|
on Agricultural Economics |
|
Issue of 2015‒08‒13
forty-one papers chosen by |
| By: | White, David |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205017&r=agr |
| By: | Rice, Charles |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205012&r=agr |
| By: | Schnitkey, Gary |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management, Political Economy, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205021&r=agr |
| By: | Kuhn, Annemarie |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:204978&r=agr |
| By: | Leibtag, Ephraim |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Marketing, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:204993&r=agr |
| By: | Creamer, Nancy |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205043&r=agr |
| By: | Cochran, Bobby |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:204985&r=agr |
| By: | Wohlman, Matthew |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205005&r=agr |
| By: | Serfis, Jim |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205000&r=agr |
| By: | Day, Lloyd |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Marketing, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205003&r=agr |
| By: | Carver, Jason |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205024&r=agr |
| By: | Gabriel, Stephen |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205006&r=agr |
| By: | Richardson, James |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:204999&r=agr |
| By: | Male, Jonathan |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205026&r=agr |
| By: | Jones, Heather |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Livestock Production/Industries, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205023&r=agr |
| By: | Istrate, Emilia |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205018&r=agr |
| By: | Wagstrom, Liz |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205036&r=agr |
| By: | Lehman, Dave |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Marketing, Political Economy, Public Economics, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:204991&r=agr |
| By: | Cougot, Dale |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Development, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205015&r=agr |
| By: | McHugh, Tara |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205070&r=agr |
| By: | Minten, Bart; Dereje, Mekdim; Engeda, Ermias; Tamru, Seneshaw |
| Abstract: | Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) are rapidly increasing in global value chains. While consumers, mostly in developed countries, are willing to pay significant premiums for such standards, it is not well understood how effectively these incentives are transmitted to producing countries. We study VSS in Ethiopia’s coffee sector, the country’s most important export commodity, using a unique census of transaction data at the export level and large-scale data at the production level. We find that transmission of the export quality premiums to coffee pro-ducers is limited, with only one-third of this premium being passed on. Moreover, as quality premiums are small and average production levels in these settings are low, these premiums would only lead to an increased income for coffee farmers of 20 USD per year even with a perfect transmission scenario, and therefore would have little effect on the welfare of the average coffee farmer. |
| Keywords: | Sustainability, coffee, exports, Commodities, Quality, value chains, high value agricultural products, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:esspwp:71&r=agr |
| By: | Minten, Bart; Dereje, Mekdim; Engeda, Ermias; Kuma, Tadesse |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we look at the coffee sector in Ethiopia and analyze changes and their drivers upstream in the value chain. In this study we focus on three main research questions. First, we study changes in coffee production practices over the last decade and then analyze how these production practices affect coffee productivity. Second, we document changes in harvest, post-harvest, marketing, and processing activities, and analyze their links with improved quality, prices, and incomes of producers. Third, we look at drivers of and constraints to change and transformation at the level of the coffee producer. For the analysis, we rely on a unique recently collected and representative large-scale survey of coffee producers and processors. To our knowledge, no other study comprising such breadth in the upstream sector has been done recently in Ethiopia, or elsewhere.1 |
| Keywords: | agricultural development, beans, smallholders, coffee, coffee industry, productivity, marketing, postharvest technology, capacity building, value chains, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:esspwp:76&r=agr |
| By: | Robin Winkler |
| Abstract: | How good was the standard of living in pre-war Nazi Germany? Some historians have argued that household food consumption in the 1930s was at least as high as in the Weimar Republic, in spite of militarisation. This article provides new evidence against this view by demonstrating that food price controls significantly distorted consumption patterns. We estimate that involuntary substitution effects cost average working-class households 7% of their disposable income. Consumer welfare in Nazi Germany was thus meaningfully lower than observed consumption levels and prices suggest. Our finding is based on microeconometric welfare analysis of detailed budget data for 4,376 individual German households surveyed in 1927 and 1937. |
| Keywords: | economic history, economic development, standard of living, consumer welfare, Germany |
| JEL: | N14 N34 D12 D52 |
| Date: | 2015–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:number-136&r=agr |
| By: | Dowell-Lashmet, Tiffany |
| Keywords: | Livestock Production/Industries, Political Economy, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, Public Economics, |
| Date: | 2015–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:205067&r=agr |
| By: | Bernard, Tanguy (IFPRI, International Food Policy Research Institute); Frölich, Markus (University of Mannheim); Landmann, Andreas (University of Mannheim); Unte, Pia Naima (University of Mannheim); Viceisza, Angelino (Spelman College); Wouterse, Fleur (IFPRI, International Food Policy Research Institute) |
| Abstract: | Trust is crucial for successful collective action. A prime example is collective commercialization of agricultural produce through producer organizations. We conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural Senegal in which we vary the number and the type of smallholder farmers – members and/or leaders of local producer organizations – invited to a three-day training on collective commercialization. We use this variation to identify effects on intra-group trust, both direct treatment effects of having participated in the training and spillover effects on farmers who did not partake. Looking at different measures of trust in leaders' competence and motives and of trust in members we find that participating in the training significantly enhances both trust in leaders and trust in members. For trust in leaders, we also find a strong spillover effect. Our findings suggest that relatively soft and non-costly interventions such as a group training appear to be able to positively affect trust within producer organizations. |
| Keywords: | rural producer organizations, smallholder farmers, trust, Senegal |
| JEL: | D71 O12 Q13 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9207&r=agr |
| By: | Shingo Kimura; Johannes Sauer |
| Abstract: | This report compares the dynamics of productivity growth in the last decade in the dairy farm sector of three EU Member States: Estonia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (England and Wales). The evolution of the dairy farm sector in these countries is characterised by a decline in the number of dairy farms and an increase in the average herd size per farm. Policy factors have a strong impact on productivity growth at the farm. In Estonia, the dairy farm sector has expanded significantly in recent years and the productivity growth of the sector is led largely by a resource reallocation in favour of a small number of large and productive farms. In the Netherlands, the dairy farm sector adjusted to the different policy environments over time and the productivity growth of the sector is driven largely by productivity improvement at the farm level through technological adoption and efficient resource use. In the United Kingdom, productivity growth comes from the exit of smaller farms and farm size expansion of the remaining farms. |
| Keywords: | productivity, resource allocation |
| JEL: | D24 O33 Q12 Q18 |
| Date: | 2015–08–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:agraaa:87-en&r=agr |
| By: | Berhane, Guush; Abay, Mehari Hiluf; Woldehanna, Tassew |
| Abstract: | Using child-level panel data from rural areas of Ethiopia, this paper analyzes effects of both economic and non-economic shocks on child cognition skills measured after the early childhood age window. |
| Keywords: | Children, Health, rural areas, social protection, safety nets, shocks, Cognitive skills, difference in differences, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:esspwp:73&r=agr |
| By: | Mayshar, Joram; Moav, Omer; Neeman, Zvika; Pascali, Luigi |
| Abstract: | We propose that the development of social hierarchy following the Neolithic Revolution was an outcome of the ability of the emergent elite to appropriate cereal crops from farmers and not a result of land productivity, as argued by conventional theory. We argue that cereals are easier to appropriate than roots and tubers, and that regional differences in the suitability of land for different crops explain therefore differences in the formation of hierarchy and states. A simple model illustrates our main theoretical argument. Our empirical investigation shows that land suitability for cereals relative to suitability for tubers explains the formation of hierarchical institutions and states, whereas land productivity does not. |
| Keywords: | geography; hierarchy; institutions; state capacity |
| JEL: | D02 D82 H10 O43 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10742&r=agr |
| By: | Vilsack, Tom; Reed, Cory; Fraley, Robert; Thatcher, Mary kay |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2015–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao15:206472&r=agr |
| By: | Michela Faccioli (Universitat de les Illes Balears); Nicholas Hanley (University of St. Andrews); Catalina M. Torres Figuerola (Universitat de les Illes Balears); Antoni Riera Font (Universitat de les Illes Balears) |
| Abstract: | Environmental cost-benefit analysis has traditionally assumed that environmental policies’ social benefits are sensitive to the timing of the improvement. Indeed, it has relied on the idea that policies’ outcomes, taking place at different moments in the future depending on the intervention’s performance or on environmental dynamics, are preferred if occurring earlier. However, this assumption needs to be verified as it may lead to consider as socially desirable policies being less so. This is especially important when interventions aim at counteracting time-persistent environmental problems, whose impacts occur in the long- and very long-term, respectively involving the present and future generations. In this framework, with the objective to test for the role of sustainability concerns, this study analyzes the time sensitivity of social preferences for preservation policies of adaptation to climate change stresses. Results have shown that preferences are time insensitive due to sustainability issues, as current generations equally care about nature preservation in the long-term, when they will enjoy it, and in the very long-term, when future generations will. These outcomes are relevant to better inform policy-making in the face of time-persistent environmental problems, by pointing out that, to be welfare-maximizing, interventions also need to be sustainable. |
| Keywords: | time-persistent environmental problems, sustainability, preference analysis, choice experiment, time sensitivity, climate change. |
| JEL: | D6 D90 Q51 Q54 Q56 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubi:deawps:71&r=agr |
| By: | Rachel Griffith (Institute for Fiscal Studies and IFS and Manchester); Martin O'Connell (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Kate Smith (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | Improving diet quality has been a major target of public health policy. Governments have encouraged consumers to make healthier food choices and firms to reformulate food products. Evaluation of such policies has focused on the impact on consumer behaviour; firm behaviour has been less well studied. We study the recent decline in dietary salt intake in the UK, and show that it was entirely attributable to product reformulation by firms; a contemporaneous information campaign had little impact, consumer switching between products in fact worked in the opposite direction and led to a slight increase in the salt intensity of groceries purchased. These findings point to the important role that firms can play in achieving public policy goals. |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:14/15&r=agr |
| By: | Matthew Collin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the demand for formal land tenure in urban Tanzania. Using a unique census of two highly-fractionalized unplanned settlements in Dar es Salaam, I show that households located near coethnics are significantly less likely to purchase a limited form of land tenure recently offered by the government. I attempt to address one of the chief concerns - endogenous sorting of households - by conditioning on a household's choice of coethnics neighbors upon arrival in the neighborhood. I also find that coethnic residence predicts lower levels of perceived expropriation risk, but not perceived access to credit nor contribution to local public goods. These results suggest that close-knit ethnic groups may be less likely to accept state-provided goods due to their ability to generate reasonable substitutes, in this case protection from expropriation. The results are robust to different definitions of coethnicity and spatial cut-offs, controls for family ties and religious similarity as well as spatial fixed effects. Finally, the main result is confirmed using a large-scale administrative data-set covering over 20,000 land parcels in the city, exploiting ethnically-unique last names to predict tribal affiliation. |
| Keywords: | Ethnicity, Land tenure, Tanzania, Unplanned settlements |
| JEL: | J15 Q15 R23 |
| Date: | 2013–08–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:wps/2013-12&r=agr |
| By: | Gabe, Todd |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to examine the statewide economic contribution of maple production in Maine.Maine has the third largest maple production industry in the United States—behind Vermont and New York—in terms of numbers of taps and syrup production in 2013. The maple production industry in Maine is characterized by a relatively small number of farms accounting for the vast majority of syrup that is produced. Maine’s maple industry has an annual statewide economic contribution, including multiplier effects, of an estimated $48.7 million in output, 805 full- and part-time jobs, and $25.1 million in labor income. |
| Keywords: | Maple Syrup, Economic Impact, Maine |
| JEL: | Q12 Q13 R15 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:65962&r=agr |
| By: | Rudolph , Alexandra; Figge, Lukas |
| Abstract: | While the relationship between environmental pressures and globalization is often claimed to be unambiguously positive, there is a substantial gap in the literature regarding systematic evidence. We fill this gap by empirically disentangling the nexus between globalization and environmental degradation while at the same time taking the multidimensionality of the concepts serious. The Ecological Footprint (EF) provides a holistic approach to environmental degradation. We generate a data set covering 146 countries over the 1981-2009 period and use an Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA) to identify a robust set of controls testing different claims of the literature. Subsequently, we test our hypothesis regarding globalization controlling for this vector of controls. Our findings suggest that the simple positive correlation has to be interpreted with care, since the multivariate analysis reveals a more detailed picture of the complex relationship. |
| Keywords: | Ecological Footprint; Globalization; EBA; Global environmental change |
| Date: | 2015–08–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0599&r=agr |
| By: | Kempa, Karol; Moslener, Ulf |
| Abstract: | Across the globe climate policy is shifting away from a carbon price towards investment subsidies, such as grants, interest-subsidised loans or guarantees. This increases the risk of inefficient public spending. This paper shows how the main market imperfections related to the emission externality, knowledge spillovers and capital market imperfections negatively affect the risk-return-profile of a climate investment. To some extent these negative impacts can be compensated through different forms of investment subsidies. Minimising the risk of inefficient public spending is, however, challenging and requires detailed understanding of technologies and markets at the project level. The analysis provides guidance for the design of appropriate investment subsidy schemes. Carbon prices and investment subsidies are not perfect substitutes, and - at least for developed economies - a carbon price remains the single most efficient instrument. This price should, however, coexist with other instruments, e.g. investment support schemes, which can be tailored to address the non-emission market imperfections related to climate change. |
| Keywords: | climate finance,investment support,policy instruments,environmental externality,innovation spillover,capital market failure |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fsfmwp:219&r=agr |
| By: | Thomas J. Prusa; Edwin Vermulst |
| Abstract: | The WTO panel report on China – Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duty Measures on Broiler Products from the United States was circulated to Members on 2 August 2013. In the report the Panel examined a variety of issues challenged by the United States under various provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, the Anti-dumping Agreement and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The Panel upheld the United States’ claims on the majority of the issues, which covered certain procedural aspects of the anti-dumping and countervailing investigations such as the right to disclosure of “essential facts”, as well as the substantive determinations including costing issues, the imposition of the “all others” rate on the basis of “facts available”, the price effects’ analyses, the sufficiency of the public notices and others. Notably the costing issues that came up in the case, although decided mostly on procedural grounds, provide food for thought and are likely to feature again in future disputes. |
| Keywords: | anti-dumping, countervailing duty, cost allocation |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2014/129&r=agr |
| By: | Thomas, Alban; Zaporozhets, Vera |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:29320&r=agr |
| By: | Gabe, Todd |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to examine the growth of maple syrup production in Maine. First, we analyze the change in the number of taps from 2008 to 2013, and then look at the expected growth in maple taps between 2013 and 2018. Second, we examine the factors that Maine maple syrup producers believe are important to the future viability of maple syrup production in the state. |
| Keywords: | Maple Syrup Production, Farm Growth, Maine |
| JEL: | L66 Q12 Q13 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:65963&r=agr |
| By: | Sturm, Bodo; Uehleke, Reinhard |
| Abstract: | In this experiment, we investigate determinants of the individual demand for voluntary climate change mitigation. Subjects decide between a cash prize and an allowance from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme for one ton of CO2 that will be deleted afterwards. We vary the incentives of the decision situation in which we distinguish between real monetary incentives and a hypothetical decision situation with and without a cheap talk script. Furthermore, decisions were implemented either as purely individual or as a collective action using majority voting. We observe a significant hypothetical bias in the demand for voluntary climate change mitigation. In case of the individual decision situation this bias is caused solely by subjects with low income. Collective decision making affects demand positively in the hypothetical decision situation only. |
| Keywords: | demand for voluntary climate change mitigation,public goods,collective action,hypothetical bias |
| JEL: | Q51 Q54 C93 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:15045&r=agr |
| By: | B. Kelsey Jack; Paulina Oliva; Christopher Severen; Elizabeth Walker; Samuel Bell |
| Abstract: | Many technology adoption decisions are made under uncertainty about the costs or benefits of subsequent investments in the technology after the initial take-up. As new information is realized, agents may prefer to abandon a technology that appeared profitable at the time of take-up. Low rates of follow-through (engagement in subsequent investments) are particularly problematic when subsidies are used to increase adoption, in part because they may attract users with a lower value for the technology. We use a field experiment with two stages of randomization to generate exogenous variation in the payoffs associated with taking up and following through with a new technology: a tree species that provides private fertilizer benefits to adopting farmers. Our empirical results show high rates of abandoning the technology, even after paying a positive price to take it up. The experimental variation offers a novel source of identification for a structural model of intertemporal decision making under uncertainty. Estimation results indicate that the farmers experience idiosyncratic shocks to net payoffs after take-up, which increase take-up but lower average per farmer tree survival. We simulate counterfactual outcomes under different levels of uncertainty and observe that subsidizing take-up of the technology affects the composition of adopters only when the level of uncertainty is relatively low. Thus, uncertainty provides an additional explanation for why many subsidized technologies may not be utilized even when take-up is high. |
| JEL: | D81 O13 Q12 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21414&r=agr |
| By: | Pierre-Louis Vezina |
| Abstract: | Countries restrict the export of natural resources to lower domestic prices, stimulate downstream industries, earn rents on international markets, or on environmental grounds. This paper provides empirical evidence of evasion of such export barriers. Using tools from the illicit trade literature, I show that exports of minerals, metals, or wood products are more likely to be missing from the exporter's statistics if they face export barriers such as prohibitions or taxes. Furthermore, I show that this relationship is significantly higher in countries with high levels of corruption and bribes at customs. The results have implications for the design of trade policies and environmental protection. |
| Keywords: | natural resources, illegal trade, trade barriers |
| JEL: | F13 O17 O19 |
| Date: | 2015–02–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:oxcarre-research-paper-139&r=agr |