Economic and sociological factors affecting adaptability in the wool industry.

Riethmuller, P. C. (Paul Christopher) (1976). Economic and sociological factors affecting adaptability in the wool industry. Master's Thesis, School of Economics, The University of Queensland.

       
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Author Riethmuller, P. C. (Paul Christopher)
Thesis Title Economic and sociological factors affecting adaptability in the wool industry.
School, Centre or Institute School of Economics
Institution The University of Queensland
Publication date 1976
Thesis type Master's Thesis
Total pages 320
Language eng
Subjects 14 Economics
Formatted abstract This thesis is based on a survey conducted in southwest Queensland which set out to determine the economic and sociological factors affecting the ability of the woolgrower arid his family to adapt to changes in the wool industry. This survey focused specifically on the five year period 1st July 1968 to 30th June 1973 because these were the years when the industry underwent fairly large changes.

Graziers in three separate zones, defined on the basis of annual rainfall, were interviewed and considerable economic and sociological data gather-ed. The dependent variable in the study was economic performance. This measure, believed to indicate the ability of the grazier to adapt to change was simply the ratio of the value of total property output to total property expenditure. Five sets of explanatory variables were considered. These were (i) the changes made by the grazier to his property; (ii) the situational characteristics of the grazier; (iii) the predispositional characteristics of the grazier; (iv) the situational characteristics of the property; and (v) intervening variables. Some of these variables, it was found, varied among the three zones and this led to the conclusion that it would not be an easy task to predict the action of wool producers accurately as a whole on the basis of information obtained from one particular group of growers.

Regression analysis was used to determine which of the variables explained economic performance in the three zones. The results obtai11ed showed that variables important in one zone were not always important in other zones. Furthermore economic performance was influenced little by the types of changes the grazier made. Instead grazier characteristics and property characteristics seemingly played the dominant role in determining levels of economic performance and therefore the ability of the grazier to adapt.

 
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