The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics provides a forum for innovative and scholarly work in agricultural and resource economics. First published in 1997 the Journal succeeds the Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics and the Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics upholding the tradition of these long-established journals. Accordingly the editors are guided by the following objectives: (1) To maintain a high standard of analytical rigour offering sufficient variety of content so as to appeal to a broad spectrum of both academic and professional economists and policymakers (2) In maintaining the tradition of its predecessor journals to combine articles with policy reviews and surveys of key analytical issues in agricultural and resource economics. In the 1998 Journal Citation Reports of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics ranked 57th amongst 160 economics journals ahead of the Journal of Agricultural Economics (68th) the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (90th) and the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics (112th).