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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2010‒11‒06
forty-four papers chosen by |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Agricultural biotechnologies, and especially transgenic crops, have the potential to boost food security in developing countries by offering higher incomes for farmers and lower-priced and better quality food for consumers. That potential is being heavily compromised, however, because the European Union and some other countries have implemented strict regulatory systems to govern their production and consumption of genetically modified (GM) food and feed crops, and to prevent imports of foods and feedstuffs that do not meet these strict standards. This paper analyses empirically the potential economic effects of adopting transgenic crops in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. It does so using a multi-country, multi-product model of the global economy. The results suggest the economic welfare gains from crop biotechnology adoption are potentially very large, and that those benefits are diminished only very slightly by the presence of the European UnionÂ’s restriction on imports of GM foods. That is, if developing countries retain bans on GM crop production in an attempt to maintain access to EU markets for non-GM products, the loss to their food consumers as well as to farmers in those developing countries is huge relative to the slight loss that could be incurred from not retaining EU market access. |
| Keywords: | Transgenic crops, genetically modified food, agricultural biotechnology, food trade |
| JEL: | F13 F17 O32 O33 Q16 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-12&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Johanna Croser (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of agricultural and food price distortions such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs) can be poor guides to the policiesÂ’ trade effects. Two recent studies provide much better indicators of trade- (and welfare-)reducing effects of farm price and trade policies, but they provide somewhat differing numbers. This paper explains why those estimates differ and how they might be improved for use in on-going annual monitoring of the trade restrictiveness of agricultural policies in both high-incmoe and developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural policies, trade restrictiveness indexes, food price distortions |
| JEL: | F13 F14 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-08&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Recent globalisation has been characterised by a decline in costs of cross-border trade in farm and other products. It has been driven primarily by the information and communication technology revolution and – in the case of farm products – by reductions in governmental distortions to agricultural production, consumption and trade. Both have boosted economic growth and reduced poverty globally, especially in Asia. The first but maybe not the second of these drivers will continue in coming decades. World food prices will depend also on whether (and if so by how much) farm productivity growth continues to outpace demand growth and to what extent diets in emerging economies move towards livestock and horticultural products at the expense of staples. Demand in turn will be driven by population and income growth, but also by crude oil prices if they remain at current historically high levels, since that will affect biofuel demand. Climate change mitigation policies and adaptation, water market developments, and market access standards particularly for transgenic foods will add to future production, price and trade uncertainties. |
| Keywords: | Globalisation, trade costs, distorted incentives, agricultural protectionism, trade policy reforms |
| JEL: | F01 F13 F15 Q11 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-11&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Ernesto Valenzuela (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | For decades, trade between countries in agricultural products has been distorted by policies of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Agricultural trade has often also been limited by an anti-agricultural, pro-urban bias in many developing country policies. Both sets of policies have reduced national and global economic welfare. They also have added to inequality and poverty in developing countries, because three-quarters of the worldÂ’s billion poorest people depend on farming for their livelihood. Over the past two decades numerous developing country governments have reduced their sectoral and trade policy distortions, while some high-income countries also have begun reforming their farm protectionist policies. Drawing on results from a new multi-country World Bank research project, this paper summarizes estimates of the extent of those distortions to prices of farm products over the past 5 decades, and of their effect in reducing the integration of the worldÂ’s agricultural markets. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, international economic integration |
| JEL: | F13 F14 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-14&r=agr |
| By: | Nickerson, Cynthia; Ribaudo, Marc; Higgins, Nathaniel |
| Abstract: | The 2002 and 2008 Farm Acts increased funding for conservation programs that provide financial assistance to farmers to implement conservation practices on working farmland. Along with seeking cost-effective environmental benefits, these programs have a goal of spreading conservation funding equitably across States. The 2002 and 2008 Farm Acts strengthened this allocative goal by setting a minimum threshold for conservation funding for each Stateâone that exceeds historical funding for some Statesâfor enrolling agricultural producers in specified conservation programs. This study uses conservation program data to examine evidence of the impacts of the Regional Equity provision of the 2002 Farm Act, and explores the tradeoffs that can occur among conservation program goals when legislation gives primacy to fund allocation. The study found that cross-State shifts in funding reduced the acres receiving conservation treatment for many resource problems, but increased the net economic benefits from treatments on some of them. Overall impacts on the types of producers enrolled were small. |
| Keywords: | onservation program outcomes, working-land, land protection programs, state funding levels, regional equity provision, cost & benefits, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersrr:95452&r=agr |
| By: | Butler, Allan; Lobley, Matt; Winter, Michael |
