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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2017‒06‒18
eleven papers chosen by |
| By: | Hannah Krovetz; Rebecca Taylor; Sofia Villas-Boas |
| Abstract: | In the context of recent California drought years, we investigate empirically whether consumers are willing to pay for more efficient water usage in the production of four California agricultural products. We implement an internet survey choice experiment for avocados, almonds, lettuce, and tomatoes to elicit consumer valuation for water efficiency via revealed choices. We estimate a model of consumer choices where a product is defined as a bundle of three attributes: price, production method (conventional or organic), and water usage (average or efficient). Varying the attribute space presented to consumers in the experimental choice design gives us the data variation to estimate a discrete choice model—both conditional logit specifications and random coefficient mixed logit specifications. We find that on average consumers have a significant positive marginal utility towards water-efficiency and estimate that there is an implied positive willingness to pay (WTP) of about 12 cents per gallon of water saved on average. Moreover, informing consumers about the drought severity increases the WTP for low water footprint options, but not significantly. We find that there is heterogeneity in the WTP along respondents' education, race, and also with respect to stated environmental concern. Our findings have policy implications in that they suggest there to be a market based potential to nudge consumers who want to decrease their water footprint and follow a more sustainable diet, namely, by revealing information on the product's water footprint in a form of a label. Simulations of removing low water footprint labels from the choice set attributes imply significant consumer surplus losses, especially for the more educated, white, and more environmentally concerned respondents. |
| JEL: | Q18 Q25 Q54 Q51 Q21 M30 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23495&r=agr |
| By: | Cecilia Bellora; Élodie Blanc; Jean-Marc Bourgeon; Eric Strobl |
| Abstract: | Crop biodiversity has the potential to enhance resistance to strains due to biotic and abiotic factors and to improve crop production and farm revenues. To investigate the effect of crop biodiversity on crop productivity, we build a probabilistic model based on ecological mechanisms to describe crop survival and productivity according to diversity. From this analytic model, we derive reduced forms that are empirically estimated using detailed field data of South African agriculture combined with satellite derived data. Our results confirm that diversity has a positive and significant impact on crop survival odds. We show the consistency of these results with the underlying ecologic and agricultural mechanisms. |
| JEL: | Q15 Q57 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23496&r=agr |
| By: | Audrey Pereira; Sudhanshu Handa; Goran Holmqvist |
| Abstract: | Target 2.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls for an end to hunger, in all its forms, by 2030. Measuring food security among children under age 5, who represent a quarter of the world’s population, remains a challenge that is largely unfeasible for current global monitoring systems. The SDG framework has agreed to use the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) to measure moderate and severe food insecurity. The FIES is an experience-based metric that reports food-related behaviours on the inability to access food due to resource constraints. We present the first global estimates of the share and number of children below age 15, who live with a respondent who is food insecure. |
| Keywords: | child poverty; child well-being; developed countries; food expenditures; |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:inwopa:inwopa900&r=agr |
| By: | Sen Gupta, Abhijit; Bhattacharya, Rudrani |
| Abstract: | Average food inflation in India during the period 2006-2013 was one of the highest among emerging market economies, and nearly double the inflation witnessed in India during the previous decade. An often cited hypothesis argues that the surge in food inflation during this period was driven by rising demand for high-value food products due to higher per capita income and diversification of Indian diets. In this paper we test the validity of this hypothesis by estimating the expenditure elasticity and then calculating the aggregate demand using data from household survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). Our results show that in recent years estimated demand has exceeded supply of all major food products, barring fruits. Moreover, empirical estimates indicate that the demand supply gap is an important driver of rise in food prices, along with other factors such as minimum support prices, global prices, fiscal deficit and agricultural wages. |
| Keywords: | Food Inflation, Engel Curves, QUAIDS Model, India |
| JEL: | E31 E37 Q11 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79704&r=agr |
| By: | Bruno Lanz; Simon Dietz; Tim Swanson |
| Abstract: | We study how stochasticity in the evolution of agricultural productivity interacts with economic and population growth at the global level. We use a two-sector Schumpeterian model of growth, in which a manufacturing sector produces the traditional consumption good and an agricultural sector produces food to sustain contemporaneous population. Agriculture demands land as an input, itself treated as a scarce form of capital. In our model both population and sectoral technological progress are endogenously determined, and key technological parameters of the model are structurally estimated using 1960-2010 data on world GDP, population, cropland and technological progress. Introducing random shocks to the evolution of total factor productivity in agriculture, we show that uncertainty optimally requires more land to be converted into agricultural use as a hedge against production shortages, and that it significantly affects both optimal consumption and population trajectories. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural productivity; Economic growth; Endogenous innovations; Environmental constraints; Food security; Global population; Land conversion; Stochastic control |
| JEL: | O11 O13 O31 J11 C61 Q16 Q24 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:17-07&r=agr |
