Abstract
This manuscript raises important questions about the way economists conceptualise the interaction between economic agents. It was noted earlier by Händeler that “all branches of the economy are linked, each one is directly or indirectly a sales market for the other”. However, the thesis presented in his chapter is that aggregate measures of these interactions count for little.
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Notes
- 1.
This is not to contend that the original distribution of rights (and thus rents) counts for little in politico-economic terms, as implied by some interpretations of Coase.
- 2.
Temptations to make global predictions about the role of government specifically in irrigation and in agriculture generally need to be resisted at this point. In economies like Australia with well developed market institutions the case for government intrusion in farmer decisions is likely to be weak. Similar conditions cannot be assumed of all nations.
- 3.
At the time of writing the Australian Dollar ($A) was equivalent to about $US 0.9.
- 4.
This is perhaps illustrative of claims made elsewhere in this manuscript that defining a “sector” is no easy task.
- 5.
There were serious flaws with even the initial first round estimates (see Productivity Commission 2010).
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Crase, L., O’Keefe, S. (2011). Governmental Discrimination Between Sectors: The Case of Australian Water Policy. In: Mann, S. (eds) Sectors Matter!. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18126-9_9
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