| Abstract: | Bovine TB (bTB) presents a significant challenge to beef and dairy farmers. In 2009 7,449 herds were subject to movement restrictions in Great Britain because of bTB. Of these, 52% were in South West England and 20% were in Devon alone. With over 25% of holdings with cattle in the South West likely to suffer a bTB breakdown within the course of a year, understanding the cost implications on farm businesses is vital in order to demonstrate the impact that this disease is having on agricultural communities and the agricultural economy. The research undertaken for this report has revealed considerable variation across a range of different types of costs associated with bTB. Consequently average figures, either for costs or calculating compensation, obscure much of the detail at an individual farm level. The research also points to a range of âhiddenâ and longer term costs that fall beyond the scope of the compensation scheme. Finally, in addition to economic losses, bTB is imposing considerable costs on the personal well-being of many farm households and also raises profound livestock welfare issues. |
| Keywords: | Bovine Tuberculosis, Costs, Beef farmers, Dairy farmers, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uexrrr:94718&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Johanna Croser (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Damiano Sandri (International Monetary Fund); Ernesto Valenzuela (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | This paper summarizes a new database that sheds light on the impact of trade-related policy developments over the past half century on distortions to agricultural incentives and thus also to consumer prices for food in 75 countries spanning the per capita income spectrum. Price-support policies of advanced economies hurt not only domestic consumers and exporters of other products but also foreign producers and traders of farm products, and they reduce national and global economic welfare. On the other hand, the governments of many developing countries have directly taxed their farmers over the past half-century, both directly (e.g., export taxes) and also indirectly via overvaluing their currency and restricting imports of manufactures. Thus the price incentives facing farmers in many developing countries have been depressed by both own-country and other countriesÂ’ agricultural price and international trade policies. We summarize these and realted stylized facts that can be drawn from a new World Bank database that is worthy of the attention of political economy theorists, historians and econometricians. These indicators can be helpful in addressing such questions as the following: Where is there still a policy bias against agricultural production? To what extent has there been overshooting in the sense that some developing-country food producers are now being protected from import competition along the lines of the examples of earlier-industrializing Europe and Japan? What are the political economy forces behind the more-successful reformers, and how do they compare with those in less-successful countries where major distortions in agricultural incentives remain? And what explains the pattern of distortions across not only countries but also industries and in the choice of support or tax instruments within the agricultural sector of each country? |
| Keywords: | Political economy, agricultural price and trade policies |
| JEL: | F13 F59 H20 N50 O13 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-13&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | A decline in governmental distortions to agricultural and other trade since the 1980s has contributed to economic growth and poverty alleviation globally. But new modeling results suggest that has taken the world only three-fifths of the way towards freeing merchandise trade, and that farm policies are responsible for 70 percent of the global welfare cost of remaining distortions to goods markets as of 2004. Meanwhile, new drivers are affecting the mean and variance of world prices of farm products, including biofuel mandates and subsidies, climate change mitigation policies and adaptation, water institution and policy developments, difficulties in concluding a multilateral Doha Round agricultural agreement at the WTO, and policies relating to transgenic foods. This paper reviews trends and fluctuations in past distortions to agricultural incentives, speculates on how they might evolve in coming decades alongside other market developments, and draws out implications for Australia. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, Asia-Pacific region |
| JEL: | F13 F14 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-10&r=agr |
| By: | Luc Christiaensen |
| Abstract: | The 2008 episode of food price explosion, political turmoil, and human suffering revealed important flaws in the current global food architecture. This paper argues that to safeguard the strengths of the current system, four failures in market functioning and policymaking must be addressed. First, governments must reinvest in agriculture with a focus on public goods and subject to increased public accountability to re-ensure the global food supply. Second, the policy-induced link between food and fuel prices must be broken through a revision of EU and US agro-fuel policies. Third, better sharing of information on food stocks, stricter WTO regulation of export restrictions, and some form of globally managed buffer stock will be minimum requirements to prevent the resurgence of inefficient national food self-sufficiency policies. Fourth, a market-based food security system is only sustainable given well functioning national social safety nets. [Discussion Paper No. 2009/04] |
| Keywords: | agriculture, agro-fuels, food crisis, food security |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3086&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Signe Nelgen (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Food prices in international markets spiked upwards in 2008, doubling or more in a matter of months. Evidence is still being compiled on policy responses over the following two years, but new time series estimates of government intervention for the previous five decades allow insights into past policy responses to price fluctuations and spikes. This paper reviews the distortionary impacts of policies used by governments attempting to stabilize their domestic food markets. It then focuses on policy responses in the mid-1970s, as reflected in various annual indicators of distortions to producer and consumer incentives, before drawing out some policy lessons. |
| Keywords: | Commodity price stabilization policies, Domestic market insulation, Distorted incentives, Agricultural and trade policies, Trade restrictiveness indexes |
| JEL: | F14 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-15&r=agr |
| By: | Neela Mukherjee |
