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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2007‒06‒02
sixteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Américo M. S. Carvalho Mendes (Faculdade de Economia e Gestão, Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Porto)) |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cap:wpaper:082007&r=agr |
| By: | Izumi Shirai (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, it examines the relationship between the infant mortality rate (IMR) and introduction of new agricultural laborsaving technology which contributed to reduce labor absorption in rice production and labor intensity and increase the agricultural productivity by using the data of modern rural North-eastern Japan c.a. 1910s to 1930s. Assuming that IMR is the index of the living standards and the agricultural productivity and labor intensity is the one of the level of introduction of new technology, we focus on the structure of infant death in order to clarify the general labor environment of pregnant women. As results of the analysis, the followings are becoming clarified; 1) the innovation and diffusion of agricultural technology, by which human agricultural labor was dramatically saved and the agricultural productivity was increased, caused the decline of IMR through the rise of agricultural productivity; 2) the expansion of cottage industry among the peasant household contributed to decline of IMR by reallocating family labor mainly to non-agricultural works. From these results, this paper presents the change of the labor allocation strategy of the peasant household makes the effect on the improvement of their living standards in modern rural Japan. |
| Keywords: | infant mortality, peasant household, agricultural technological development, dual occupation, household strategy of labor allocation |
| JEL: | N35 N55 R29 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:0720&r=agr |
| By: | Georg E. Kindermann (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)); Michael Obersteiner (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)); Ewald Rametsteiner (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)); Ian McCallcum (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)) |
| Abstract: | Background: Global carbon stocks in forest biomass are decreasing by 1.1 Gt of carbon annually, owing to continued deforestation and forest degradation. Deforestation emissions are partly offset by forest expansion and increases in growing stock primarily in the extra-tropical north. Innovative financial mechanisms would be required to help reducing deforestation. Using a spatially explicit integrated biophysical and socio-economic land use model we estimated the impact of carbon price incentive schemes and payment modalities on deforestation. One payment modality is adding costs for carbon emission, the other is to pay incentives for keeping the forest carbon stock intact. Results, Baseline scenario calculations show that close to 200mil ha or around 5% of today’s forest area will be lost between 2006 and 2025, resulting in a release of additional 17.5 GtC. Today’s forest cover will shrink by around 500 million hectares, which is 1/8 of the current forest cover, within the next 100 years. The accumulated carbon release during the next 100 years amounts to 45 GtC, which is 15% of the total carbon stored in forests today. Incentives of 6 US$/tC for the standing biomass paid every 5 years will bring deforestation down by 50%. This will cause costs of 34 billion US$/year. On the other hand a carbon tax of 12$/tC harvested forest biomass will also cut deforestation by half. The tax income will decrease from 6 billion US$ in 2005 to 4.3 billion US$ in 2025 and 0.7 billion US$ in 2100 due to decreasing deforestation speed. Conclusions, Avoiding deforestation requires financial mechanisms that make retention of forests economically competitive with the currently often preferred option to seek profits from other land uses. Incentive payments need to be at a very high level to be effective against deforestation. Taxes on the other hand will generate budgetary revenues by the regions which are already poor. A combination of incentives and taxes could turn out to be a viable solution for this dilemma. Increasing the value of forest land and thereby make it less easily prone to deforestation would act as a strong incentive to increase productivity of agricultural and fuelwood production, which could be supported by revenues generated by the deforestation tax. |
| Keywords: | Deforestation, Carbon Prices |
| JEL: | Q57 Q58 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2007.29&r=agr |
| By: | Christine Schleupner (Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg) |
| Abstract: | This spatial study contributes to a modelling project that, in combination with biodiversity analyses and an economic model, evaluates potentials to preserve existing habitats, to restore formerly native habitats, as well as to create non-native managed habitats with respect to freshwater wetlands of the EU. This paper deals with the methodological development of the wetland distribution model and illustration of its results. Through a GIS-based model the extent of existing wetland distribution is visualised. Additionally, potential convertible sites are modelled for (re-) creation of wetland biotopes. |
| Keywords: | wetlands, land use |
| JEL: | Q24 Q57 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sgc:wpaper:135&r=agr |
| By: | Sandrine Dury (MOISA - Marchés, Organisation, Institutions et Stratégies d'Acteurs - [CIRAD : UMR99][IRD][INRA][IAMM] - [Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Montpellier]); Ludovic Temple (Horticulture - Horticulture - [CIRAD : UPR27]) |
