union (EU) sugar preferences (in the form of partial and full price liberalization) in combination with the recently committed EU development aid to examine the impact on Fiji using a dynamic computable gener...

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of climate change on trade and competitiveness in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and to address the implications for managing the impacts, including the options for mitigation and adaptation. The African continent is particularly vulnerable to climate change for a variety of reasons including...

Abstract This study undertakes an empirical investigation of the macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of two forms of regional trade agreements vis-à-vis global trade liberalisation on a small island country, using Fiji as a case study. In order to capture the feedback effects of such a complex set of policies, we employ a dynamic computable general...

Coral reefs, a major source of marine tourism, are under threat worldwide due to human activities. There is an urgent need for information that could be used to promote efficient marine park management. In this study the economic benefits associated with scuba diving in Mu Ko Similan Marine National Park, Thailand, is estimated using a single- and...

This article reports the results of the travel cost model using the standard and the truncated count data models to estimate the economic value of the Similan Islands, Thailand, from SCUBA diving. The estimated consumer surplus per visit to the Similan Islands using the truncated negative binomial model was US$3,233 and the economic value of the Si...

This report presents an overview of the performance of the economy of Ghana during the calendar year 2007 (January to December 2007) and outlook for 2008 and beyond. Based on provisional data released by the Ghana Statistical Service, the size of the economy, as measured by the nominal gross domestic product (GDP), defined as the total value of all...

This study explored the extent to which various factors affect Fijian cane farmers’ adoption of soil conservation measures. The significant factors affecting perception of the soil erosion problem include age, education, ethnicity, and extension services. On the other hand, the significant factors affecting soil conservation effort include percep...

This paper evaluates tax elasticities and the impact of discretionary tax measures on government revenue in Papua New Guinea (PNG) using a dynamic macroeconometric model of taxation which captures the interaction between GDP, individual tax systems and individual tax revenues and bases. Our findings show that economic growth and discretionary tax c...

This paper uses Fiji as a case study to investigate the impacts of three trade liberalisation policies - removal of sugar price subsidies, unilateral trade liberalisation and multilateral trade liberalisation, implied by the successful completion of the Doha Round. Removal of the sugar price subsidies has an adverse effect on real output, real nati...

Many developing south-east Asian governments are not capturing full rent from domestic forest logging operations. Such rent losses are commonly related to institutional failures, where informal institutions tend to dominate the control of forestry activity in spite of weakly enforced regulations. Our model is an attempt to add a new dimension to th...

This paper reinvestigates the energy consumption–GDP growth nexus in a panel error correction model using data on 20 net energy importers and exporters from 1971 to 2002. Among the energy exporters, there was bidirectional causality between economic growth and energy consumption in the developed countries in both the short and long run, while in th...

The authors examine the evidence on the relationship between inflation and productivity growth for nine Asian economies using causality analysis in a multivariate model with money supply as a possible effective monetary policy tool. The inflation-productivity growth relationship is found to be non-uniform, as the evidence of uni-directional, bi-dir...

This article shows how macroeconomic indicators of sustainable development can be applied to the Queensland economy. While recognising the complex and contentious theoretical and practical issues in deriving the Genuine Savings Rate (GSR) to serve as such an indicator, we use the World Bank's methodology, which includes only mineral depletion, defo...

In order for policy makers to plan effectively for sustainable development, there is a need for measures of welfare that consider changes in the natural capital stock. Current measures based on conventional national accounting are flawed because they are based solely on flow measures and do not account for environmental effects. In this paper, we u...

Environmental economics, which used to be on the periphery of the economics discipline, is fast becoming mainstream as concern for the environment grows. Practitioners in other disciplines (e.g. engineering, science, natural resource management, social sciences) are increasingly faced with environmental problems that have an economic component. Thi...

This paper examines the causal links between productivity growth and two price series given by domestic inflation and the price of mineral products in Australia's mining sector for the period 1968/1969 to 1997/1998. The study also uses a stochastic translog cost frontier to generate improved estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. The...

Improved understanding of the factors that influence malaria care seeking behaviour is necessary in order to enhance the effectiveness of current malaria control strategies. This paper empirically examines the factors that affect household choice of malaria treatment options in Ghana. The treatment options considered were choice of a public provide...

Examines the role of trade in promoting sustainable economic development in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Opponents of trade liberalization argue that it results in environmental degradation. While there may be adverse environmental impacts from certain trade-related economic activities, trade expansion could lead to increase in income that...

This paper investigates the effect of income inequality on health status. A model of health status was specified in which the main variables were income level, income inequality, the level of savings and the level of education. The model was estimated using a panel data set for 44 countries covering six time periods. The results indicate that incom...

Trade liberalization policies pursued by the Pacific Forum Island Countries (FICs) have been further cemented as an appropriate strategy for economic growth through the recently adopted trade agreements. Proponents of trade liberalization also argue that free trade leads to improvements in environmental quality. According to the “environmental uzne...

