Principles of Agricultural Economics

Principles of Agricultural Economics, now in its second edition, showcases the power of economic principles to explain and predict issues and current events in the food, agricultural, agribusiness, international trade, natural resource and other sectors.

The field of agricultural economics has expanded to include a wide range of important and interesting topics, including macroeconomics, international trade, agribusiness, environmental economics, natural resources, and international development. For this new edition, the text has been updated throughout with a new chapter on policy, separate chapters for supply and demand, and increased coverage of key topics and approaches including finance, trade and behavioural economics. Readers will also benefit from an expanded range of case studies which demonstrate real world examples of the principles under discussion. These include obesity, alternative fuels, trade disputes, and animal welfare. The companion website provides students and instructors with extra material in order to enhance their learning and further their understanding of agricultural economics.

This book introduces economic principles in a succinct and reader-friendly format, providing students and instructors with a clear, up-to-date, and straightforward approach to learning how a market-based economy functions, and how to use simple economic principles for improved decision making. The principles are applied to timely, interesting, and important real-world issues through words, graphs, and simple algebra. This book is for students who study agricultural economics, microeconomics, rural development and environmental policy.

Andrew Barkley is Professor and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University, USA.

Paul W. Barkley is Professor Emeritus, School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University and Adjunct Professor in the Applied Economics Department at Oregon State University, USA.