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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2006‒05‒27
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Alan Matthews; Jacques Gallezot |
| Abstract: | This paper explores whether the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme, under which exports from 50 least developed countries (LDCs) are admitted duty-free to the EU market, influenced the trajectory or pace of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform. It finds no evidence that it played a role except in the case of two products, sugar and rice. The overall volume of exports, or potential exports, from LDCs in CAP products is just too small to create market management difficulties outside of these two products. It could play an indirect role in reform in the future in the context of the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries under the Cotonou Agreement. ACP countries could use EBA as a benchmark and demand equivalent treatment for their exports in these negotiations in return for liberalising their markets towards EU exports. Any move to extend more generous preferential access to non-LDC ACP countries for CAP-supported products would have much greater implications for the CAP simply because of their greater supply capacity. |
| Keywords: | Everything But Arms, Least Developed Countries, sugar, preferences, CAP reform |
| Date: | 2006–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp133&r=agr |
| By: | Hall, Andy (United Nations University, Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology); Mytelka, Lynn (United Nations University, Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology); Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, Banji (United Nations University, Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology) |
| Abstract: | This paper is divided into two parts. The first part sets out a conceptual framework for diagnostic assessments of agricultural innovation capacity. It explains that contemporary patterns of agricultural development demand fresh thinking on how innovation can be promoted in ways that can deal with rapidly evolving production and market conditions. The innovation systems concept is presented as a framework for examining the notion of innovation capacity. The second part of the paper provides guidance on how the principles of this conceptual framework can be used in diagnostic assessments. These guidelines include a number of typological tools to explore the qualitative aspects of innovation capacity – particularly patterns of interaction and the habits and practices that inform these. |
| Keywords: | Public Private Sector Partnerships, Innovation Systems, Institutional Change, Capacity Development, Social Capital |
| JEL: | Q16 O31 O33 O15 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2006017&r=agr |
| By: | Hall, Andy (United Nations University, Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology); Dijkman, Jeroen (CGIAR) |
| Abstract: | There are divergent views on what capacity development might mean in relation to agricultural biotechnology. The core of this debate is whether this should involve the development of human capital and research infrastructure, or whether it should encompass a wider range of activities which also include developing the capacity to use knowledge productively. This paper uses the innovation systems concept to shed light on this discussion, arguing that it is innovation capacity rather than science and technology capacity that has to be developed. The context of deploying biotechnology in developing countries is illustrated with an over view of Uganda and Ethiopia. The then presents 6 examples of different capacity development approaches. It concludes by suggesting that policy needs to take a multidimensional approach to capacity development in line with an innovation systems perspective. But it also argues that policy needs to recognise the need to develop the capacity of diversity of innovation systems and that a key part of the capacity development task is to bring about the integration of these different systems at strategic points in time. The paper concludes with a tentative typology of the main types of agricultural innovation systems that are likely to be important in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | agriculture, Ethiopia, Uganda, innovation systems, biotechnology, capacity building, innovation policy. |
| JEL: | O13 O2 O31 O38 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2006003&r=agr |
| By: | Hall, Andy (United Nations University, Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology) |
| Abstract: | The potential for public private sector partnerships is likely to grow. However, despite a number of high profile success stories, promoting partnerships has proved more difficult than many assumed. This paper argues that such partnerships need to be viewed in the framework of an innovation system and a development scenario where networks of agro-enterprises and intermediary organisations will underpin rural development and poverty reduction. This view helps reveal the importance of embedding public research organizations within these local networks and highlights that constraint to building partnership is usually institutional in nature – i.e. it relates to habits practices and patterns of trust. The paper concludes by suggesting that efforts should be focused on building social capital in agricultural innovation systems and cautions that this should be done in contextually relevant ways. |
| Keywords: | Public private sector partnerships, innovation systems, institutional change, capacity building, social capital |
| JEL: | O32 O38 J24 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2006002&r=agr |
| By: | Christopher Stevens |
| Abstract: | Many of the changes to developed country trade policy that affect developing countries do not fit neatly into the category of ‘liberalisation’ yet they are frequently assessed as if they did. The recent changes to the EU’s regimes for production and imports of sugar fall into this group: both production and trade policies were highly distorted before the change and will remain so after it, but the distribution of the effects of these distortions will be altered. This will affect three of the six Development Cooperation Ireland programme countries in Africa: Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. Returns from sugar exports to the EU will be less than otherwise would have been. How much lower depends critically on how the sugar market develops after 2009. |
| Keywords: | Sugar, liberalisation, value chains |
| Date: | 2006–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp137&r=agr |
| By: | Marzio Galeotti; Matteo Manera; Alessandro Lanza |
| Abstract: | Since its first inception in the debate on the relationship between environment and growth in 1992, the Environmental Kuznets Curve has been subject of continuous and intense scrutiny. The literature can be roughly divided in two historical phases. Initially, after the seminal contributions, additional work aimed to extend the investigation to new pollutants and to verify the existence of an inverted-U shape as well as assessing the value of the turning point. The following phase focused instead on the robustness of the empirical relationship, particularly with respect to the omission of relevant explanatory variables other than GDP, alternative datasets, functional forms, and grouping of the countries examined. The most recent line of investigation criticizes the Environmental Kuznets Curve on more fundamental grounds, in that it stresses the lack of sufficient statistical testing of the empirical relationship and questions the very existence of the notion of Environmental Kuznets Curve. Attention is in particular drawn on the stationarity properties of the series involved – per capita emissions or concentrations and per capita GDP – and, in case of presence of unit roots, on the cointegration property that must be present for the Environmental Kuznets Curve to be a well-defined concept. Only at that point can the researcher ask whether the long-run relationship exhibits an inverted-U pattern. On the basis of panel integration and cointegration tests for sulphur, Stern (2002, 2003) and Perman and Stern (1999, 2003) have presented evidence and forcefully stated that the Environmental Kuznets Curve does not exist. In this paper we ask whether similar strong conclusions can be arrived at when carrying out tests of fractional panel integration and cointegration. As an example we use the controversial case of carbon dioxide emissions. The results show that more EKCs come back into life relative to traditional integration/cointegration tests. However, we confirm that the EKC remains a fragile concept. |
| Keywords: | Environment, Growth, CO2 Emissions, Panel Data, Fractional Integration, Panel Cointegration Tests |
| JEL: | O13 Q30 Q32 C12 C23 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mis:wpaper:20060501&r=agr |
| By: | Geoff Tansey |
| Abstract: | The rules affecting our food future have been rewritten since the early 1990s, often in remote international bodies. This paper briefly outlines the nature of today's food system, discusses some of these rules and focuses on the dynamics of rule making in the World Trade Organisation, in particular around patent, plant variety protection, trademark, copyright and other forms of 'intellectual property' and their impact on our food future. It draws on work with negotiators dealing with the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) in WTO and its role in globalisation. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual property rights regimes, WTO, patents, biotechnology |
| JEL: | L66 Q16 |
| Date: | 2006–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp130&r=agr |