| Abstract: | La croissance urbaine en Afrique a entraîné une augmentation de la demande de consommation pour les fruits et légumes, de nombreuses modifications des systèmes de production périurbains et une diversification des revenus des populations rurales. Dans la zone péri-urbaine de Yaoundé, les systèmes de productions se sont transformés d'une agriculture d'autosubsistance vers une agriculture commerciale. Certaines zones se sont également spécialisées, en particulier vers la production d'agrumes. Cette spécialisation spatiale, ne s'est pourtant pas accompagnée d'une spécialisation des exploitations. Les petites et moyennes exploitations continuent à cultiver plusieurs espèces de plantes pérennes et annuelles dans des systèmes agroforestiers complexes. A partir de l'observation d'un village situé dans la zone de production de clémentines d'Obala, situé à 60 km au nord de Yaoundé, cette étude se propose (1) d'étudier les déterminants historiques et économiques de cette spécialisation (ii) d'en évaluer les conséquences au niveau des exploitations et (iii) de tirer des recommandations pour l'orientation de la recherche et du développement. |
| Keywords: | Diversification - Fruits - Cameroun - Innovation - Péri-urbain - Modelisation |
| Date: | 2007–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:hal-00148318_v1&r=agr |
| By: | Juergen Antony (University of Augsburg, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Non-renewable resources are an obstacle for positive long run growth if they are essential for production, households solve an intertemporal Ramsey problem and population is growing. Modern growth models predict that growth is positively related to growth in production factors. Hence, there are opposing forces at work if labor as one factor is growing and the use of the non-renewable resource as another factor is shrinking. The paper develops a semi-endogenous growth model with one labor and one resource using sector and derives conditions for stable positive long run growth in per capita production and consumption. |
| Keywords: | non-renewable resources, semi-endogenous growth |
| JEL: | Q32 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0291&r=agr |
| By: | Giulia Minoia (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) |
| Abstract: | This article aims to investigate some aspects of the social process related to water resources management and gender relations. Given that gender and water management are interrelated issues exposed to a growing attention at the international level, it is therefore necessary to identify relations between the academic literature, the institutional framework and the field-based research. This document has been inspired by the Nostrum DSS project (Network on Governance, Science and Technology for Sustainable Water Resources Management in the Mediterranean), a Co-ordination Action funded by the European Commission, which involves eighteen partners from the North and South shores of the basin. As the scope of the project is to disseminate Best Practice Guidelines for the design and implementation of Decision Support System tools (DSS) to identify optimal water resources management regimes, this article is proposing an analysis of a particular geographical and social frame related to the social actors involved in the project, but there are no connections between the paper and the project itself. To create a network between science, policy and civil society is one of the main objectives of the project in order to reach an improved governance and planning in the field of sustainable water management. Therefore, to investigate gender sensitivity in some areas of the basin shall provide a clue. This overview of academic and institutional background refers to a particular geographical and cultural area, the Middle Eastern and North African region. In the first section lies the theoretical background, that has been extrapolated from international organisations guidelines and scholars’ publications. The second section is specifically focused on the Egyptian geographical context. The first paragraph presents a review of the guidelines suggested by international organisations related to policies on gender and water, as parts of the changes that the global scenario has recently been facing, with the shift from the micro level to the macro level. The second paragraph then describes the side effects of these overspread trends, which are identified in their missing relations with the social context of the intervention. The third and fourth paragraphs introduce the issue of women’s role in water management in the Middle Eastern and North African Regions, while highlighting relations between women’s involvement in the public sphere and the role they cover in local communities organisations. The proportion of the political representation faced by women in this region is also discussed, tackling their overspread participation in agriculture and their unrecognised working status. The fifth paragraph of this paper will discuss a case study in Egypt, concerning an initiative promoted by international donors and the government aimed at increasing community participation in the design and management of irrigation canals. The case study gives a concrete sample to discuss plusses and problems of women’s participation in water users organisations, synthesising many of the theoretical issues that have been raised in the first three parts of this article. |
| Keywords: | Irrigation, Gender, Regional Development Policy |
| JEL: | J16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2007.49&r=agr |
| By: | NAHB Research Center |
