household level spillover effects from biofuels evidence from castor in ethiopia the indirect effects of biofuels are mostly considered negative in this paper we argue that there may be a positive indirect effect of biofuels on food security and poverty using micro level evidence and a matched plot pair design through which we control for plot and farmer characteristics we show that the introduction of castor production for biofuel in a poor country as ethiopia can significantly improve food productivity of rural households who produce raw material for biofuel production this spillover seems particularly linked to enhanced access to inputs and technical assistance which were provided as part of biofuel feedstock production contracts our results thus document another mechanism through which biofuels may influence smallholders food security a mechanism that did not receive attention so far

the effect of distance and road quality on food collection marketing margins and traders wages evidence from the former zaire abstract food price variation is typical of the food economies of many low income countries the presence or absence of road infrastructure is perceived to be one of the main determinants of this variation this analysis shows that in the case of the former zaire food price dispersion is significant both across products and across regions it is demonstrated that transportation costs explain most of the differences in food prices between producer regions and that road quality is an important factor in the transportation costs however food prices decrease relatively faster than transportation costs increase and traders wages are higher on bad roads

the political economy of regulations and trade wine trade 1860 1970 dramatic changes in the 1860 1970 wine trade provide insights on the political economy of regulations and policy instrument choice and trade an invasion of phylloxera in the 1870s turned france from the world s leading exporter to a massive importer of wine and grapes when french production recovered a combination of tariffs safety regulations and quality standards were introduced to protect its french producers causing dramatic changes in global wine and grape production and trade including in spain italy turkey greece algeria tunisia and morocco changes in wine regulations were caused by relative income and loss aversion factors in political economy tariffs were the preferred policy instruments as they directly restrict imports bring in revenues have low transaction costs and are preferred political instruments when there are information imperfections safety regulations and quality standards including labelling and input prohibitions reduce asymmetric information for consumers or undesirable externalities and simultaneously protected domestic producers regulations were often targeted at imported products wine and raisins when tariffs were ineffective or constrained by institutions such as on colonial wine hence tariffs and quality regulations were jointly used in wine policy both as complements and as substitutes in policy design

transportation policy and panterritorial pricing in africa many african countries interfere with the spatial pattern of agricultural prices and often mandate a spatially constant panterritorial price such policies are conceptually identical to the pricing of transport services the pricing and transportation policies of the ivorian cotton parastatal provide a case study the loss in producer surplus from raising current revenues by panterritorial pricing is compared with an optimal policy that minimizes producer loss for current revenues a switch to the optimal policy would provide only small gains at higher revenue levels however the gains would increase these policies are also contrasted with another suboptimal policy full cost pricing of transport with an export tax by dispersing production panterritorial pricing inflates that gains from transport projects transport investment and pricing reform are therefore assessed simultaneously the number and location of the purchasing depots are also discussed

adoption of agricultural innovations in developing countries a survey this paper reviews various studies which have provided a description and possible explanation to patterns of innovation adoption in the agricultural sector the survey points out that the tendency of many studies to consider innovation adoption in dichotomous terms adoption nonadoption may not be appropriate in many cases where the actual decisions are defined over a more continuous range more attention needs to be given to the socio cultural and institutional environment in area studies so that their interrelation with economic factors affecting adoption can be inferred the presence of several interrelated innovations is another aspect that needs to be considered more carefully in future research since a number of simultaneous decisions may be involved furthermore the possibility of regular sequential patterns in adopting components of a new technological package should be specifically addressed in future studies finally the impact of differential adoption rates on land holding distribution merits attention in future research

panterritorial versus regional pricing for maize in zimbabwe abstract this paper presents a spatial equilibrium model of zimbabwe s maize market designed to compare the current system of panterritorial prices with the pareto optimal pattern of regional price variation that would occur in a competitive market the model shows that under baseline 1988 conditions competitive pricing would raise aggregate welfare by about us 14 million annually about 4 of producer plus consumer surplus while improving income distribution by favoring the majority of smallholder farmers in southern deficit areas and urban consumers in northern surplus areas thus the model suggests that liberalization could improve both efficiency and equity administered regional prices in a controlled market could yield some of these gains to the extent that production and processing were brought closer to consumers