| Abstract: | Agriculture technology is undergoing rapid changes across the globe and Asian countries such as India, China, Bangladesh and many other countries are undertaking different policy initiatives to help farmers to build capacity to adopt new/improved technology towards bettering farm production, reducing poverty, human development and improving food security. The latest experience, during the last five years in three Asian countries – India, China and Bangladesh, provides interesting basis for cross-country comparison of rural areas, given similar socioeconomic context of project areas and infusion of agriculture technological change. Though project instruments of such changes and their strategies/approaches are quite different, such a comparative study helps to understand the actions/impacts of such differential strategies on the ground and helps to provide a platform to analyse cross-country achievements, constraints and lessons learnt in the sphere of agriculture technology and rural development. This paper compares the strategies, capacity building processes and outcomes/impacts of three projects during the period 2005-10. |
| Keywords: | Asia, agriculture technology, India, china, Bangladesh, policy initiatives, rural development, agricultural development, rural, cross-country achievements |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3098&r=agr |
| By: | Charlebois, Pierre; Hamann, Nathalie |
| Abstract: | World prices for basic food commodities increased significantly in 2007-2008, triggering a worldwide food crisis. Among all the factors that contributed to the rise in agricultural prices in 2008, the depreciation of the U.S. dollar relative to other major currencies cannot be overlooked. The currencies of the major players in agricultural markets have shown strong appreciation from 2002 to 2008. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of a strong depreciation of the U.S. dollar on the world prices of food commodities. Given the current U.S. budget situation, future depreciation is possible. This would again have consequences on world commodity prices and on the competitiveness of different countries. Thus, the final section assesses what would happen if a comparable depreciation in the U.S. dollar occurred in the near future. |
| Keywords: | depreciation, exchange rate, U.S. dollar, Currencies, AGLINK, world prices, competitiveness, agricultural markets, Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaacem:94750&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Johan Swinnen (Department of Economics, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium) |
| Abstract: | Over the past two decades, earnings from farming in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia have been altered hugely by government sectoral and trade policy reforms. This paper summarizes evidence on the changing extent of distortions to markets for farm products since the transition away from planned prices began. In particular, it examines the extent to which, following the initial shocks, there has been a gradual improvement in farmer incentives. This new evidence is not inconsistent with that past pattern of earlier-developing countries, but the speed of assistance increase is relatively rapid and is linked with actual or desired accession to the European Union. The final section focuses on future prospects, and in particular on what might be done to avoid agricultural protection levels becoming excessive. |
| Keywords: | Distorted farmer and consumer incentives, agricultural price and trade policy reforms, agricultural development, European transition economies |
| JEL: | F13 F14 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2009-03&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Ernesto Valenzuela (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Farm earnings in Latin America have been depressed by pro-urban and anti-trade biases in national policies and by agricultural support policies of richer countries. These policies have reduced economic welfare, hampered trade and growth, and may well have added to income inequality. Since the 1980s, however, the region has reduced its sectoral and trade policy distortions; and some high-income countries also have begun reducing market-distorting aspects of their farm policies. This paper synthesizes results from a World Bank project that provides: price-comparison based measures of the extent to which national policies have changed farmersÂ’ price incentives; partial equilibrium indexes of the impact of farm policies on trade and economic welfare; general equilibrium estimates of trade, welfare and poverty effects of global reforms retrospectively and prospectively; comparisons with similar estimates for Asia, Africa and high-income countries; and a discussion of prospects for pro-poor policy reform of agricultural price and trade policies. |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-01&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | A study of distortions to agricultural incentives in 18 developing countries during 1960-84, by Krueger, Schiff and Valdés (1988; 1991), found that policies in most of those developing countries were directly or indirectly harming their farmers. Since the mid-1980s there has been a substantial amount of policy reform and opening up of many developing countries, and indicators of that progress have been made available recently by a new study that has compiled estimates for a much larger sample of developing countries and for as many years as possible since 1955. The new study also covers Europe’s transition economies and comparable estimates for high-income countries, thereby covering more than 90 percent of world agricultural output and employment. This paper summarizes the methodology used in the new study (pointing out similarities and differences with those used by the OECD and by Krueger, Schiff and Valdés), compares a synopsis of the indicators from Krueger, Schiff and Valdés and the new study for the period to 1984, summarizes the changing extent of price distortions across countries and commodities globally since then, and concludes by evaluating the degree of distortion reduction over the years since 1984 compared with how much still remains, according to the results of a global economy wide model. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural price distortions, trade policies, developing countries |
| JEL: | F13 F59 H20 N50 O13 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-04&r=agr |
| By: | Johanna Croser (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Peter J. Lloyd (University of Melbourne); Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | For decades the worldÂ’s agricultural markets have been highly distorted by government policies, but differently for different commodities such that a ranking of weighted average nominal rates of assistance across countries can be misleading as an indicator of the trade or welfare effects of policies affecting global markets. This article develops two theory-based indicators, drawing on the recent literature on trade restrictiveness indexes. It estimates those indicators for each of 28 key agricultural commodities from 1960 to 2004, based on a sample of 75 countries that together account for more than three-quarters of the worldÂ’s production of those agricultural commodities. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural policies, distorted commodity markets, trade restrictiveness index |
| JEL: | F13 F14 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-06&r=agr |
| By: | Smith, Travis; Biing-Hwan, Lin |
