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Monday, 23 July 2012

UWA Business School
Recent Economics PhD graduate Grace Gao has achieved a rare feat in academic circles - having her article published in the prestigious American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

"World Food Demand" was published in the January 2012 edition of the prestigious journal, which is ranked A* by The 2010 Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative.

In recognition of this achievement, Grace, a UWA Business School student, was awarded the title of the best publication in the Social Sciences (Quantitative) discipline by UWA's Higher Degree by Research Achievements initiative.

Grace's supervisor, Winthrop Professor Ken Clements, said the single-authored article was of exceptionally high quality.

‘According to the recently published "Report of the AJAE Editors for 2010", the acceptance rate for the American Journal of Agricultural Economics is about 18 per cent, and in 2009 it ranked 18th out of 220 economics journals in the Social Science Citation Index in terms of total citations,' he said.

‘In economics and related areas (econometrics, economic history, accounting and finance), the publication of research in a journal of this quality is a rare event. For someone like Grace who at the time had not even completed the PhD, this is an even rarer event. ‘

Grace's paper attempts to understand the economic forces governing the consumption of food by the world's population of seven billion people.

‘Grace is able to show in an elegant and convincing manner how it is that food consumption can be explained by a simple economic model with incomes and prices as the determinants. In view of the substantial diversity of food consumption patterns internationally, the fact that a simple economic model works well in this context will come as a surprise to non-economists who tend to think of consumption as determined by non-economic factors (geography, climate and culture, for example) and by the special circumstances faced by consumers in each country,' said Winthrop Professor Clements.

The awards ceremony for those recognised in the Higher Degree by Research Achievements initiative will be held on 2 August 2012.

Media references

Catherine Vogel (UWA Business School)  (+61 8)  6488 7340
Verity Chia (UWA Business School)  (+61 8)  6488 1346

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