on measuring the benefits of lower transport costs despite large amounts invested in rural roads in developing countries little is known about their benefits this paper derives an expression for the willingness to pay for a reduction in transport costs from the canonical agricultural household model and uses it to estimate the benefits of a hypothetical road project estimation is based on novel cross sectional data collected in a small region of madagascar with enormous yet plausibly exogenous variation in transport cost a road that essentially eliminated transport costs in the study area would boost the incomes of the remotest households those facing transport costs of about usd 75 ton by nearly half mostly by raising non farm earnings this benefit estimate is contrasted to one based on a hedonic approach

how private contract enforcement mechanisms can succeed where public institutions fail the case of juhocukor a s the enforcement of contracts is necessary for efficient exchange and investment in economic activities contracts can be enforced through a variety of mechanisms both public and private however in many developing and transitional countries these public institutions are either absent or ineffective in ensuring contract enforcement under such conditions private enforcement mechanisms may provide a suitable replacement for public enforcement institutions this may be done externally through a third party or internally through self enforcing agreements this paper analyzes the use of self enforcing arrangements or internal private enforcement mechanisms using a case study of an agri business in a transition economy juhocukor a s a slovakian sugar processor we show that the use of internal private contract enforcement mechanisms can have a significant positive effect on output and efficiency for both partners to the exchange transaction in an environment characterized by the absence or ineffectiveness of public enforcement institutions 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

optimal investment in transportation infrastructure when middlemen have market power a developing country analysis transportation costs and buyer market power reduce prices and income received by farmers in developing countries transportation costs directly affect the marketing margin and also exacerbate market power by limiting farmers access to buyers this article develops a multistage spatial model to determine optimal investment in transportation improvements taking account of impacts on marketing costs and competition the beneficial impact of investments from farmers perspective is mainly through enhanced competition meaning significant under investment may occur if this effect is ignored however the optimal investment depends on the relative importance of transportation costs in some settings transportation improvements reduce farm prices because buyers rationally over compensate farmers for these costs

farmer participation in supermarket channels production technology and efficiency the case of vegetables in kenya supermarkets are gaining ground in agrifood systems of many developing countries while recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector impacts on productivity and efficiency have hardly been studied we use a meta frontier approach and combine this with propensity score matching to estimate treatment effects among vegetable farmers in kenya participation in supermarket channels increases farm productivity in terms of meta technology ratios by 45 we also find positive and significant impacts on technical efficiency and scale efficiency supermarket expansion therefore presents opportunities for agricultural growth in the small farm sector which is crucial for poverty reduction in africa copyright 2012 oxford university press

biofuels and food security micro evidence from ethiopia abstract there is considerable controversy about the impact of biofuels on food security in developing countries a major concern is that biofuels reduce food security by increasing food prices in this paper we use survey evidence to assess the impact of castor production on poor and food insecure rural households in ethiopia about 1 3 of poor farmers have allocated on average 15 of their land to the production of castor beans under contract in biofuel supply chains castor production significantly improves their food security they have fewer months without food and the amount of food they consume increases castor cultivation is beneficial for participating households food security in several ways by generating cash income from castor contracts they can store food for the lean season castor beans preserve well on the field which allows sales when farmers are in need of cash or food spillover effects of castor contracts increases the productivity of food crops increased food crop productivity offsets the amount of land used for castor so that the total local food supply is not affected

transportation state marketing and the taxation of the agricultural hinterland in raising revenues governments of poor countries affect farm gate prices for export crops because agriculture is dispersed interventions have spatial effects leading to an integrated analysis of taxation marketing and transportation policies to be used singly or together include land export and transportation taxes subsidies and variants of state marketing in which only government procures crops an export tax and a transport subsidy may be optimal with state marketing important aspects of buying depots are numbers locations spatial pattern of prices paid and movement of output toward or away from the ultimate market these policies also affect transport investment strategies

monopoly with incomplete information recent theoretical research on principal agent relationships has emphasized incentive problems that arise when the parties involved are constrained by either asymmetric information or their inability to monitor each other s actions here we concentrate on the former constraint and consider the case of a single principal the monopolist the main contribution is to show that under a separability assumption strong conclusions can be drawn about the nature of optimal incentive schemes although the primary focus is on optimal quantity discounts in a monopolized market the results also shed light on related topics such as optimal income taxation and commodity bundling