| By: | Nguyen Quan (The 1st authorã ¯Ministry of Energy, Vietnam); Makoto Kakinaka (Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University); Koji Kotani (School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Given the argument that urbanization is closely related to the economic growth with improved the quality of life, the role of urbanization on energy consumption and pollution emission has received attention from regulators and researchers. Recently, Vietnam, as one of the rapid growth emerging countries, has been undergoing a massive urbanization with massive increase in energy consumption and pollution. The purpose of this study is to discuss how urbanization affects energy and CO2 emission intensities in Vietnam by using the province-level data over the period from 2010 to 2013. Our empirical analysis presents clear evidences supportive of the regional disparity of the effect of urbanization. For provinces with the low income level, urbanization would intensify energy and CO2 emission intensities. In contrast, for provinces with the high income level, urbanization would mitigate energy and CO2 emission intensities. This study also discusses related issues for three sectors of the Vietnamese economy: agricultural, industrial, and service sectors. |
| Keywords: | urbanization, income level, energy and CO2 emission intensities, Vietnam economy |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kch:wpaper:sdes-2017-8&r=agr |
| By: | Lampón, Jesús F.; Cabanelas, Pablo; Frigant, Vincent |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the key factors for the adoption of the new automobile modular platforms through an eclectic perspective linking the product architecture with the manufacturing network approach. An exploratory analysis of the European production networks of seven automobile manufacturers shows that the benefits of the modular platforms’ adoption depend on two factors: the degree of platform modularity and the manufacturing issues of each carmaker —product portfolio, production volumes and network size. The results indicate that the degree of modularity of the platform chosen should be aligned with the manufacturing issues; otherwise, benefits might not reach expectations |
| Keywords: | Automobile industry; Manufacturing network; Product architecture; Modular platforms; Modularity |
| JEL: | L62 M11 M16 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79160&r=agr |
| By: | Tamon Asonuma; Dirk Niepelt; Romain Ranciere |
| Abstract: | Rejecting a common assumption in the sovereign debt literature, we document that creditor losses (“haircuts”) during sovereign restructuring episodes are asymmetric across debt instruments. We code a comprehensive dataset on instrument-specific haircuts for 28 debt restructurings with private creditors in 1999–2015 and find that haircuts on shorter-term debt are larger than those on debt of longer maturity. In a standard asset pricing model, we show that increasing short-run default risk in the run-up to a restructuring episode can explain the stylized fact. The data confirms the predicted relation between perceived default risk, bond prices, and haircuts by maturity. |
| Date: | 2017–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:17/119&r=agr |
| By: | F. Djoumessi, Yannick |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the dynamics of green agricultural productivity growth through SSA countries. As subsidiary objectives: (i) to estimate efficiency levels of agricultural production system in SSA countries (ii) to estimate green agricultural productivity index through SSA countries (iii) and then to determine path nature of the green agricultural productivity index trough time and SSA countries. The methodology used to assess the degree of convergence in output per worker is based on the cointégration analysis, which recognizes that labour productivity is generally a non-stationary time series and convergence is a gradual process. First of all, we consider a decomposition of the growth in labour (green) productivity in terms of (1) efficiency change (2) technical change (3) (physical) capital accumulation and (4) growth in human capital. Then, a semi-parametric approach will be used to construct the best production practice frontier for a sample of SSA, and compute Malmquist productivity indexes and their decomposition into the underlying productivity components for each country. Finally, we will assess the individual contribution of the various components to the convergence in labour productivity. |
| Keywords: | convergence, green productivity, Malmquist index, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | Q16 |
| Date: | 2016–08–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79525&r=agr |
| By: | Niko Jaakkola; Frederick van der Ploeg |
| Abstract: | Global warming can be curbed by pricing carbon emissions and thus substituting fossil fuel with renewable energy consumption. Breakthrough technologies (e.g., fusion energy) can reduce the cost of such policies. However, the chance of such a technology coming to market depends on investment. We model breakthroughs as an irreversible tipping point in a multi-country world, with different degrees of international cooperation. We show that international spill-over effects of R&D in carbon-free technologies lead to double free-riding, strategic over-pollution and underinvestment in green R&D, thus making climate change mitigation more difficult. We also show how the demand structure determines whether carbon pricing and R&D policies are substitutes or complements. |
| Keywords: | global warming, carbon pricing, renewable R&D, tipping point, international cooperation, non-cooperative policies, feedback Nash equilibrium |
| JEL: | D2 D90 H23 Q35 Q38 Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:190&r=agr |
| By: | Belal Fallah (Palestine Polytechnic University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the economic effect of return commuting from the Israeli labor market on non-commuters in rural areas of the Occupied West Bank. The results show that returned commuting, when forced, has negative repercussions. Specifically, wages decrease for workers with same skill type (low skilled). The results also provide evidence that favors the crowd out effect hypothesis. The estimated probability of unemployment increases for non-commuters with disproportionate effect for job seekers relative to those reportedly employed. Consistent with this result, increases in return commuting prolong unemployment duration for the low skilled. |
| Date: | 2017–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erg:wpaper:1108&r=agr |