This paper uses a stochastic translog cost frontier model and a panel data of five key mining industries in Australia over 1968–1969 to 1994–1995 to investigate the sources of output growth and the effects of cost inefficiency on total factor productivity (TFP) growth. The results indicate that mining output growth was largely input-driven rather t...

The Papua New Guinea economy has been subjected to a series of external shocks, starting with the Bougainville war in 1989. The government has responded with a series of structural reforms, with the most recent one being implemented in 2000. This paper employs a computable general equilibrium model to evaluate the impacts of the government's reform...

This paper reports the results of a study which estimated household willingness to participate in a malaria insurance scheme in Ghana using the contingent valuation method. The study was conducted in two communities representing rural and urban areas of the country. The results indicate a high level of support for the scheme, reflecting the social...

This article empirically examines the relationship between biodiversity loss and economic growth in light of the current debate on the effects of economic growth on environmental quality. The basic premise is that biodiversity belongs to a special class of environmental degradation because it involves complex ecosystems, the loss of which cannot be...

This paper examines the potential role of carbon sequestration in forests under a range of exogenously chosen carbon price paths. The price paths were chosen to simulate several different climate change policies. The results indicate that global sequestration could range from 48�147 Pg C by 2105 for carbon prices ranging from $100 to more than $800...

This paper analyses the effect of the Australian goods and services tax. First, we compute the social marginal cost per dollar revenue raised for nine broad commodity groups to determine whether a uniform flat rate is efficient. Second, we evaluate the welfare effects of the tax on the consumption of different income groups. The results indicate th...

This paper estimates the causal relationships between energy consumption and income for India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, using cointegration and error-correction modelling techniques. The results indicate that, in the short-run, unidirectional Granger causality runs from energy to income for India and Indonesia, while bidirectional G...

Takes a critical look at a current model of fisheries management which is based on principles related to Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons”. According to this model, where access to a fishery is free, it is not in the interest of the community to limit their fishing effort. To prevent over-fishing and eventual destruction of fish stocks, fisheries m...

This paper estimates the effects of foreign investment in Indonesian’s economic growth for the period 1970 to 1996. Economic growth is measured by growth in gross domestic product (GDP) and gross domestic income (GNI). Two types of foreign investment are considered: foreign direct investment (FDI) and net private capital flows. Other determinants o...

This study conducts an economic analysis of investment in simple soil conservation technologies in the highlands of Eritrea. The data used in the analysis were obtained from a farm survey and supplemented with data from secondary sources. Risk analysis techniques are used to take account of the uncertainties regarding the relationship between soil...

This paper conducts tests of the export-led growth and the import-compression hypotheses for four less developed countries (LDCs) – India, Nigeria, Fiji and Papua New Guinea (PNG). Based on Johansen's multiple cointegration test preceded by unit root tests, we test for cointegration between real output, exports and imports. Non-rejection of cointeg...

This paper examines the long-run relationship between exchange rates and inflation in Papua New Guinea (PNG) during the post-independence period. A key aspect of government policy during this period was the 'Hard Kina' strategy. This strategy sought to maintain the convertibility and purchasing power of the kina with the view to avoiding imported i...

Fiji is generally considered to have a fairly equitable income distribution. Unlike other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, poverty is not considered to be a major problem. However, given Fiji's poor economic performance in the last two decades, this notion of Fiji is increasingly being questioned. This study investigates the relationshi...

This paper undertakes a survey of traditional and non-traditional production activities of Aboriginal and Tories Strait Islander communities in Cape York Peninsula (CYP), North Queensland, Australia. A variation of the market replacement method is used to arrive at an estimate of the economic value of household subsistence production. Despite the f...

This study employs a computable general equilibrium model of the Brunie economy to carry out three policy simulations - a 5-percent increase in government consumption expenditures, a 5-percent reduction in real wages and a 10-percent increase in oil and gas exports. The simulation results suggest that a 5-percent increase in government consumption...

Agriculture provides a means of livelihood for over 80% of Papua New Guineans and contributes to over 30% of its national income. Although per capita income has not grown much in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since the 1960s, there has been a decline in the relative significance of agriculture and a dramatic rise in the contribution of mining activities....

Undertakes a survey of traditional and non-traditional production activities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland, Australia. Ecologically sustainable development issues in relation to indigenous people have not been paid much attention following the release of the Bruntland Report in 1987 an...

This paper reports the results of a study that employs a computable general equilibrium model to trace the economy-wide effects of environmental policy shocks - a carbon tax and a timber export tax. The results indicate that the policies have contractionary effects on the economy. The paper discusses ways in which the model could be modified to acc...

The use of macroeconomic indicators based on the traditional system of national accounts for planning purposes may result in development strategies which are neither environmentally sound nor sustainable, mainly because these indicators do not account for the depletion of natural resources and losses in environmental quality due to social and econo...