| Abstract: | The link between high U.S. obesity rates and the overconsumption of added sugars, largely from sodas and fruit drinks, has prompted public calls for a tax on caloric sweetened beverages. Faced with such a tax, consumers may reduce consumption of these sweetened beverages and substitute nontaxed beverages, such as bottled water, juice, and milk. This study estimated that a tax-induced 20-percent price increase on caloric sweetened beverages could cause an average reduction of 37 calories per day, or 3.8 pounds of body weight over a year, for adults and an average of 43 calories per day, or 4.5 pounds over a year, for children. Given these reductions in calorie consumption, results show an estimated decline in adult overweight prevalence (66.9 to 62.4 percent) and obesity prevalence (33.4 to 30.4 percent), as well as the child at-risk-for-overweight prevalence (32.3 to 27.0 percent) and the overweight prevalence (16.6 to 13.7 percent). Actual impacts would depend on many factors, including how the tax is refl ected in consumer prices and the competitive strategies of beverage manufacturers and food retailers. |
| Keywords: | Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), soft drinks, soda tax, added sugars, obesity, and beverage demand, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersrr:95465&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); James Giesecke (Monash University); Ernesto Valenzuela (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Agricultural protection in rich countries, which had depressed Australian farm incomes via its impact on AustraliaÂ’s terms of trade, has diminished over the past two decades. So too has agricultural export taxation in poor countries, which has had the opposite impact on those terms of trade. Meanwhile, however, import protection for developing country farmers has been steadily growing. To what extent are Australian farmers and rural regions still adversely affected by farm and non-farm price- and trade-distortive policies abroad? This paper draws on new estimates of the current extent of those domestic and foreign distortions first to model their net impact on AustraliaÂ’s terms of trade (using the World BankÂ’s Linkage model of the global economy), and second to model the effects of that terms of trade impact on output and real incomes in rural vs urban and other regions and households within Australia as of 2004 (using MonashÂ’s multi-regional TERM model of the Australian economy). |
| Keywords: | Trade liberalisation, rural income, regional CGE modeling |
| JEL: | F13 Q18 C68 R13 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-02&r=agr |
| By: | Dong, Diansheng; Ephraim, Leibtag |
| Abstract: | The U.S. Department of Agriculture administers food and nutrition assistance programs that promote fruit and vegetable consumption. But consumption remains relatively low among program recipients as well as among the general U.S. population. The perceived high cost of produce is often cited as a deterrent to more consumption. This study looks at coupons and price discounts, two methods of lowering the cost of fruits and vegetables, and uses household purchase data and a consumer demand model to examine each method. Coupons infl uence consumer behavior through a price-discount effect and an informational/advertising effect. Because of this dual effect, the use of a coupon to increase fruit and vegetable purchases may be more effective than a pure price-discount policy or other noncoupon promotion. Assuming a coupon usage rate of 10 to 50 percent, lowering prices through a â10 percent offâ coupon would increase average weekly fruit and vegetable quantities purchased by 2 to 11 percent, as compared with a 5- to 6-percent effect for a pure price discount. |
| Keywords: | fruit and vegetable consumption, coupons, price discounts, consumer demand, dual effect of coupons, informational advertising effects, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersrr:94853&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs) can be poor guides to the policiesÂ’ economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides scalar index numbers of trade- and welfare-reducing effects of price and trade policies which this paper builds on to develop more-satisfactory indexes that can be generated using no more than the data used to generate PSEs and CSEs. We then exploit a new Agricultural Distortion database to provide time series estimates of index numbers for 75 developing and high-income countries over the past half century. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural policies, distorted commodity markets, trade restrictiveness index |
| JEL: | F13 F14 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-03&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Manufacturing protectionism in effect amounted to anti-trade and anti-primary sector biases in the governmentÂ’s industry assistance policies. How extensive were those biases, and to what extent did they reduce agricultural incentives? What has happened to the export orientation of the various farm industries in the wake of the reform process? And how does the overall pattern of distortions that has evolved for Australia compare with that for other high-income countries? |
| Keywords: | Import tariffs, manufacturing protectionism, distortions to agricultural incentives, tariff compensation, trade policy reform, industry assistance, microeconomic reform. |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2009-04&r=agr |
| By: | Heisey, Paul W.; King, John L.; Day-Rubenstein, Kelly; Bucks, Dale A.; Welsh, Rick |
| Abstract: | Evaluation of publicly funded research can help provide accountability and prioritize programs. In addition, Federal intramural research planning generally involves an institutional assessment of the appropriate Federal role, if any, and whether the research should be left to others, such as universities or the private sector. Many methods of evaluation are available, peer reviewâused primarily for establishing scientific meritâbeing the most common. Economic analysis focuses on quantifying ultimate research outcomes, whether measured in goods with market prices or in nonmarket goods such as environmental quality or human health. However, standard economic techniques may not be amenable for evaluating some important public research priorities or for institutional assessments. This report reviews quantitative methods and applies qualitative economic reasoning and stakeholder interviewing methods to the evaluation of economic benefits of Federal intramural research using three case studies of research conducted by USDAâs Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Differences among the case studies highlight the need to select suitable assessment techniques from available methodologies, the limited scope for comparing assessment results across programs, and the inherent difficulty in quantifying benefits in some research areas. When measurement and attribution issues make it difficult to quantify these benefits, the report discusses how qualitative insights based on economic concepts can help research prioritization. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Research Service, Federal intramural research, publicly funded research, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Livestock Production/Industries, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersrr:94852&r=agr |