| Abstract: | This study addresses the characterization on a national basis of the regulatory cost barriers associated with land subdivision, specifically barriers to the subdivision of land that can be developed with single-family detached (SFD) dwellings. Previously, this issue has been addressed only on a very small geographic scale. Previous approaches have not been used to examine regulatory cost barriers at the national level. |
| JEL: | O20 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hud:wpaper:39136&r=agr |
| By: | John C. Whitehead; Peter A. Groothuis; Rob Southwick |
| Abstract: | In this paper we propose an alternative model for linking revealed preference and stated preference models of recreation when a single travel cost measure is difficult to obtain. We show that this model can be used to test convergent validity and offers an alternative scope test that does not rely on split-sample contingent valuation scenarios. Our results are mixed. In three of four models the inclusive value is negatively related to the willingness to donate but unrelated to the willingness to pay. This result suggests that recreation nonusers hold nonuse values while recreation users do not hold nonuse values. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:07-09&r=agr |
| By: | Francesco Crespi (University of Roma Tre); Valeria Costantini (University of Roma Tre) |
| Abstract: | The pollution haven hypothesis affirms that an open market regime will encourage the flow of low technology polluting industries toward developing countries, due to potential comparative advantages related to low environmental standards. In contrast, the hypothesis suggested by Porter and van der Linde claims for a competitive dynamic behaviour by innovating firms, allowing a global diffusion of environmental-friendly technologies. Environmental regulation may represent a relevant mechanism through which technological change is induced. In this way countries subject to more stringent environmental regulations may become net exporters of environmental technologies. This paper provides new evidence on the evolution of export flows of environmental technologies across different countries for the energy sector. Advanced economies, particularly the European Union, have given increasing attention to the role of energy policies as tools for sustaining the development path. The Kyoto Protocol commitments, together with growing import dependence of energy products, have stimulated the attention on the analysis of innovation processes in this specific sector. The analysis uses a gravity model in order to test the determinants and the transmission channels through which environmental technologies for renewable energies and energy efficiency are exported to advanced and developing countries. Our results are consistent with the existence of the Porter and van der Linde hypothesis, where environmental regulation represents a significant component of comparative advantages. What strongly emerges is that the stringency of environmental regulation supplemented by the strength of National Innovation System is a crucial driver of export performance in the field of energy technologies. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Regulation, Trade and Environment, Energy Technologies |
| JEL: | F18 F21 Q43 Q55 Q56 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2007.53&r=agr |
| By: | David I. Matthews (Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute); Ricardo Scarpa (University of Waikato); W. George Hutchinson (Queen’s University Belfast) |
| Abstract: | We examine the stability of the benefit transfer function across 42 recreational forests in the British Isles. A working definition of reliable function transfer is put forward, and a suitable statistical test is provided. The test is based on the sensitivity of the model log-likelihood to removal of individual forest recreation sites. We apply the proposed methodology on discrete choice contingent valuation data and find that a stable function improves our measure of transfer reliability, but not by much. We conclude that, in empirical studies on transferability, function stability considerations are secondary to the availability and quality of site attribute data. Modellers’ can study the advantages of transfer function stability vis-à-vis the value of additional information on recreation site attributes. |
| Keywords: | Benefit function transfer ; Function stability tests; Transfer reliability Forest recreation values; Contingent Valuation; Split sample |
| JEL: | Q26 H41 C25 |
| Date: | 2007–05–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wai:econwp:07/08&r=agr |
| By: | Ambec, S.; Lanoie, P. |
| Abstract: | The conventional wisdom about environmental protection is that it comes at an additional cost on firms imposed by the government, which may erode their global competitiveness. However, during the last decade, this paradigm has been challenged by a number of analysts. In particular, Porter (Porter, 1991; Porter and van der Linde, 1995) argues that pollution is often associated with a waste of resources (material, energy, etc.), and that more stringent environmental policies can stimulate innovations that may compensate for the costs of complying with these policies. This is known as the Porter hypothesis. In fact, there are many ways through which improving the environmental performance of a company can lead to a better economic or financial performance, and not necessarily to an increase in cost. To be systematic, it is important to look at both sides of the balance sheet.First, a better environmental performance can lead to an increase in revenues through the following channels: i) a better access to certain markets; ii) the possibility to differentiate products and iii) the possibility to sell pollution-control technology. Second, a better environmental performance can lead to cost reductions in the