some dynamic aspects of food standards food standards have existed since the beginning of trade and exchange but have increased and expanded in recent years affecting global and local value chains this has triggered vigorous debates on the impacts on trade and development standards may simultaneously enhance economic efficiency and redistribute rents complicating policy analysis and implying that the economics and the politics of standards are often hard to separate while substantial research has contributed important insights dynamic aspects of standards have not received much attention i present a framework to illustrate some dynamic economic and political aspects of standards in closed and open economies this framework integrates changes over time in preferences implementation costs and protectionist pressures as determinants of standards and suggests explanations for persistent differences in food standards across countries hysteresis in standards can persist due to protectionist motives even if the initial standards were not introduced for protectionist reasons i use some historical cases to document both the persistence and adjustment of standards over time and with international integration

contract farming smallholders and rural development in latin america the organization of agroprocessing firms and the scale of outgrower production abstract this paper demonstrates how contract farming functions as an economic institution and explores the causes of the observed variation in the scale of outgrower production in latin america we outline how market imperfections and transaction costs influence the decision of agroprocessing firms to contract out vertically integrate or use spot markets to obtain raw product the paper demonstrates how market conditions are likely to be associated with particular outgrower characteristics under contract farming an analysis of the mexican frozen vegetable industry illustrates determinants of successful and unsuccessful small scale contracting and suggests alternative policies to promote contract farming with smallholders

globalization privatization and vertical coordination in food value chains in developing and transition countries food and agricultural commodity value chains in developing and transition countries have undergone tremendous changes in the past decades companies and property rights have been privatized markets liberalized and economies integrated into global food systems the liberalization and privatization initially caused the collapse of state controlled vertical coordination more recently private vertical coordination systems have emerged and are growing rapidly as a response to consumer demand for food quality and safety on the one hand and the farms production constraints caused by factor market imperfections in this article we 1 demonstrate the importance of these changes 2 discuss the implications for efficiency and equity and 3 provide empirical evidence on the effects in several developing and transition countries

economics and politics of food standards trade and development standards have played an important role in food trade for a very long time their rapid growth in recent years has triggered vigorous debates on their impacts on international trade and development with many arguing that standards are non tariff barriers to trade and that standards are marginalizing the poor i present conceptual frameworks and review empirical evidence on the equity and efficiency effects and the political economy of standards models which incorporate essential aspects of standards yield complex theoretical results and nuanced conclusions careful empirical analyses support such nuanced arguments and find complex effects for trade standards can create welfare gains but also involve rent redistribution which induces lobbying by interest groups to set the standards at their preferred level this makes it difficult to distinguish socially desirable standards from those resulting from political rent seeking for development it is crucial to explicitly account for a the endogeneity of the institutional organization of value chains and b both smallholder contracting and employment creation on large scale farms when considering the impact of standards on development and poverty

disentangling demand enhancing and trade cost effects of maximum residue regulations maximum residue level mrl regulations in plant products can create unnecessary trade barriers on one hand and enhance demand via risk mitigation or quality assurance on the other we stipulate a generalized gravity equation model to disentangle the effects of mrls on the import demand and foreign exporters supply applying the framework to the mrls on pesticides imposed by high income organization for economic co operation and development countries we find that the mrls jointly enhance the import demand and hinder foreign exporters supply in addition exporters from the less and least developed countries are more constrained by the mrls than their competitors from the developed world jel f14 q17

governance and trade in fresh vegetables the impact of uk supermarkets on the african horticulture industry production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub saharan africa over the last decade this trade brings producers and exporters based in africa together with importers and retailers in europe large retailers in europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from africa the requirements they specify for cost quality delivery product variety innovation food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out the control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by uk supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types and for the long term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied kenya and zimbabwe

local and personal networks in employment and the development of labor markets evidence from the cut flower industry in ethiopia summary we examine the roles of local and personal networks in the employment process and the emergence and development of the labor market in ethiopia s growing cut flower industry using primary survey data of 320 workers randomly sampled from all 64 farms we find that workers who were recruited informally using the social ties were paid less than the formally recruited workers at hiring however these workers quickly increased their productivity and the effect of social ties on wages disappeared over time further we find that the development of labor market for this newly emerged industry took place particularly within the industrial cluster