| By: | Anderson, Kym; Croser, Johanna |
| Abstract: | Agricultural markets in OECD countries have long been highly distorted by government policies. Traditional weighted average aggregates of the price distortions involved, such as producer and consumer support estimates can be poor indicators of the trade restrictiveness and economic welfare losses associated with them, especially if a country's support estimates vary a lot across the product range. Certainly estimates of trade and welfare effects of price supports can be obtained from sector or economy-wide models using price elasticity estimates, but the results can be contentiousif there is no consensus on what model specification and elasticity parameters to use. This paper shows that, if there is a willingness to accept simple assumptions about elasticities, it is possible to generate indicators of the welfare and trade restrictiveness of agricultural policies using no more than the price and quantity data needed to generate producer and consumer support estimates. These new indexes thus provide an attractive supplement to the current policy monitoring regime developed by the OECD Secretariat. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Emerging Markets,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Free Trade |
| Date: | 2010–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5404&r=agr |
| By: | Diganta Mukherjee; Uday Bhanu Sinha |
| Abstract: | A developing economy like India is often characterised by a labour market with demand and supply of labour and a wage that even if competitively determined may not be adequate for the poor household to reach their target income; what they consider as means of a decent living. Envisaging situations like these, the Indian government has implemented the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in recent past, to complement the income of the poor by providing them employment for certain number of labour days in a year. In this paper, using a simple theoretical model, we have analysed the impact of NREGA scheme on (i) rural labour market, (ii) income of the poor households and (iii) overall agricultural production. It is seen that the income from NREGA alone can be a substantial part of the target income of the poor. We show that in such a situation, the poor may exhibit a backward bending supply curve of labour which may lead to an aggregate reduction in agricultural output. This adverse production effect can happen even when the NREGA activities lead to a moderate improvement in agricultural productivity. Data on food prices tend to support our finding to some extent. |
| Keywords: | NREGA, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, rural, target income, labour supply, agricultural productivity, agricultural production, agricultural output, food prices, labour, rural labour, rural labour market, income poor households, India, Agricultural Economics |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:3099&r=agr |
| By: | Johanna Croser (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Trade negotiators and policy advisors are keen to know the relative contribution of different farm policy instruments to international trade and economic welfare. Nominal rates of assistance or producer support estimates are incomplete indicators, especially when (especially in developing countries) some commodities are taxed and others are subsidized in which case positive contributions can offset negative contributions. This paper develops and estimates a new set of more-satisfactory indicators to examine the relative contribution of different farm policy instruments to reductions in agricultural trade and welfare, drawing on recent literature on trade restrictiveness indexes and a recently compiled database on distortions to agricultural prices for 75 developing and high-income countries over the period 1960 to 2004. Results confirm earlier findings that border taxes are the dominant instrument affecting global trade and welfare, but they also suggest declines in export taxes contributed nearly as much as cuts in import protection to global welfare gains from agricultural policy reforms since the 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives, agricultural price and trade policies, trade restrictiveness index |
| JEL: | F13 F14 F15 N57 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-05&r=agr |
| By: | Hewavitharane, H.V.C.; Warnakulasooriya, H.U.; Wajira Kumara, G.B.S. |
| Abstract: | Published in: Annals of the Sri Lanka Department of Agriculture 2010.12.91-104 |
| Keywords: | Cost of cultivation, Family labour, Rain-fed farming, Variety attributes, Crop Production/Industries, |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:miscpa:95541&r=agr |
| By: | Subhash C. Ray (University of Connecticut); Arpita Ghose (Jadavpur University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use the nonparametric approach of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to obtain Pareto-Koopmans measures of technical efficiency of individual states in India over the years 1970-71 through 2000-01 in a multi-output, multi-input model of agricultural production. The Pareto-Koopmans measure is a complete measure of efficiency that reflects all unrealized potential for increasing \textit{any} output and decreasing \textit{any} input that the firm has failed to exploit. In our empirical analysis, we disaggregate overall efficiency into two distinct components representing output and input efficiencies and identify the contributions of individual outputs and inputs to the measured level of overall efficiency. Because introduction of modern inputs has been a major component of the process of modernization of Indian agriculture, we examine to what extent different states succeeded in utilizing the modern inputs compared to the traditional inputs. Finally, we use regression analysis to explain variations in efficiency across states in terms of differences in various infra-structural, institutional, and demographic factors. |
| Keywords: | Data Envelopment Analysis; Pareto-Koopmans Efficiency; Modern and traditional inputs. |
| JEL: | Q16 C61 O33 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2010-26&r=agr |
| By: | Ali, Rubaba |
