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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2006‒03‒11
eleven papers chosen by |
| By: | Beghin, John C.; Aksoy, Ataman |
| Abstract: | While global analytical approaches to agricultural trade liberalization yield large gains for most economies, there are substantial variations in the policy regimes across commodities. To clarify the multiplicity of distortions and impacts, the World Bank’s Trade Department undertook a series of commodity studies. The studies highlight the important challenges faced by negotiating countries in the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade negotiations. The studies provide a sharper look at the North-South dimensions of the agricultural trade debate, with the North’s trade barriers, domestic support, and tariff escalation. They also underscore the South-South challenges on border protection and the reduced rural income opportunities for the lowest-income countries due to policies in higher-income countries that depress world prices. Agricultural trade liberalization would induce significant price increases for most commodities. The studies identify the detrimental effects of multilateral trade liberalization for some countries because of lost preferential trade agreements and higher prices on net consumers of commodities. Given the complexity of specific issues in agriculture, as well as the North-South and South-South dimensions of distortions, a global solution would be required to liberalize these markets. Rather than being self-contained, agricultural trade negotiations should involve concessions on other sectors and issues (services and intellectual property rights for example) to identify overall reform packages palatable to all parties. |
| Keywords: | agricultural trade liberalization, Doha, World Bank, commodities |
| JEL: | F1 |
| Date: | 2006–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12509&r=agr |
| By: | Nava Haruvy |
| Abstract: | We will analyze land use and water management issues in Israel by focusing on wastewater irrigation. Irrigation with treated effluents has become an important water source in Israel due to scarcity of natural water resources. Treated wastewater reuse serves as source of water and nutrients and assists with wastewater discard. Wastewater also carries pollutants including micro and macro organic and inorganic matter and its treatment and use should adapt to sustainability criteria. Wastewater treatment processes can decrease pollutants levels, while salinity is not influenced unless combining relatively expensive desalination processes. Advantages of using wastewater in irrigation include: supporting agricultural production, highly reliable supply, low cost water source, solution for effluent disposal and saving of chemical fertilizers. Disadvantages include quality problems as related to human health, damage to crops, contamination of groundwater, problems related to irrigation system, increased water requirement and need for continuous follow up and control. The higher is the treatment level, the higher are the treatment costs but the environmental potential hazards are lower. Regarding sustainable use we will assess advantages and disadvantages of treating and irrigating with treated effluents. We will focus on the economic and environmental analysis of sustainable reuse of wastewater in agriculture regarding its impact on groundwater, soil and society. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p376&r=agr |
| By: | Hart, Chad E.; Beghin, John C. |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the third pillar of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the discipline of agricultural domestic support. The paper examines the current definition of agricultural domestic support used by the WTO, focusing on the Aggregate Measure of Support (AMS) and other forms of support that are less to least distorting (Blue and Green Box payments). The analysis looks at the recent experience of four member states (the United States, the European Union, Japan, and Brazil). The structure of recent support varies considerably by country. Some countries, notably the United States, have strategically used the de minimis exemption to deflate their support figures substantially in order to remain within AMS limits, even though total support has exceeded these limits. The paper investigates the possible effects of changing the definition of the AMS so that it better reflects current support conditioned by market forces. If market prices (world and/or domestic) were to be used to compute current market support, a greater variability of the AMS would result, and violations of AMS limits would be more likely given the anticyclical nature of policies included in the AMS, especially for the United States and European Union. |
| Date: | 2006–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12510&r=agr |
| By: | Erik Dietzenbacher (Faculty of Economics, University of Groningen); Esther Velázquez (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide) |
| Abstract: | Andalusian agricultural sectors are relatively small, but consume by 90% of the available water resources. More than 50% of the final demands for agricultural products are exported to other Spanish regions or abroad. Using a virtual water concept with an input-output framework, we find that a substantial part of the Andalusian water consumption is necessary for exports. Considering the water content of its trade, Andalusia is found to be a net exporter of water, whereas it is an extremely arid region. Examining regional policy aspects, a reduction in the exports abroad of agricultural products yields considerable benefits in terms of water savings and only moderate costs. |
| Keywords: | Input-Output Models, Virtual Water, Trade and Sustainability |
| JEL: | R15 Q25 Q17 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:06.06&r=agr |
| By: | Beghin, John C. |
| Abstract: | This paper is an overview of important findings regarding the ongoing evolution of Asian dairy markets based on a series of new economic investigations. These investigations provide systematic empirical foundations for assessing Asian dairy markets with their new consumption patterns, changing industries, and trade prospects under different domestic and trade policy regimes. The findings are drawn from four case studies (China, India, Japan, and Korea), as well as a prospective analysis of future regional patterns of consumption and a policy analysis of trade liberalization of Asian dairy markets. The overview distills the findings of these new investigations and integrates them in the earlier economic literature; it draws policy implications and identifies lessons for countries outside of Asia, especially for emerging exporters in Latin America. |
| Keywords: | Asia, China, dairy, India, Japan, Korea, liberalization, trade integration. |
| JEL: | F1 |
| Date: | 2006–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12506&r=agr |