following categories: iv) regulatory cost; v) cost of material, energy and services (this refers mainly to the Porter hypothesis); vi) cost of capital, and vii) cost of labour. Although these different possibilities have been identified from a conceptual or theoretical point of view for some time (Reinhardt, 2000; Lankoski, 2000, 2006), to our knowledge, there was no systematic effort to provide empirical evidences supporting the existence of these opportunities and assessing their “magnitude”. This is the objective of this paper. For each of the seven possibilities identified above [i) through vii)], we present the mechanisms involved, a systematic view of the empirical evidence available, and a discussion of the gaps in the empirical literature. The objective of the paper is not to show that a reduction of pollution is always accompanied by a better financial performance, it is rather to argue that the expenses incurred to reduce pollution can sometime be partly or completely compensated by gains made elsewhere. Through a systematic examination of all the possibilities, we also want to identify the circumstances most likely to lead to a “win-win” situation, i.e., better environmental and financial performance. |
| Keywords: | ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY;INNOVATION;PORTER HYPOTHESIS;ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION;POLLUTION;CAPITAL MARKET;GREEN PRODUCTS |
| JEL: | L21 M14 Q52 Q55 Q58 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gbl:wpaper:200704&r=agr |
| By: | T. Paul Schultz (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | The associations between fertility and outcomes in the family and society have been treated as causal, but this is inaccurate if fertility is a choice coordinated by families with other life-cycle decisions, including labour supply of mothers and children, child human capital, and savings. Estimating how exogenous changes in fertility that are uncorrelated with preferences or constraints affect others depends on our specifying a valid instrumental variable for fertility. Twins have served as such an instrument and confirm that the cross-effects of fertility estimated on the basis of this instrument are smaller in absolute value than their associations. |
| Keywords: | Fertility Determination, Malthus,Household Demands, Fertility Effects |
| JEL: | D13 J13 N30 O15 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:953&r=agr |
| By: | Nori Tarui (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa); Charles Mason (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming); Stephen Polasky (Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota); Greg Ellis (Department of Economics, University of Washington) |
| Abstract: | We model a dynamic common property resource game with unobservable actions and non-linear stock dependent costs. We propose a strategy profile that generates a worst perfect equilibrium in the punishment phase, thereby supporting cooperation under the widest set of conditions. We show under what set of parameter values for the discount rate, resource growth rate, harvest price, and the number of resource users, this strategy supports cooperation in the commons as a subgame perfect equilibrium. The strategy profile that we propose, which involves harsh punishment after a defection followed by forgiveness, is consistent with human behavior observed in experiments and common property resource case studies. |
| Keywords: | Common property resource, cooperation, dynamic game, unobservable actions |
| JEL: | D62 Q20 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:200711&r=agr |
| By: | Anders Skonhoft (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Elena Inarra (Department of Economics, University of the Basque Country, Spain) |
| Abstract: | Total Allowable Catch (TAC) regulating schemes have been introduced in most fisheries. TAC distribution following the Proportional Rule, based on historical catches, implies that harvesters or vessel groups which have captured more in the past and contributed to overfishing are getting larger quotas than groups that have contributed less to overfishing. In contrast to this rule a more egalitarian rule, the Constrained Equal Award Rule, is proposed for distributing the TAC. Contingent upon the fishing techniques used by the harvesters, it is demonstrated how the fish stock recovery period, harvest and profitability may vary according to these two rules. |
| JEL: | C70 Q22 |
| Date: | 2007–04–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:8507&r=agr |
| By: | Américo M. S. Carvalho Mendes (Faculdade de Economia e Gestão, Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Porto)) |
| Abstract: | In countries where private forest ownership is very important, knowledge of the behaviour of private forest owners is useful for the design and implementation of successful forest policies. This applies to Portugal where 86 % of the forest lands are private property. This paper presents a study carried out in a region of the Northern part of the country covered by a local forest owners’ association. Based on individual data about the members of this association concerning some of their characteristics (implementation of publicly subsidised afforestation projects, size of the forest holdings, number of forest holdings belonging to the same owner and distance between the permanent residence of the owner and his forest holdings), a multinomial logit model is estimated for the probabilities of participation on public incentive schemes to finance individual and grouped afforestation projects. |
| Keywords: | non industrial private forest owners, afforestation projects, public incentives |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cap:wpaper:092007&r=agr |