| Abstract: | The paper examines the impact of rural road improvement on high yielding variety technology adoption. Rural roads improvement enhances access to output and input markets and thus decreases cost of accessing high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and information on HYV cultivation technique, and further increases the relative pro fitability of HYV rice. Therefore, the paper hypothesizes that it induces farmers to increase HYV acreage and reduce traditional local variety rice acreage. This paper supports the hypothesis that road improvement increases HYV rice acreage using empirical analysis, while it does not find a statistically significant impact on local variety rice. The results are robust to different specifications and sample sizes. Therefore, the policy implications of this paper is that rural roads can be used to complement other efforts to promote technology adoption. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Crop Production/Industries, International Development, |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:umdrwp:95255&r=agr |
| By: | Johanna Croser (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | For decades, agricultural price and trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa hampered farmersÂ’ contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. While there has been much policy reform over the past two decades, the injections of agricultural development funding, together with on-going regional and global trade negotiations, have brought distortionary policies under the spotlight once again. A key question asked of those policies is: how much are they still reducing national economic welfare and trade? Economy-wide models are able to address that question, but they are not available for many poor countries. Even where they are, typically they apply to just one particular previous year and so are unable to provide trends in effects over time. This paper provides a partial-equilibrium alternative to economy-wide modelling, by drawing on a modification of so-called trade restrictiveness indexes to provide theoretically precise indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural policy distortions to producer and consumer prices over the past half-century. We generate time series of country level indices, as well as Africa-wide aggregates. We also provide annual commodity market indices for the region, and we provide a sense of the relative importance of the key policy instruments used. |
| Keywords: | Distorted incentives; agricultural price and trade policies; trade restrictiveness index |
| JEL: | F13 F14 F15 N57 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2010-07&r=agr |
| By: | Zilberman, David D.; Hochman, Gal; Rajagopal, Deepak |
| Abstract: | Concern about the possible affects of biofuels on deforestation have led to assigning biofuel producers with the responsibility for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the indirect land use changes (ILUC) associated with their activities when assessing their compliance with biofuel policies. We show that the computation of the ILUC is shrouded with uncertainty; they vary frequently, and are strongly affected by policy choices. It seems that its overall impact on GHGs is relatively minor. Once the ILUCs are introduced other indirect effects of biofuel may need to be considered which will increase the cost of biofuel regulations. Concentrating on direct regulation of biofuel and on efforts to reduce deforestation, wherever it occurs, may be more effective than debating and refining the ILUC. |
| Keywords: | land use, biofuels, greenhouse gas emissions, regulations |
| Date: | 2010–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:agrebk:1618885&r=agr |
| By: | Dercon, Stefan; Christiaensen, Luc |
| Abstract: | Much has been written on the determinants of input and technology adoption in agriculture, with issues such as input availability, knowledge and education, risk preferences, profitability, and credit constraints receiving much attention. This paper focuses on a factor that has been less well documented: the differential ability of households to take on risky production technologies for fear of the welfare consequences if shocks result in poor harvests. Building on an explicit model, this is explored in panel data for Ethiopia. Historical rainfall distributions are used to identify the counterfactual consumption risk. Controlling for unobserved household and time-varying village characteristics, it emerges that not just exante credit constraints, but also the possibly low consumption outcomes when harvests fail, discourage the application of fertiliser. The lack of insurance causes inefficiency in production choices. |
| JEL: | O12 Q12 O33 Q16 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:oxford:http://economics.ouls.ox.ac.uk/14921/&r=agr |
| By: | James Scott; Rorden Wilkinson |
| Abstract: | This paper sets out to examine the likely benefits accruing to developing countries from the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) as it currently stands. In pursuit of this aim, the paper draws from the insights of both the economic and the political economy literatures in pursuit of a more fulsome account of the likely results of the DDA for poor countries. The paper begins with a review of the projected aggregate gains accruing to developing countries from a concluded DDA. It then marries this aggregate picture with an exploration of the progress in the negotiations to sharpen an insight into just how poor the results of a concluded DDA are likely to be for the least developed. In so doing, the paper reviews progress in the negotiations generally as well as more specifically in the area that has emerged as the core ‘development content’, namely agriculture (focusing on the issues of food security, import surges and the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM)). The paper concludes that a review of both the aggregate projections of the likely results of the DDA and progress in the negotiations highlights more precisely just how poor, and problematic, the outcome of the Doha Round will be for the least developed. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:13210&r=agr |
| By: | Fenske, James |
| Abstract: | Tree crops have changed land tenure in Africa. Planters have acquired more permanent, alienable rights, but have also faced disputes with competing claimants and the state. I show that the introduction of Para rubber had similar effects in the Benin region of colonial Nigeria. Planters initially obtained land by traditional methods. Mature plantations were assets that could be sold, let out, and used to raise credit. Disputes over rubber involved smallholders, communities of rival users, would-be migrant planters, commercial plantations, and the colonial state, which feared rubber would make land unavailable for food crops. |
| Keywords: | Africa; rubber; land tenure; Benin; Nigeria; tree crops; land disputes |
| JEL: | N57 O10 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:26244&r=agr |
| By: | Alston, Julian M.; Andersen, Matt A.; James, Jennifer S.; Pardey, Philip G. |