| By: | Fumio Hayashi; Edward C. Prescott |
| Abstract: | The question we address in this paper is why the Japanese miracle didn't take place until after World War II. For much of the pre-WWII period, Japan's real GNP per worker was not much more than a third of that of the U.S., with falling capital intensity. We argue that its major cause is a barrier that kept agricultural employment constant at about 14 million throughout the prewar period. In our two-sector neoclassical growth model, the barrier-induced sectoral mis-allocation of labor and a resulting disincentive for capital accumulation account well for the depressed output level. Were it not for the barrier, Japan's prewar GNP per worker would have been close to a half of the U.S. The labor barrier existed because, we argue, the prewar patriarchy, armed with paternalistic clauses in the prewar Civil Code, forced the son designated as heir to stay in agriculture. |
| JEL: | E1 O1 O4 N3 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12081&r=agr |
| By: | Paul Dunne (School of Economics, University of the West of England); Beverly Edkins (University of KwaZulu-Natal) |
| Abstract: | Food consumption is an important issue in South Africa, not only in its relation to poverty and deprivation, but also given the importance of nutrition in allowing HIV/AIDS sufferers to lead extended, productive lives. With the pressing need to increase food security and the enormity of the epidemic, understanding the demand for food has become a vital task. It is important that the determinants of the demand for food are understood, so that responses of household food consumption to changes in the prices of foodstuffs, prices of other commodities, and total expenditure can be anticipated. There is, however, surprisingly little economic research on this topic. This paper provides an empirical analysis of the demand for food in South Africa for the years 1970 to 2002. It uses two modelling approaches, a general dynamic log-linear demand equation and a dynamic version of the almost ideal demand system to provide estimates of the short- and long-run price and expenditure demand elasticities. |
| JEL: | E58 |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwe:wpaper:0509&r=agr |
| By: | François Bourguignon (World Bank); Martin Browning (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Pierre-André Chiappori (Department of Economics, University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an exhaustive characterization of testability and identifiability issues in the collective framework in the absence of price variation; it thus provides a theoretical underpinning for a number of empirical works that have been developed recently. We first provide a simple and general test of the Pareto efficiency hypothesis, which is consistent with all possible assumptions on the private or public nature of goods, all possible consumption externalities between household members, and all types of interdependent individual preferences and domestic production technology; moreover, the test is proved to be necessary and sufficient. We then provide a complete analysis of the identification problem; we show under which assumptions it is possible to identify, from the observation of the household consumption of private goods, the allocation of these goods within the household as well as the Engel curves of individual household members. |
| Keywords: | intrahousehold allocation; collective models; identification; sharing |
| JEL: | D13 |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieca:2006_02&r=agr |
| By: | David Adamson (Risk and Sustainable Management Group, University of Queensland); Thilak Mallawaarachchi (Risk and Sustainable Management Group, University of Queensland); John Quiggin (Risk & Sustainable Management Group, School of Economics, University of Queensland) |
| Abstract: | Questions relating to the allocation and management of risk have played a central role in the development of the National Water Initiative, particularly as it has applied to the Murray-Darling Basin. The central issues of efficiency and equity in allocations are best understood by considering water licenses as bundles of state-contingent claims. The interaction of property rights and uncertainty regarding water flows, production and output prices is modelled using a state-contingent representation of production under uncertainty. The role of technology and investment in the determination of efficient adaptation strategies to manage risks is explored using an illustrative example. |
| JEL: | Q24 Q25 |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsm:murray:m06_2&r=agr |
| By: | Ellickson, Paul; Misra, Sanjog |
| Abstract: | Most supermarket firms choose to position themselves by offering either "Every Day Low Prices" (EDLP) across several items or offering temporary price reductions (promotions) on a limited range of items. While this choice has been addressed from a theoretical perspective in both the marketing and economic literature, relatively little is known about how these decisions are made in practice, especially within a competitive environment. This paper exploits a unique store level dataset consisting of every supermarket operating in the United States in 1998. For each of these stores, we observe the pricing strategy the firm has chosen to follow, as reported by the firm itself. Using a system of simultaneous discrete choice models, we estimate each store's choice of pricing strategy, conditional on its expectation over the choices of its rivals. We find evidence that firms cluster by strategy, choosing actions that agree with those of its rivals. We also find a significant impact of various demographic and firm characteristics, providing some qualified support for several specific predictions from marketing theory. |
| Keywords: | EDLP, promotional pricing, positioning strategies, supermarkets, discrete games |
| JEL: | M31 L11 L81 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:duk:dukeec:06-02&r=agr |
| By: | Andreas Röthig (Institute of Economics, Darmstadt University of Technology and Center for Empirical Marcroeconomics, University of Bielefeld); Carl Chiarella (School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney) |
| Abstract: | This article explores nonlinearities in the response of speculators? trading activity to price changes in live cattle, corn, and lean hog futures markets. Analyzing weekly data from March 4, 1997 to December 27, 2005, we reject linearity in all of these markets. Using smooth transition regression models, we find a similar structure of nonlinearities with regard to the number of different regimes, the choice of the transition variable, and the value at which the transition occurs. |
| Keywords: | futures marktes; speculation; nonlinear dynamics; smooth transition regression model |
| JEL: | G10 G11 C22 C53 |
| Date: | 2006–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uts:rpaper:172&r=agr |