Agency Perceptions of Alternative Salinity Policies: The Role of Fairness

This study examined the relationship between agency staff preferences for salinity policies and perceptions of farmer cost, farmer resistance, effectiveness in salinity reduction, fairness, and administrative costs. A mail survey was conducted in Western Australia and structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships between perceived policy attributes. As expected, fairness had a direct and significant effect on policy preference and also affected administrative costs, which in turn had a direct effect on policy preference. In the final model there was no direct effect between farmer costs and policy preferences. (JEL Q58, Q52)