| Abstract: | Studies of the returns to agricultural R&D are severely constrained by data limitations, and vulnerable to specification biases resulting from modeling choices made to address those constraints. This article makes use of a newly constructed set of uncommonly rich and detailed state-level data on both U.S. agricultural productivity and federal and state-government investments in agricultural R&D to explore the consequences of common modeling choices and their implications for measures of research returns. Particular attention is paid to the specification of the research lag structure and spatial spillovers. The results indicate that state-to-state spillover effects are important, that the R&D lag is longer than many studies have allowed, and that misspecification of these aspects can give rise to significant biases. Our modeling choices imply benefit-cost ratios (or rates of return) that are much smaller than typically reported in the literature, but nonetheless large and indicating a significant pervasive underinvestment. We present heuristic arguments and evidence to show why our results are plausible given the high value of agricultural productivity growth compared with annual R&D investments. |
| Keywords: | Spatial technology spillovers, knowledge stocks, R&D lags, public agricultural R&D, U.S. states, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:umaesp:95522&r=agr |
| By: | Boland, Michael A.; Crespi, John M. |
| Abstract: | This paper provides supplemental tables to accompany Boland, M.A. and J.M. Crespi. âFrom Farm Management to Agricultural and Applied Economics: The Expansion of a Professional Society as Seen through a Census of Its Dissertations from 1951 to 2005.â Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy 32, No. 3 (Autumn 2010): 456-471. The supplemental information contains departmental specific statistics with regard to dissertation topic and journal outlets for dissertation spawned articles. |
| Keywords: | Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, Q, |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aepapa:94778&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); John Cockburn (Dept. of Economics, Université Laval, Québec); Will Martin (Economics Research, World Bank Group) |
| Abstract: | Trade policy reforms in recent decades have sharply reduced the distortions that were harming agriculture in developing countries, yet global trade in farm products continues to be far more distorted than trade in nonfarm goods. Those distortions reduce some forms of poverty and inequality but worsen others, so the net effects are unclear without empirical modeling. This paper summarizes a series of new economy-wide global and national empirical studies that focus on the net effects of the remaining distortions to world merchandise trade on poverty and inequality globally and in various developing countries. The global LINKAGE model results suggest that removing those remaining distortions would reduce international inequality, largely by boosting net farm incomes and raising real wages for unskilled workers in developing countries, and would reduce the number of poor people worldwide by 3 percent. The analysis based on the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model for a sample of 15 countries, and ten stand-alone national case studies, all point to larger reductions in poverty, especially if only the non-poor are subjected to increased income taxation to compensate for the loss of trade tax revenue. |
| Keywords: | Poverty, income inequality, price distortions, farm trade policy |
| JEL: | D30 D58 D63 F13 O53 Q18 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2009-05&r=agr |
| By: | Tigran Melkonyan (Department of Resource Economics, University of Nevada, Reno); Michael Taylor (Department of Resource Economics, University of Nevada, Reno) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes regulatory design for agroecosystem management on public rangelands. We present an informational and institutional environment where three of the most prominent regulatory instruments on public rangelands – input regulation, cost-sharing/taxation, and performance regulation – can be defined and compared. The paper examines how the optimal regulation is shaped by the informational and institutional constraints faced by federal land management agencies (FLMAs) such as the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. These constraints include informational asymmetries between ranchers and FLMAs, limitations on FLMAs’ ability to monitor ranch-level ecological conditions, and constraints on FLMAs’ actions due to budget limitations and restrictions on the level of penalties they can assess. The theoretical model extends the previous work of Baker (1992), Prendergast (2002), and Hueth and Melkonyan (2009) by considering optimal regulation by a budget-constrained regulator in an environment of asymmetric information and moral hazard. |
| Keywords: | Agri-Environmental Policy, Asymmetric Information, Budget-Constrained Regulation |
| JEL: | D86 Q18 Q20 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unr:wpaper:10-007&r=agr |
| By: | Gine, Xavier; Menand, Lev; Townsend, Robert; Vickery, James |
| Abstract: | Rainfall index insurance provides a payout based on measured local rainfall during key phases of the agricultural season, and in principle can help rural households diversify a key source of idiosyncratic risk. This paper describes basic features of rainfall insurance contracts offered in India since 2003, and documents stylized facts about market demand and the distribution of payouts. The authors summarize the results of previous research on this market, which provides evidence that price, liquidity constraints, and trust all present significant barriers to increased take-up. They also discuss potential future prospects for rainfall insurance and other index insurance products. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change Economics,Debt Markets,Financial Literacy,Emerging Markets,Banks&Banking Reform |
| Date: | 2010–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5459&r=agr |
| By: | Angelos Liontakis (Agricultural Economics and Rural Development Department, Agricultural University of Athens); Christos T. Papadas (Agricultural Economics and Rural Development Department, Agricultural University of Athens) |
| Abstract: | Concepts and developments in the literature of economic growth and convergence have recently been adopted and used in the study of inflation rate convergence. This paper examines initially the existence of â-convergence, as mean reversion, of food price inflation rates in the European Union, using the stochastic convergence approach of panel data unit root tests. It examines also the existence of ó-convergence but in order capture sufficiently the evolving distributional dynamics, non-parametric econometric methods are implemented as well. An alternative conditional density estimator, proposed in the literature, is applied for this reason. This estimator is chosen as superior, not only to the restrictive discrete Markov chain approaches but also to the usual estimators of conditional densities using stochastic kernels. Monthly data on the EU harmonized consumer price indices of food and eleven specific food product subgroups are used, for the 15 older EU member states, covering the 1997-2009 period. |