horticultural exports female wage employment and primary school enrolment theory and evidence from senegal abstract in this paper we analyse the indirect effects of the boom in horticultural exports in senegal on child schooling the export boom has caused a dramatic increase in female off farm wage employment which led to increased female bargaining power in the household we investigate the causal effect of female wage income on primary school enrolment we develop a collective household model with endogenous bargaining power to show that if women have higher preferences for schooling than men the impact of female wage income on school enrolment will be the result of a positive income effect a negative labour substitution effect and a positive empowerment effect we address the question empirically using original household survey data from senegal we use different econometric techniques and show that female off farm wage income has a positive effect on primary school enrolment for both boys and girls and that female empowerment is specifically important for the schooling of girls our results imply that the horticultural export boom in senegal has indirectly contributed to the second and third millennium development goals of universal primary education and elimination of gender disparities in primary education

trade standards and poverty evidence from senegal summary in the debate on trade and poverty it is argued that standards act as trade barriers and cause marginalization of the poor this paper quantifies income and poverty effects of high standards trade and integrates labor market effects by using company and household survey data from the vegetable export chain in senegal we find that exports grew sharply despite increasing standards contributing importantly to rural incomes and poverty reduction tightening standards induced a shift from smallholder contract farming to integrated estate production altering the mechanism through which poor households benefit through labor markets instead of product markets

when are private standards more stringent than public standards retailers private standards are increasingly important for addressing consumer concerns about safety quality and social and environmental issues empirical evidence shows that these private standards are frequently more stringent than their public counterparts this article develops a political economy model that helps explain this stylized fact we show that if producers exercise their political power to persuade the government to impose a lower public standard retailers may apply their market power to install a private standard at a higher level than the public one depending on several factors

fighting the tide alternative trade organizations in the era of global free trade abstract this paper explores the proliferation of fair trade organizations their products services and client groups in order to establish the impact of this movement although small in volume alternative trade represents a unique response to the relentless pursuit of free trade through the gatt wto process the economic underpinnings of both fair trade and subsidy programs in general such as the eu s stabilization of exchange system are evaluated ultimately alternative trade can provide significant assistance to targeted groups within developing countries including gains in production and export proficiency on the negative side fair trade is likely to prolong the dependence of developing countries on products with poor future prospects

the social performance and distributional consequences of contract farming an equilibrium analysis of the arachide de bouche program in senegal abstract this paper is an empirical analysis of the impact of a contract farming program in senegal we examine the access of poorer community members to contracts and the effect of the program on the income of participants the program performs very well on both counts participants and nonparticipants are indistinguishable by wealth measures and farmers increase their income substantially by participating in the program we attribute the former to the program s mobilization of local information through its use of village intermediaries permitting the substitution of social collateral for physical collateral and making the program more accessible to the poor

global value chains large scale farming and poverty long term effects in senegal this paper presents panel data evidence on the impact of expansion of global value chains and large scale export oriented farms in developing countries over almost a decade we estimate the income effects of wage employment on large scale farms in the horticultural export sector in senegal using data from two survey rounds covering a seven years period of rapid expansion of the sector we estimate average income effects as well as heterogeneous income effects using fixed effects and quantile fixed effects regressions we find that poverty and inequality reduced much faster in the research area than elsewhere in senegal employment in the horticultural export sector is associated with higher household income and the income effect is strongest for the poorest households expansion of the horticultural export sector in senegal has been particularly pro poor through creating employment that is accessible and creates substantial income gains for the poorest half of the rural population these pro poor employment effects contrast with insights in the literature on increased inequality from rural wage employment

food safety issues and fresh food product exports from ldcs fresh food products have a high income elasticity of demand and few traditional trade barriers in high income markets as such they represent an important opportunity for less developed country ldc exporters fresh food product exports account for half of all food and agricultural exports from ldcs to high income countries but these products may be subject to greater food safety risks and potential trade barriers arising from sanitary regulation this paper reviews the challenges and issues facing ldcs in meeting food safety standards for export these issues include a the importance of fresh food product trade by region and the kinds of issues that arise from those products b the role of farm to table approaches and hazard analysis critical control points haccp in ensuring safety c the role of the public sector in ldcs in facilitating trade d the potential role of the sps agreement in resolving disputes and determining equivalency of standards between high and low income countries

