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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2006‒12‒22
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Margaret Chitiga; Ramos Mabugu |
| Abstract: | A CGE microsimulation model is used to study the poverty impacts of trade liberalization in Zimbabwe. A sample of 14006 households from a 1995 household survey is individually modeled in a CGE framework. The experiment performed is a 50 percent reduction in all import tariffs. The sectors with the highest initial tariffs are the non-export agriculture sectors and the most export-intensive sectors are found in agriculture and in mining. The halving of tariffs favors export-oriented sectors, mainly in agriculture, whereas industrial sectors are hardest hit by the increased import competition. As agriculture is intensive in unskilled labor and industry is intensive in skilled labor, unskilled wages rise relative to skilled wages. The consumer prices fall and this, together with increased unskilled wages, leads to a fall in poverty. The fall in the price of manufactured food, which is consumed mainly in urban areas, coupled with the large number of unskilled workers in these urban areas, explains why poverty falls more here than in rural Zimbabwe. |
| Keywords: | Computable General Equilibrium, Trade Liberalisation, Microsimulation, Poverty |
| JEL: | C68 D31 D58 I32 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:mpiacr:2006-18&r=agr |
| By: | Bonnet, Celine; Dubois, Pierre; Simioni, Michel |
| Abstract: | We present a methodology allowing to introduce manufacturers and retailers vertical contracting in their pricing strategies on a differentiated product market. We consider in particular two types of non linear pricing relationships, one where resale price maintenance is used with two part tariffs contracts and one where no resale price maintenance is allowed in two part tariffs contracts. Our contribution allows to recover price-cost margins from estimates of demand parameters both under linear pricing models and two part tariffs. The methodology allows then to test between different hypothesis on the contracting and pricing relationships between manufacturers and retailers in the supermarket industry using exogenous variables supposed to shift the marginal costs of production and distribution. We apply empirically this method to study the market for retailing bottled water in France. Our empirical evidence shows that manufacturers and retailers use non linear pricing contracts and in particular two part tariffs contracts with resale price maintenance. At last, thanks to the estimation of the our structural model, we present some simulations of counterfactual policy experiments like the change of ownership of some products between manufacturers. |
| Keywords: | collusion; competition; differentiated products; double marginalization; manufacturers; non nested tests.; retailers; two part tariffs; vertical contracts; water |
| JEL: | C12 C33 L13 L81 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6016&r=agr |
| By: | Robert S. Pindyck |
| Abstract: | In a world of certainty, the design of environmental policy is relatively straightforward, and boils down to maximizing the present value of the flow of social benefits minus costs. But the real world is one of considerable uncertainty -- over the physical and ecological impact of pollution, over the economic costs and benefits of reducing it, and over the discount rates that should be used to compute present values. The implications of uncertainty are complicated by the fact that most environmental policy problems involve highly nonlinear damage functions, important irreversibilities, and long time horizons. Correctly incorporating uncertainty in policy design is therefore one of the more interesting and important research areas in environmental economics. This paper offers no easy formulas or solutions for treating uncertainty -- to my knowledge, none exist. Instead, I try to clarify the ways in which various kinds of uncertainties will affect optimal policy design, and summarize what we know and don't know about the problem. |
| JEL: | D81 L51 Q28 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12752&r=agr |