| Keywords: | Kernel density estimator, convergence, distribution dynamics, food price inflation |
| JEL: | E31 C14 C33 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aua:wpaper:2010-6&r=agr |
| By: | Elodie Brahic |
| Abstract: | In general, neither the social norms nor market dynamics stimulate spontaneously activities and practices conducive to biodiversity. The nature of public good of biodiversity leads to its rapid erosion. Even if it can respond positively to social expectations and improve welfare in the long term2, taking into account biodiversity often leads to changes in the way we produce or how to exercise its property right. The consideration of biodiversity may determine production losses and income decreases.[...] |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lam:estudy:10-02&r=agr |
| By: | Manuel Pacheco Coelho |
| Abstract: | Recently, the Pew Environment Group released a study that finds that E. U. fisheries have failed to reduce fleet capacity thus exerting fishing pressure on stocks at two/three time sustainable levels. The members evaluated in this study accounted for more than 90% of European fisheries subsidies. Overcapacity and overcapitalisation of the sector was identified as the principal failure of the Common Fisheries Policy. The study also highlights that member-states failed to take environmental and social concerns into consideration when allocating public funding. This conclusion may be well important in the CFP reform (2012) and put again the discussion about the tools that can be used to get sustainable management and better cohesion. The idea of creating markets for fishing rights as a means of internalising the externalities derived from the common property nature of fisheries have received considerable attention by the founding fathers of Law and Economics and Fisheries Economics such as Coase, Scott and Christy. The idea is to create a market of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and confide in the self-regulation of such a system to conduct the fisheries to the economic efficiency and to promote inter-temporal sustainable use of resources. Rights Based Management schemes have already been experimented in some specific fisheries and localizations. These experiences have a lot of teaching results about good practices of sustainable fisheries management and also about the limitations/ risks of these tools. These conclusions are fundamental to explore the feasibility of these tools as instruments of conservation in the CFP. The purpose of our Communication is to enter this debate and evaluate the Portuguese experience with rights based management. |
| Keywords: | Fisheries, Rights Based Management, Individual Transferable Quotas. |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp182010&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Ernesto Valenzuela (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Glyn Wittwer (Centre of Policy Studies, Monash University, Clayton) |
| Abstract: | We provide economy-wide modeling results of the national and regional implications of two current challenges facing the Australian wine industry: a decline in export demand for premium wines, and a possible change in the tax on domestic wine sales following the Henry Review of Taxation. The demand shock causes regional GDP to fall in the cool and warm wine regions but not in the hot wine regions unless the shock is large. A change from the current ad valorem tax to a similarly low volumetric tax on domestic wine sales causes regional GDP to rise in the cool and warm wine regions, partly offsetting its fall due to the export demand shock; but GDP in the hot wine regions would fall substantially. The switch to a volumetric tax as high as the standard beer rate would raise tax revenue and lower domestic wine consumption by more than one-third, but would induce a one-third decrease in production of non-premium wine as its consumer price would rise by at least three-quarters (while the average price of super premium wines would change very little), hence exacerbating the difference in effects of a tax reform on hot versus warm and cool wine regionsÂ’ GDP. |
| Keywords: | Wine export demand, wine consumer taxation, regional economy-wide modeling |
| JEL: | D58 F18 H22 Q18 R13 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2009-02&r=agr |
| By: | Robert N. Stavins (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Resources for the Future and National Bureau of Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | The problem of the commons is more important to our lives and thus more central to economics than a century ago when Katharine Coman led off the first issue of the American Economic Review. As the U.S. and other economies have grown, the carrying-capacity of the planet - in regard to natural resources and environmental quality — has become a greater concern, particularly for common-property and open-access resources. The focus of this article is on some important, unsettled problems of the commons. Within the realm of natural resources, there are special challenges associated with renewable resources, which are frequently characterized by open access. An important example is the degradation of open-access fisheries. Critical commons problems are also associated with environmental quality. A key contribution of economics has been the development of market-based approaches to environmental protection. These instruments are key to addressing the ultimate commons problem of the twenty-first century - global climate change. |
| Keywords: | Common-Property Resource, Open-Access Resource, Fisheries, Global Climate Change |
| JEL: | Q22 Q28 Q50 Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2010.131&r=agr |
| By: | Kym Anderson (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Signe Nelgen (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Ernesto Valenzuela (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Glyn Wittwer (Centre of Policy Studies, Monash University, Clayton) |
| Abstract: | Over the past two decades, the Australian wine industry has been through a remarkable period of export-oriented growth. Even when vines for drying and table grapes are included, the vineyard area in Australia has trebled over the 20 vintages to 2008, the biggest surge in Australia’s history. In the first half of the 1980s, barely 2 percent of the country’s wine production was exported, which was less than the volume it imported. Today, nearly two-thirds of Australia’s production is exported – and production itself has increased nearly four-fold since the early 1980s. Prepared for the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWRDC), Winemakers Federation of Australia (WFA) and the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation (AWBC). The authors are grateful for funding from GWRDC (Project Number UA08/04) and the University of Adelaide’s Wine2030 project, and for helpful comments from Leanne Webb of CSIRO, Jim Fortune, and members of the project’s Industry Reference Group. |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:cieswp:2009-01&r=agr |