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THE USE OF A DECISION MAKER'S UTILITY FUNCTION IN A LINEAR PROGRAMMING ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL POLICY *
Author(s) -
Parton Kevin A.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
australian journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.683
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-8489
pISSN - 0004-9395
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8489.1979.tb00244.x
Subject(s) - relevance (law) , function (biology) , linear programming , agriculture , decision maker , decision analysis , corporation , computer science , operations research , management science , economics , mathematical economics , mathematics , political science , finance , algorithm , ecology , evolutionary biology , law , biology
A decision theoretic approach to agricultural policy decision making is examined to discover whether a utility function of an Australian Wool Corporation decision maker can be established and, if so, whether this can be used to improve the policy analysing performance of an agricultural sector linear programming model. After discussing the theoretical requirements of the utility function elicitation and the elicitation procedures, the characteristics of the resulting functions are examined. A means for its inclusion in a linear programming framework is described and some analysis of policy is carried out. The general conclusions are that the relevance of the agricultural sector analysis is enhanced by the use of such a utility function.