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AMIN MUGERA

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor)

The UWA School of Agriculture & Environment [M087]

Faculty of Science 

The University of Western Australia

35 Striling Highway

Crawley, Western Australia, 6009

Australia

 doing research under my supervision at the University of Western Australia? See details on how to request for supervision and apply for PhD or MS admission 
getting involved in cutting edge research on how to feed the world's growing population? See research highlights below

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Research Highlights

Directed Technical Change, Capital Intensity Increase and Energy Transition: Evidence from China 

This research paper we investigate whether increasing capital intensity is driving a shift in the energy mix towards modern energy sources, such as solar electricity, in China by analyzing a national level time series data from 1978 to 2015. We find that increasing capital intensity causes transition to modern energy in the long run, but not vice versa. We conclude China's energy transition is driven by capital deepening and biased technical change towards capital-intensive modern energy. (The Energy Journal, 2019).

Do Social Protection Transfers Reduce Poverty and Vulnerability to Poverty in Pakistan? Household Level Evidence from Punjab

This research paper evaluates the impact of social protection on vulnerability to poverty and poverty rates among households in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Our results show that social protection has a positive impact in reducing household poverty and vulnerability to poverty, but this impact is mainly driven by a short-term flood relief cash transfer programme, pension of government employees and households’ regular purchase from utility store network. (Journal of Development Studies 2018)

Enhancing adoption of agricultural technologies requiring high initial investment among smallholders

We investigate whether increasing farmers' awareness and exposure to new agricultural technologies through the creation of systematic linkages in the research-to-development continuum affect adoption by analyzing a sample of 820 smallholder households producing wheat and barley in Syria. We find that increasing exposure and awareness of zero tillage technology through organized field days and demonstration trials, complemented with providing free access to costly zero tillage seeders for first-time users, increases the propensity, speed, and intensity of adoption. ( Journal of Technological Forecasting and Social Change  2018).

Re-thinking the unimpeded tube-well growth under the depleting groundwater resources in the Punjab, Pakistan

This study investigates smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt tube-well technology in the face of dwindling groundwater resources and falling water tables. Analysis is based on a cross-sectional survey of 200 rural households from the arid to semi-arid predominantly groundwater-irrigated plains of the Punjab province, Pakistan. We find that farmers will adopt tube-well technology to hedge against production risks but not the risk associated with unfavorable extreme events (downside risk) such as total crop failure. ( Hydrogeology Journal  2018).

Do different measures of ex-post poverty and ex-ante vulnerability to poverty provide consistent estimates of poverty and vulnerability to poverty across households? We explore this research questions by analyzing large household survey data-set of about 90,000 households from the Punjab province of Pakistan (Journal of Development Studies, 2017).

Does adoption of soil conservation practices improve crop productivity? We addressed this question by investigating the impact of adoption of soil conservation practices on technical efficiency of smallholder rice producers in Central China.We address self-selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity problems by estimating a switching regression model for the adoption decision function and separate stochastic production frontiers for SCP and Conventional farms while allowing for production inefficiency (Journal of Environmental Development and Sustainability, 2017)

Is increasing farm productivity important in improving farm profitability? We conducted a study to address this question by investigating the sources of profitability change at the farm level, by farm size and specialization, with an application to a sample of 256 farms in Kansas from 1993 to 2010.  Results point towards the need to support research and development without ignoring efforts to encourage the uptake of existing technologies (American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2016)

Do Western Australia’s consumer have any preferences for locally produced food products? To answer this question a choice experiment using both a fresh and a processed food product was conducted to assess willingness to pay for a local production attribute and other label claims. The study highlights the importance of successfully differentiating products through credible labeling schemes in order to capture market premium. (Journal of Food Products Marketing, 2016)

 Does Zero Tillage Improve the Livelihoods of Smallholder Cropping Farmers?  Using a study of 621 wheat farmers in Syria, we provide empirical evidence on the impacts of adoption of ZT on farm income and wheat consumption. We find that adoption of the ZT technology leads to increase in net crop income and gain in per capita wheat consumption per year (adult equivalent) – an indication of meaningful changes in the livelihoods of the farm households. (Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2016) 

 Did the deregulation of the Australian wheat export market induce a structural change in the price data generation process? To answer this questions we analyze the unit root properties of Western Australian wheat price series by testing for the possibility of single and double structural breaks. Daily spot prices for the period of May 20, 2003 to September 14, 2010 are used. The find that deregulation was not the main cause of structural breaks in the price series in the sample period. (Journal of International Food and Agribusiness Marketing, 2016) 

 Do estimates of vulnerability to poverty based on either consumption expenditures or food calorie intake provide consistent policy implications? We investigated this research questions  using a large data-set of about 90,000 households in the Punjab province, Pakistan. We find that analysis based on the two approaches results in considerable geographic differences in the distribution of vulnerability to poverty.  (Social Indicators Research, 2016) 

  What are the underlying cause of vulnerability to poverty in the Punjab Province of Pakistan? In this study we investigate the main causes of  vulnerability to poverty  in the Punjab Province of Pakistan using a large using a large data-set of about 90,000 households. We provide disaggregated analysis of the prevalence of vulnerability to food poverty in rural, major cities and urban areas. We also provide a breakdown of the different causes of vulnerability (Food Policy, 2016) 

  What is the likelihood that households that are not poor are going to slip into poverty in the near future? We investigated the prevalence and extent of vulnerability to poverty in the Punjab province of Pakistan. using a large  survey data of about 90,000 households. We find that the vulnerability rate is higher than the rate of poverty. We show that  poverty and vulnerability are equally high in urban areas. Our results have policy implications in the design of anti-poverty interventions in Pakistan. (Journal of Asian Economies, 2016) 

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