Staff and students from the Department of Agriculture and Environment (including CEEP and CAED) made a splash at the 69th Annual Conference of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society in Brisbane, February 2025.
From my perspective, two of the main highlights were the national prizes won by two of our post-doctoral fellows. Curtis Rollins won the award for the best post-graduate research thesis in agricultural and resource economics in Australia and New Zealand in 2024. In his thesis, titled “Response anomalies in stated preference studies”, Curtis focused on understanding cases where survey respondents violate the assumptions made by economists in “choice experiment” surveys, and he proposed potential solutions.
Claire Doll won the award for the best article published in the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics by an early-to-mid-career researcher, for her paper titled “Economic evaluation of alternative urban park designs that conserve irrigation water”. This paper was also drawn from her PhD thesis.
Emeritus Professor Ross Kingwell (opposite) gave the opening Keynote address, on “Challenges and changes in Australian grain supply chains”. It was another highly informative presentation from Ross.
Two of the other Keynote speakers also have strong links to our Department. Professor Nick Hanley from the University of Glasgow is working with Steve Schilizzi on the project I’ll mention below, and Professor Katrin Rehdanz from Kiel University is collaborating with Claire, Curtis, Michael and I on projects related to urban greening. They both gave fabulous talks, even though Nick’s speech had to be delivered online due to some health complications.
Steven Schilizzi’s project on redesigning policy for sustainable agriculture was the subject of a “Special Session” at the conference. Nick Hanley, Chi Nguyen, Daniel Martinez Filip (opposite) and several other speakers made this a memorable session, with its focus on trying to use social norms to influence farmer behaviour.
There was also a “Special Session” on “The Value of a Non-Market Value”, organised by our group and featuring Michael Burton as chair, with talks from our adjunct Sayed Iftekhar, myself and Professor Rob Johnstone from Clark University in the US. There was a great response to our analysis of the value of information generated by research to monetise environmental values.
Beyond this, there were many other great talks from other DARE staff and students. And some non-DARE ones too, I’m told. Overall, it was another memorable, informative and enjoyable AARES conference.
Author: David Pannell, March 2025.
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