Profile

Professor of Agricultural Economics

Office: B2.12 Keynes
Telephone: +44 (0) 1227 827404
Email: Rob Fraser
Consultation hours: Wed 09:30-11:00

Rob Fraser is Professor of Agricultural Economics. He completed a first degree in Economics at Adelaide University before gaining a Rhodes Scholarship to study for MPhil and DPhil qualifications in Economics at Oxford University from 1978. His first appointment was as an Assistant Professor of Economics for the University of Virginia, USA in 1981. A year later, he joined the University of Western Australia initially as a Lecturer in Economics, becoming Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics early in 1999. In 2000 he was appointed Professor of Agricultural Economics at Imperial College, and in 2006 he joined the University of Kent in the same capacity.

He has an international research reputation as a policy economist, specialising in both agri-environmental and invasive species policy design and evaluation. In this context, since moving to the UK in 2000 he has participated in a range of DEFRA and other funded research projects. In addition, he was commissioned in 2006 by the OECD to prepare a report on "Information Deficiencies in Agri-Environmental Policies", which was then presented as the keynote paper to an OECD Workshop on this topic. He currently holds membership of the Agricultural Economics Society (AES) and is a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES). He is a Member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Agricultural Economics and the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. He is also Academic Advisor to the UK Food Standards Agency and to DEFRA. Most recently he has been appointed a Consultant Economist to the World Bank on policies affecting world trade.

Research

Research interests

Rob Fraser's research interests are in the design and evaluation of agri-environmental policies, and invasive species policies, including policies affecting world trade.

Rob's RePEc page is http://econpapers.repec.org/RAS/pfr144.htm

Publications

Articles

• 'Moral hazard, targeting and contract duration in agri-environmental policy', Journal of Agricultural Economics (forthcoming 2012)
• 'Biosecurity and yield improvement technologies are strategic complements in the fight against food insecurity', PLoS ONE 6(10): e26084. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026084 (2011) (with D R Cook, D R Paini, A C Warden, W M Lonsdale and P J De Barro)
• 'Estimating the social welfare effects of New Zealand apple imports', Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 55(4): 599-620 (2011) (with L Carrasco, D Cook and D Paini)
  
• 'Prioritising biosecurity investment between agricultural and environmental systems', Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety 6(1): 3-13 (2011) (with D Cook, J Waage and M Thomas)
• 'Farmer compensation and its consequences for environmental benefit provision in the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme', Journal of Agricultural Economics 62(2): 330-39 (2011) (with E Quillerou and I Fraser)
• 'Reducing Campylobacter and Salmonella Infection: Two Studies of the Economic Cost and Attitude to Adoption of On-farm Biosecurity Measures', Zoonoses and Public Health 57(1): e109-e115 (2010) (with A Cook, N Williams and L Powell)
• 'Adverse Selection in the Environmental Stewardship Scheme: Does the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme Design Reduce Adverse Selection?', Journal of Agricultural Economics 60(2): 369-80 (2010) (with E Quillerou)
• 'Land Heterogeneity, Agricultural Income Foregone and Environmental Benefit: An Assessment of Incentive Compatibility Problems in Environmental Stewardship Schemes', Journal of Agricultural Economics 60(1): 190-201 (2009)
• 'A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating the Most Cost-Effective Intervention Along the Supply Chain to Improve Food Safety', Food Policy 34(5):477-81 (2009) (with D Souza Monteiro)
• 'Trade and invasive species risk mitigation: reconciling WTO compliance with maximising the gains from trade', (with D Cook), Food Policy, 33(2), 2008, 176-84.
• 'A method for evaluating alternative landscape management scenarios in relation to biodiversity conservation of habitats', (with J Haddock, J Tzanopoulos and J Mitchley), Ecological Economics 61(2), 2007, 277-83
• 'Managing outbreaks of invasive species: eradication versus suppression', (with D Cook, J Mumford, A Wilby and J Waage), International Journal of Pest Management, 52(4), 2006, 261-68.
• 'Valuing non-market benefits derived from allotments in South-East England: a contingent valuation study', (with A Perez-Vasquez, S Anderson and R Wiltshire), International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 13(2), 2006, 103-112
• 'Targeting monitoring resources to enhance the effectiveness of the CAP', (with I Fraser), EuroChoices, 4(3), 2005, 22-27
• 'Implications of recent Australian wheat industry developments for domestic and overseas prices', (with A Lobb), Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development, 1(2), 2005, 93-108
• 'On the use of targeting to reduce moral hazard in agri-environmental schemes', Journal of Agricultural Economics, 55(3), 2004, 525-40
• 'An evaluation of the compensation required by European Union cereal producers to accept the removal of price support', Journal of Agricultural Economics, 54(3), 2003, 431-446
• 'An evaluation of the relative performance of alternatively structured resource rent taxes', Resources Policy, 28(1), 2003, 1-6
• 'Moral hazard and risk management in agri-environmental policy', Journal of Agricultural Economics, 53(3), 2002, 475-87
• 'Exploring the regional and size-related implications of interstate quarantine policies for Western Australian fruit and vegetable growers', (with D Cook), Food Policy, 27(2), 2002, 143-57
• "An assessment of the value of seasonal forecasting technology for Western Australian farmers, (with E Petersen), Agricultural Systems, 70(3), 2001, 259-74
• 'Using principal-agent theory to deal with output slippage in the European Union set-aside policy', Journal of Agricultural Economics, 52(2), 2001, 29-41
• 'Is risk-sharing taxation in society�s best interests if prices are log-normally distributed?', Resources Policy, 26(4), 2001, 219-25

Edited book

• 'Risk Management and the Environment: Agriculture in Perpective', (with J Lekakis and B Babcock), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003

Teaching

Undergraduate

• CB559 Business Economics (Canterbury Campus)
• EC566 Macroeconomics for Business (Medway Campus)

Postgraduate

• EC817 Research Methods in Economics
• EC829 Environmental Valuation

PhD supervision

Past students

• Dr Emmanuelle Quillerou: "Adverse Selection and Agri-Environmental Policy Design: The Higher Level Stewardship Scheme as a Case Study", Completed 2010

Administrative roles

• Admissions Officer for MSc programmes (Spring term)
• Deputy Head of School
• Member, University of Kent Board for Research and Enterprise
• Member, Faculty of Social Sciences Promotions Committee
• Member, Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences