paying the price final goods protection in oecd countries this paper presents new measures of final goods trade protection in eight developed countries the analysis exploits detailed comprehensive and careful price comparisons to derive estimates that it is argued reliably capture all kinds of barriers the results show extensive protection japan s average tariff equivalent is 57 those of the european countries range from 48 to 55 and that of the united states is lowest at 12 an applied general equilibrium analysis of this protection is conducted the results include the following japan s barriers impose large costs on itself japanese and u s barriers greatly burden poorer countries the united states would benefit significantly from multilateral but not unilateral opening

the impact of regulatory heterogeneity on agri food trade we estimate the impact of regulatory heterogeneity on agri food trade using a gravity analysis that relies on detailed data on non tariff measures ntms collected by the ntm impact project the data cover a broad range of import requirements for agricultural and food products for the eu and nine of its major trade partners we find that trade is significantly reduced when importing countries have stricter maximum residue limits mrls for plant products than exporting countries for most other measures due to their qualitative nature we were unable to infer whether the importer has stricter standards relative to the exporter and we do not find a robust relationship between these measures and trade our findings suggest that at least for some import standards harmonising regulations will increase trade we also conclude that tariff reductions remain an effective means to increase trade even when ntms abound

determinants of world demand for u s corn seeds the role of trade costs the united states is a large net exporter of corn seeds seed trade including corn has been expanding but its determinants are not well understood this paper econometrically investigates the determinants of world demand for u s corn seeds with a detailed analysis of trade costs impeding exports flows to various markets trade costs include costs associated with distance tariffs and sanitary phytosanitary sps regulations imposed by foreign countries on u s corn seed exports sps policy information comes from the excerpt data base of usda aphis the analysis relies on a gravity like model based on an explicit specification of derived demand for seed by foreign corn producers a sps count variable is incorporated as a shifter in the unit cost of seeds faced by foreign users we use data from 48 countries and for the years 1989 to 2004 we find that all trade costs matter and have had a negative impact on u s corn seed exports tariffs matter most followed by sps measures and distance an extensive econometric investigation reveals that qualitative results are robust to specification changes but that sample selection bias is present in log linear specifications based on seed export levels and approximating zero trade data with a small positive number

tariff equivalent and forgone trade effects of prohibitive technical barriers to trade we derive a method to econometrically estimate the tariff equivalent and forgone trade effects of a prohibitive technical barrier to trade tbt based on wales and woodland s kuhn tucker approach to corner solutions in consumer choice the method overcomes the lack of observed data on bilateral trade flows and accounts for differentiated goods by place of origin we apply the derived random utility model to international trade in apples to identify the tariff equivalent of prohibitive phytosanitary barriers imposed by australia on potential imports of new zealand apples we estimate the forgone apple trade between the two countries the implied trade injury imposed by australia on new zealand and the welfare loss to australia the removal of the australian policy would induce net welfare gains around us 50 million annually for australia copyright 2009 oxford university press

the carnegie conjecture some empirical evidence this paper examines tax return generated data on the labor force behavior of people before and after they receive inheritances the results are consistent with andrew carnegie s century old assertion that large inheritances decrease a person s labor force participation for example a single person who receives an inheritance of about 150 000 is roughly four times more likely to leave the labor force than a person with an inheritance below 25 000 additional albeit weaker evidence suggests that large inheritances depress labor supply even when participation is unaltered warren kendall heir to an insurance company fortune says he s worth about 5 million and has an income of about oh 300 and some thousand a year h e has never held a job or wanted to going down to sea in cruise ships is his full time pursuit he estimates that he has taken about 250 cruises over the past couple of decades spending at least 50 percent to 70 percent of the year afloat morgenthaler 1991 p al

policies for african seed enterprise development abstract the commercial seed sector has been slow to develop in sub saharan africa the paper examines the major impediments and identifies areas in which seed policies can be strengthened seed enterprise development has been hampered by regulatory frameworks that favor parastatal enterprises and that inhibit commercial innovation in addition government and donor projects provide large amounts of free or subsidized seed that further discourages seed enterprise development in addition to regulatory reform and the curtailment of many seed distribution projects there are other policy changes that need to be implemented national agricultural research institutes need to invest more resources in promoting their varieties and helping to stimulate commercial seed production greater emphasis is required on regional strategies for public plant breeding and private seed marketing national policies need to strengthen input marketing capacity and infrastructure finally donors governments and ngos should shift from trying to encourage village level commercial seed production and instead strengthen farmers capacities to assess new varieties and to be effective consumers of commercial inputs

tariff equivalents of nontariff measures the case of european horticultural and fish imports from african countries in the context of the partnership agreements between the european union eu and the african caribbean and pacific countries this study estimates ad valorem tariff equivalents of european food safety standards on imports of key horticultural and fish products from kenya tanzania uganda and zambia the study uses an extension of the price wedge method to account for imperfect substitution and factor endowment in monopolistic competition the estimated tariff equivalents are 55 and 98 for imports of fresh peas from zambia to the netherlands and the u k respectively they range from 39 to 64 for imports of green beans and avocados from kenya and from 63 to 270 for imports of frozen fish fillets in eu countries from the east african community we also observe large variations in tariff equivalents for the horticultural and fish products over time and eu importing countries 2012 international association of agricultural economists

a cross national investigation of industrial salespeople s ethical perceptions this study examines ethical perceptions of industrial salespeople in the united states japan and south korea marketing ethics in general and selling ethics in particular have experienced increasing research attention many of the empirical studies have focused on ethical situations confronting marketing and sales practitioners despite the abundance of research in the general topic of marketing ethics as well as the globalization of competition in recent years a topic that has been virtually ignored is whether ethical perceptions of sales personnel are consistent across countries this paper reports a cross national comparison of business ethics of industrial salespeople across the three countries the findings indicate that nationality influences salespeople s beliefs about the ethics of selling practices and the need for company policies to guide those practices

investigating the impacts of time delays on trade abstract time delays due to inefficient customs and administrative procedures have become a leading non tariff barrier ntb that restrict international trade and impair social welfare this paper investigates how time delays affect product quality product price trade flow and social welfare using data on the days it takes to clear customs in 96 countries we explore the impacts of time delays on product quality and price with different levels of perishability we find that longer time delays at the border would significantly decrease highly perishable agricultural products quality and price we also find that for highly perishable agricultural products improved and simplified customs delays would increase trade flows and social welfare of importing countries

human capital and regional wage gaps lopez bazo e and motellon e human capital and regional wage gaps regional studies this paper uses micro level data to analyse the effect of human capital on regional wage differentials the results for the set of spanish regions confirm that they differ in the endowment of human capital but also that the return that individuals obtain from it varies sharply across regions regional heterogeneity in returns is especially intense in the case of education particularly when considering its effect on the employability of individuals these differences in endowment and especially in returns to human capital account for a significant proportion of regional wage gaps lopez bazo e and motellon e lopez bazo e et motellon e le capital humain et les ecarts des salaires regionaux regional studies cet article emploie des m

how important are tariffs and nontariff barriers in international markets for fresh fruit international markets for agricultural products are often subject to a range of trade barriers and horticultural products are no exception this article examines the economic implications of tariffs and sanitary and phytosanitary sps regulations that are applied to global markets for fresh apples and fresh oranges we calculate regional level tariff rates and ad valorem equivalents for sps barriers following the price wedge approach a simulation model is developed and used to assess the price quantity and welfare implications of reducing tariffs removing sps barriers and removing sps barriers that have been identified as a specific trade concern stc by the world trade organization results suggest that a 36 reduction in global tariffs would lead to greater welfare gains than would the elimination of sps measures in apple markets however in orange markets we find that sps measures have much larger economic implications for producers and consumers here a 36 reduction in tariffs would lead to smaller overall welfare effects compared to removal of all sps measures and only slightly larger effects than those from removal of stcs alone

wood extraction among the households of zege peninsula northern ethiopia abstract the dependence of smallholder farmers on forest resources for their sustenance and livelihoods is a major driver of deforestation and degradation of forest resources in tropical countries understanding the socio economic drivers that aggravate the extraction and overexploitation of forest products is vital for designing effective forest conservation and restoration measures this particularly holds with regard to the importance of two fundamentally opposing motivations of smallholder forest exploitation which we label wood extraction for need vs wood extraction for greed this study was conducted at zege peninsula in northern ethiopia to investigate the factors affecting the extraction and marketing of wood from the peninsula s primary dry afromontane forest by smallholders data was collected using household survey focus groups discussions and key informant interviews data analysis employed the heckman two steps econometric model the predominant involvement of vulnerable households in forest exploitation suggests that wood extraction was driven by need and mainly served sustenance and safety net functions in addition we also found evidence of greed driven forest exploitation as a consequence of selective rule enforcement and nepotism the forest enforcement committee was not effective in safeguarding the forest there by contributing to increased wood extraction and marketing by community members for income generation this suggests that in order to protect the forest interventions are needed that aim at creating alternative income opportunities for smallholders through improved production of non timber forest products enhanced market access and the provision of locally adapted technologies as well as at increasing the integrity of law enforcement

the impact of regulations on agricultural trade evidence from the sps and tbt agreements according to world trade organization rules countries may adopt regulations under the agreements on sanitary and phyto sanitary sps and technical barriers to trade tbt we analyze the structure of these measures in agricultural trade the inventory approach suggests that european countries have among the lowest coverage ratios of all oecd countries using a gravity equation we also estimate their stringency our results suggest that they significantly reduce developing countries exports to oecd countries but do not affect trade between oecd members furthermore european imports are more negatively influenced by sps and tbts than imports of other oecd countries

from unemployed to entrepreneur the role of the absolute bequest motive abstract using the british household panel survey this paper finds that inheritance has a concave effect on the hours worked by male entrepreneurs receiving an inheritance increases the labor supply of unemployed male entrepreneurs however this effect becomes smaller for higher inheritances

an assessment of environmentally related non tariff measures international trade can affect the environment in different ways this may justify the introduction of border measures by the importing countries in addition to various dispositions in the gatt gats trips agreements as well as in the agreement on agriculture this issue is regulated by the agreements on technical barriers to trade tbt and on the application of sanitary and phyto sanitary standards sps despite these rules abuse of environmental arguments for protectionist reasons remains an open issue in order to disentangle protectionism from dispositions justified on the grounds of true environmental concerns we systematically review notifications of sps and tbts by importing countries at the tariff line level trade is considered as being potentially affected when an environmental sps tbt is notified on grounds of environmental concerns affected trade is defined as imports by countries notifying such barriers protectionist use of environmental barriers is likely when only a limited number of countries impose an environmental obstacle on the imports of a given product considering data for 2001 we find that 88 per cent of the value of world trade is in products potentially affected by such measures while 39 per cent of the value of world imports is potentially subject to a protectionist use of such measures agriculture the automobile industry the pharmaceutical industry and many other sectors are concerned

latin america as a target of trade barriers erected by the major developed countries in 1983 abstract according to an unctad data set nontariff barriers were applied by 14 major industrialized importers against 19 percent of latin american exports this is not an unusually high coverage ratio australia and new zealand and japan faced substantially more frequent barriers the effects of these barriers on latin american exports are difficult to estimate the estimates vary substantially depending on the method of estimation one method estimates that latin american exports to this group of 14 importers have been reduced by trade barriers by a total of 34 percent varying from 5 percent for mexico to 75 percent for argentina

understanding corruption and firm responses in cross national firm level surveys the issue of corruption is important to politicians citizens and firms since the early 1990s a large number of studies have sought to understand the causes and consequences of corruption employing firm level survey data from various countries while insightful these analyses have largely ignored two important potential problems nonresponse and potential false response by the firms we argue that in politically repressive environments firms use nonresponse and potential false response as self protection mechanisms corruption is likely understated in such countries we test our argument using the world bank enterprise survey data of more than 44 000 firms in 72 countries for the period 2000 2005 we find that firms in countries with less press freedom are more likely to provide nonresponse and false response on the issue of corruption therefore ignoring these systematic biases in firms responses could result in serious underestimation of the severity of corruption in politically repressive countries more important these biases are a rich and underutilized source of information on the political constraints faced by the firms firm managers can better evaluate levels of corruption not only by truthful answers to corruption questions but also by nonresponses and false responses to such questions

inheritance and labor supply using data from the michigan panel study of income dynamics and from federal estate tax returns this paper investigates the labor disincentive caused by inheritance the results are of interest for several reasons whether or not inheritances are a strong labor disincentive figures prominently in the controversy surrounding the relative importance of inheritances and life cycle savings as sources of u s wealth also the size of the disincentive is important in determining the relationship between inheritance and inequality our results indicate that inheritances do not lead to large reductions in the labor supply of men and married women family consumption increases after an inheritance but again the effect is small

bayesian inference for the gravity model this paper seeks to empirically extend the gravity model which has been widely used to analyze volumes of trade between pairs of countries we generalize the basic threshold tobit model by allowing for the inclusion of country specific effects into the analysis and also show how one can explore the relationship between trade volumes and a given covariate via a non parametric approach we use our derived methodology to investigate the impact of a particular aspect of institutions the enforcement of contracts on bilateral trade we find that contract enforcement matters in predicting trade volumes for all types of goods that it matters most for the trade of differentiated goods and that the relationship between contract enforcement and trade in our threshold tobit exhibits some nonlinearities copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

measuring protection mission impossible abstract there seems to be some confusion between openness and protection measures in the international trade literature the aim of this paper is to bring together the state of the art in quantifying trade policy measures and for this reason we focus on the extent of the protection granted by policies rather than on the degree of openness of the economy given the considerable amount of literature that deals with these issues we will limit our review as follows on the one hand we focus on trade policies implemented at the border and therefore do not consider all the other possible public interventions influencing trade flows on the other hand we only take into account indexes that explicitly adopt a metric expressed in a scalar aggregate tariff and quota equivalent measures or an index in a closed interval we distinguish between indexes that aggregate across products same barrier for more products and indexes that aggregate across instruments more barriers for the same product finally in order to classify the large number of indexes covered in our review we propose a typology based on three categories incidence outcome and equivalence

the combination of gravity and welfare approaches for evaluating nontariff measures this article explores the link between gravity and welfare frameworks for measuring the impact of nontariff measures first an analytical approach suggests how to combine a gravity equation with a partial equilibrium model to determine the welfare impact of nontariff measures second an empirical application focuses on the effects of a standard that caps antibiotic residues in crustaceans in the united states the european union canada and japan while the econometric estimation of the gravity equation reports a negative impact on imports welfare evaluations show that in most cases a stricter standard leads to an increase in both domestic and international welfare

plant variety protection in developing countries a report from the field the establishment of intellectual property rights iprs for plant varieties has caused considerable controversy but there is relatively little empirical evidence on performance and options in developing countries this paper summarizes the results of a recent five country study concentrating on the conduct of plant variety protection pvp regimes it examines pvp in the context of other mechanisms that provide incentives for plant breeding it discusses the principal options available to developing countries and examines the ability of pvp to offer protection from competing firms and from on farm seed saving it also looks at the administrative and management requirements of pvp regimes although the paper does not discuss patent protection for biotechnology it examines the ipr requirements for the introduction of transgenic varieties developing countries need to establish an appropriate pvp system but pvp should be seen as part of a broader strategy for seed system development

looking beyond national boundaries regional harmonization of seed policies laws and regulations countries in west eastern and southern africa are pursuing the regional harmonization of their seed laws and regulations common regulatory frameworks are expected to reduce the costs of trading seed and encourage scale economies in seed production as a result commercial seed production is expected to expand providing farmers with improved access to new varieties and stimulating productivity growth the impact of these harmonization efforts will depend on the details of the regulatory agreements policy makers are being asked to consider a complicated series of trade offs between stricter measures for quality control and the need to encourage the multiplication and distribution of lower cost seed they are also being confronted with two possible views of sectoral development one view entails the pursuit of better linkages between distinct national seed markets the second involves the development of truly regionalized seed markets where seed can be readily produced in one country and sold in any other country this implies greater regional interdependence of seed supply the paper compares the harmonization agreements being pursued in each of the three african regions and progress in implementing the accords efforts to adapt international seed market standards to the contingencies of african markets are discussed and priorities for further policy analysis are identified

finite lifetimes and growth abstract in this paper we study the long run growth property of overlapping generations models it is shown that in one sector models with convex technologies the asymptotic growth rate must be zero this results because the young do not have sufficient income to purchase a large capital stock thus a policy of income redistribution to the young can generate growth even if financed by income taxation additionaly it is shown that two sector models and one sector models with nonconvex technologies are consistent with growth

can firms location decisions counteract the balassa samuelson effect this paper examines the determinants of relative prices in a model combining a harrod balassa samuelson hbs mechanism and an endogenous location of traded good producers besides the standard hbs effect asymmetric productivity improvements in the traded good sector push new firms to enter the market this benefits local consumers who save on trade costs and exerts an upward pressure on relative wages as a consequence relative prices in the traded good sector either increase or fall in general equilibrium in a panel cointegration framework the wage effect is shown to dominate this means the hbs effect is strengthened by the relocation of traded good producers

tourism participation and expenditure by spanish households the effects of the economic crisis and unemployment abstract this paper examines household tourism participation decisions and tourism expenditure across the business cycle microdata is used from the spanish household budget survey for the years 2006 2010 facilitating an analysis of the consequences of the economic crisis and unemployment on tourism consumption decisions by households by estimating a heckman model the effects of households socioeconomic determinants on participation and expenditure decisions can be identified taking the year 2008 the beginning of the crisis as a reference the stability of the tourism expenditure model is tested identifying variables whose effects alter in times of crisis one important aspect of the study is how household unemployment affects tourism participation and expenditure decisions the effect of unemployment takes into account whether it is the main breadwinner his or her spouse or another member of the household who is unemployed concentrating on those households whose main breadwinner was employed at the time an analysis is also made of how job insecurity affects tourism consumption decisions from the results the unemployment variables can be seen to have a significant explanatory power suggesting that unemployment information does help to explain the evolution of tourism expenditure across the business cycle

diversification into horticulture and poverty reduction a research agenda summary horticultural produce and processed products from the developing world are becoming increasingly popular both in domestic and in international markets global production and exports are rising steadily however yield increases have been smaller than area growth and have been negligible or even negative in the least developed countries while experience shows that horticulture can offer good opportunities for poverty reduction because it increases income and generates employment care must be taken that small and poor farmers are not excluded from the opportunities in these market sectors in this article we argue that development agencies must put more emphasis on horticultural research and development especially in the following priority areas genetic improvement safe production systems commercial seed production postharvest facilities and the urban peri urban environment

calculating marginal effects in models for zero expenditures in household budgets using a heckman type correction using the heckamn approach either in single equation or multi equation settings general expressions are derived for calculating marginal effects and elasticities in the conventional calculation of marginal effects terms related to the change in the inverse of mills ratio are omitted using data from the 19877 88 nationwide food consumption survey we calculate income and household size elasticities for 12 food commodities we compare the magnitudes and signs of the elasticities using the conventional expressions of marginal effects and our derived expressions bottomline sizeable differences especially in single equation applications can occur in calculating marginal effects if one fails to account for changes in the inverse of the mills ratio

estimation and welfare calculations in a generalized corner solution model with an application to recreation demand the kuhn tucker model of wales and woodland 1983 provides a utility theoretic framework for estimating preferences over commodities for which individuals choose not to consume one or more of the goods due to the complexity of the model however there have been few applications in the literature and little attention has been paid to the problems of welfare analysis within the kuhn tucker framework this paper provides an application of the model to the problem of recreation demand in addition we develop and apply a methodology for estimating compensating variation relying on monte carlo integration to derive expected welfare changes

understanding the financing of innovation and commercialization the case of the canadian functional food and nutraceutical sector we develop and implement two models to show what factors affect a firm s decision to seek external financing and the level of financing obtained in the canadian functional food and nutraceutical sector data from a national survey of functional foods and nutraceutical firms in canada conducted by statistics canada in 2003 is used for this analysis firm size being privately held and engaging in contractual arrangements have negative impacts on the likelihood of a firm seeking external funding while firms which are intensively involved in the functional food and nutraceutical sector with greater prospects for business expansion and or involved in partnerships are more likely to seek external financing larger firms and those involved in functional food and nutraceutical research and development receive a greater amount of capital when they decide to raise capital however firms focused on functional foods and nutraceuticals as opposed to more diversified firms and those involved in product developm

competition in corruptible markets firms seeking business opportunities often face corruptible agents in many markets this paper investigates the marketing strategy implications for firms competing for business and for the buyer in a corruptible market we consider a setting in which a buyer a firm or government seeks to purchase a good through a corruptible agent supplier firms that may or may not be a good fit compete to be selected by the agent only the agent observes whether a firm is a good fit corruption arises due to the agent s incentive to select a nondeserving firm in exchange for bribes intuitively and as expected a sufficiently large monitoring of the agent eradicates corruption interestingly however increasing the monitoring from an initial low level can backfire making the agent more likely to select a nondeserving firm this nonmonotonic agent behavior makes it difficult for the buyer to reduce corruption the implication is that the buyer should choose either to be ignorant or to take drastic measures to limit

compositional standards import permits and market structure the case of canadian cheese imports the imposition of cheese compositional standards by the canadian authorities has created divisions within the canadian dairy industry and has motivated criticisms from several of canada s trade partners the standards impose minimum limits on the percentage of casein coming from fluid milk we develop a theoretical model to investigate the implications of canada s compositional cheese standards while accounting for canada s trade policy we illustrate why a type of cheese that is not directly impacted by the standards might be the most affected we show that the standards can decrease the domestic demand for milk or the value of imports our empirical investigation identified breaks in the processes determining import unit values shortly before or shortly after the beginning of the implementation of the standards

the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary measures on market entry and trade flows in an attempt to disentangle the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary sps measures on trade patterns we estimate a heckman selection model on the hs4 disaggregated level of trade we find that aggregated sps measures constitute barriers to agricultural and food trade consistently to all exporters but conditional on market entry trade flows are positively affected by sps measures additionally we find that sps measures related to conformity assessment hamper market entry and trade flows while sps measures related to product characteristics pose an entry barrier but increase bilateral trade flows conditional on meeting the standard

the foreign corrupt practices act a new perspective the foreign corrupt practices act fcpa was found to have no negative effect on the export performance of american industry market share of u s industry in countries where the fcpa is reported to be an important trade disincentive was compared with u s market share in other countries no differences were discovered

evaluating the trade restrictiveness of phytosanitary measures on u s fresh fruit and vegetable imports empirically assessing sanitary and phytosanitary regulations has proven difficult because most data sources indicate whether a regulation exists but provide no information on the type or importance of the respective measure in this article we construct a novel database of u s phytosanitary measures and match these to 47 fresh fruit and vegetable product imports from 89 exporting countries over the period 1996 2008 a product line gravity equation that accounts for zero trade flows is developed to investigate the trade impact of different pest mitigation measures while the results suggest that phytosanitary treatments generally reduce trade the actual restrictiveness of these measures diminishes dramatically as exporters accumulate experience and it vanishes when exporters reach a certain threshold the results have important policy implications considering the number of empirical studies that find a negative impact of non tariff measures on trade copyright 2013 oxford university press

why do diplomas pay an expanded mincerian framework applied to mexico we compare four explanations for the value of diplomas each of which has implications for unemployment and wage variation amongst graduates most of which have not previously been tested for when seeking to explain the effects of diplomas we test for these implications using a refined econometric framework exploiting idiosyncrasies in mexican labour market and educational institutions premiums in mexico appear to result from diplomas tied to jobs with downwards rigid wages an uncommon but simple explanation the standard explanations including screening are not suggested by mexican data our results illuminate how labour markets segmented by diplomas clear this depends upon the nature of the labour market rigidities exactly as predicted by neoclassical theory

expenditure elasticities of the demand for leisure services although some research has already focused on the analysis of expenditure elasticities of leisure demand some shortcomings with regard to the content and the underlying theoretical model as well as the applied methods exist this article aims at avoiding these problems to provide consistent derivatives of leisure service expenditure elasticities therefore a regular demand system is derived from microeconomic duality theory to implement leisure specific demand factors i e demand and supply based sports and recreational opportunities as well as sports and recreational preferences while still being consistent with neoclassical demand theory the basic model is extended by applying the demographic translation framework data of the continuous household budget survey n 7724 from germany is used for the estimation of the derived demand system it is shown how sensitive the results are depending on the applied censored regression model 16 out of 18 analysed services are indicated as luxury goods b

input use and market development in sub saharan africa an overview abstract this paper sets forth the background and objectives of this special issue trends in input use since 1980 are reviewed and a conceptual framework is presented for analyzing problems of input use and formulating strategies for resolving them reasons for low levels of fertilizer use by smallholder farmers are summarized briefly the essential points of the papers in the special issue and their implications for further expansion of input use in sub saharan africa are then outlined

potential of regional and seasonal requirements in us regulation of fresh lemon imports peterson regional destination and seasonal access restrictions are regulatory options available to mitigate pest risk on imported fresh fruits and vegetables rather than impose an import ban this paper analyses the economic effects of potential entry of argentine lemons into the united states under alternative geographic and seasonal restrictions one challenge to assessing the economic effect of entry is determining the post entry quantity of argentine exports using a homothetic trans log expenditure function we calibrate a set of reservation prices for us demand for argentine lemons based on observed prices and quantities of other lemon varieties these are compared with a set of projected entry prices to determine whether entry will occur and post entry export levels across the policy scenarios argentine lemon exports to the united states range from 8 0 to 14 9 million kg higher prices for argentine lemons reduce its exports to the european union and other markets while lemon exports from chile and mexico are adversely affected broader applications of regional and or seasonal restrictions may be effective policies for achieving pest risk mitigation goals in a manner consistent with wto obligations to minimise distortions to trade

how would compliance with dietary recommendations affect revenues for agricultural producers abstract nutritionists and other health experts have recommended a range of dietary plans and these often differ significantly although the usda food guides have been the most visible in the united states other dietary plans now are achieving greater public recognition our analysis extracts the nutrient recommendations for seven dietary plans and models the recommendations as shifts in demand for the nutrients demand shifts for nutrients are combined with nutrient composition shares to simulate the revenue implications in selected agricultural markets based on current consumption patterns in the united states we find that compliance with harvard s healthy eating pyramid would generate the greatest revenue gains for specialty crop producers in california

the impact of economic reforms on r d by the indian seed industry abstract declining support for public research and advances in technology and new forms of legal protection have induced more private agricultural research in developing countries this has sparked a debate about appropriate policies regarding private research in this context we examine empirically the consequences of reforms in india s seed policies which loosened various restrictions on the private sector the period since the reforms has shown a remarkable increase in r d effort and an increase in the number of private technology suppliers we argue these changes were largely due to policy reforms

deriving conditional and unconditional marginal effects in log earnings equations estimated by heckman s procedure although the heckman approach has often been used in empirical analysis the marginal effects necessary to interpret the effect of the regressors on the dependent variable appeared to be overlooked using the heckman approach general expressions are derived for calculating the conditional and unconditional marginal effects based on a sample of brazilian women the conditional and unconditional return to education are calculated for the logarithm of earnings equation estimated by heckman s procedure comparing them to the marginal effect of education obtained without correcting for selectivity bias the same analysis is carried out for a discrete variable black

economic growth with finite lifetimes abstract finite lifetimes do not preclude sustained growth with a convex technology when agents are finitely lived and formulate their bequeathing decisions in terms of an absolute bequest motive in this model the presence of government debt adversely affects the equilibrium rate of growth of the capital stock

growth with unintended bequests abstract in an overlapping generations model with finite lifetimes sustained growth is possible if there is a positive risk of death a redistribution occurs when non altruistic parents leave unintended bequests to their children

the extent of nontariff barriers to industrial countries imports this paper examines the extent of non tariff barriers to sixteen industrial countries visible imports using three alternative measures it shows that governmental commodity specific border measures affect over 27 of all imports and over 34 of imports from developing countries it also shows that during the period 1981 83 ntbs became significantly more extensive detailed statistics reveal considerable variations in ntb coverage by commodity type of barrier importer and exporter the data on which these conclusions are based are compiled from official information at the finest level of disaggregation they are described in the paper

tariff equivalent of technical barriers to trade with imperfect substitution and trade costs the price wedge method yields a tariff equivalent estimate of technical barriers to trade tbt an extension of this method accounts for imperfect substitution between domestic and imported goods and incorporates recent findings on trade costs we explore the sensitivity of this revamped tbt estimate to its key determinants substitution elasticity preference for home good and trade cost we use the augmented approach to investigate the recent japan u s apple trade dispute and find that removing the japanese tbt would yield limited export gains to the united states we then draw policy implications of our findings

the future of small farms new directions for services institutions and intermediation summary efficient pre and post harvest services are essential if small farms in high potential areas are to intensify production contribute to economic growth and reduce poverty they also matter if small farms in marginal areas are to manage their natural resource base in the face of growing population pressure and climate change difficulties that smallholders face in accessing services are reviewed showing how incentives for commercial delivery of services to smallholders differ between staple food traditional cash crop and high value product supply chains the major challenge in service delivery to smallholders in much of africa concerns coordination of service development and delivery different forms of intermediary institution for achieving such coordination are examined

the trade and welfare impact of australian quarantine policies the case of pigmeat we analyze the trade and welfare impact of quarantine measures imposed by australia on imports of pigmeat in particular we account for changes to australia s pigmeat quarantine policy over time including those changes related to the recent resolution of a wto dispute between australia and the european union using a random utility model and applying it to corner solutions in import decisions tariff equivalents by major trading partner are estimated for the different pigmeat quarantine regimes implemented by australia during the period 1988 2009 the welfare impact on consumers producers and foreign exporters is computed using a partial equilibrium model calibrated on the econometric estimates the quarantine regimes have a strong effect on trade and welfare with a tariff equivalent above 113 of average real world prices over the period analyzed

protectionism versus risk in screening for invasive species abstract i examine the extent to which enforcement of a biosecurity import restriction us border inspections for foreign pests and diseases is used as a protectionist trade barrier the parameters of a structural model of border inspection are estimated using a detailed dataset documenting the outcome of us agricultural border inspections i find that inspections are conducted in a manner that places an implied welfare weight on domestic producers relative to consumers ranging from 1 to 1 63 i also find evidence that the inspection agency takes terms of trade into account when inspecting agricultural imports these results suggest that border inspections are used as a protectionist non tariff barrier

an argument for deregulating the transfer of agricultural technologies to developing countries in the past few decades many developing countries have liberalized trade and investment removing barriers to imports and allowing the introduction of new foreign technologies unfortunately agriculture often remains outside this reform process regulatory obstacles continue to restrain the transfer of technologies through private trade in seeds and other inputs industrial countries characteristically allow the transfer of private and public technologies through multiple channels developing countries often force technology transfer through a single channel controlled by government agencies with an emphasis on official performance tests this article analyzes the institutional arrangements governing the international transfer of new agricultural technologies examining the cases of agricultural machinery in bangladesh and seed varieties in turkey the analysis shows that allowing the private transfer of technologies and refocusing input regulations on externalities could lead to significant productivity and income gains in developing countries