peer monitoring and credit markets a major problem for institutional lenders is ensuring that borrowers exercise prudence in the use of the funds so that the likelihood of repayment is enhanced one partial solution is peer monitoring having neighbors who are in a good position to monitor the borrower be required to pay a penalty if the borrower goes bankrupt peer monitoring is largely responsible for the successful financial performance of the grameen bank of bangladesh and of similar group lending programs elsewhere but peer monitoring has a cost it transfers risk from the bank which is in a better position to bear risk to the cosigner in a simple model of peer monitoring in a competitive credit market this article demonstrates that the transfer of risk leads to an improvement in borrowers welfare

the impact of rules of origin on trade flows a great deal of post war trade liberalization resulted from regional preferential trade agreements preferential trade agreements cut tariffs on goods originating only in those nations that have signed the agreement therefore they need rules of origin to determine which goods benefit from the tariff cut rules of origin have long been ignored for two good reasons they are dauntingly complex and at first sight appear mind numbingly dull the third standard reason for ignoring them the assertion that they do not matter much turns out to be wrong we show that rules of origin are important barriers to trade moreover such rules are emerging as an important trade issue for three additional reasons first preferential trade deals are proliferating worldwide second the global fragmentation of production implies complex international supply chains which are particularly constrained and distorted by rules of origin third the extent to which regionalism challenges the wto based trading system depends in part on incompatibilities and rigidities built into rules of origin our empirical results exploit a natural experiment that was created by technical changes to europe s lattice of rules of origin roos in 1997 this change known as diagonal cumulation relaxed the restrictiveness of rules of origin on trade among the eu s free trade agreement fta partners without changing the degree of tariff preference our analysis allows us to establish a lower bound and upper bound estimate of trade impact of roos reduced trade among the eu s trade partners the lower bound we find is something like 10 while the upper bound is around 70 the second part of the paper draws the policy lessons that arise from considering the implications of our empirical findings the most direct lessons are for fta writers we argue that europe s implementation of cumulation is a good way of reducing the welfare reducing impact of overlapping rules of origin without gutting their fraud fighting ability we also suggest a three part procedure for establishing a more multilateral framework for rules of origin which would be more transparent flexible administratively feasible and negotiable patricia augier michael gasiorek and charles lai tong

key findings of the ntm impact project this introduction summarises some of the key research findings of the papers in this special issue of the world economy drawn from a european commission co funded project on non tariff measures ntms affecting agri food trade of the eu and its trade partners the project created a large symmetric international database of regulations and standards constructed measures of their heterogeneity and evaluated the effects of heterogeneity on trade cases studies for selected dairy meat and fruit and vegetable products complement the aggregate analysis the findings suggest that at least for some import standards the harmonisation of regulations will increase trade additional findings address the potential protectionist leaning of some ntms their welfare impact third country consequences of their imposition interface of ntms with tariffs and other border measures negotiation strategies north south dimensions of ntm impacts and the value added from the application of diverse and novel models to the assessment of their effects resume d auteur

private enforcement capital and contract enforcement in transition economies the enforcement of contracts is necessary for efficient exchange and investment in economic activities there are many situations where public institutions are ineffective in enforcing contracts this is the case in economies in transition where public enforcement institutions themselves are being reformed under such conditions private mechanisms could enforce contracts external private enforcement is done by third parties e g strong arm private agents although such enforcement may be effective it may have unwanted externalities alternatively internal private enforcement can be done through the use of so called private enforcement capital i e private losses that result from breaching the contract these losses result directly from contract termination or non renewal and indirectly from reputational damage by designing contracts such that these private losses from contract breach outweigh potential benefits contracts can be made self enforcing in this article we first present a conceptual framework to interpret contracts and to analyze how the use of private enforcement capital can enforce contracts then we illustrate such internal private contract enforcement mechanisms with several case study examples of agri business contracting in transition countries where public enforcement fails

the impact of interfirm relationships on investment evidence from the polish dairy sector abstract financial constraints and credit market imperfections are a major constraint on investment growth and poverty reduction in transition and developing countries this paper analyses the impact on investments of financial assistance programs as part of interfirm relationships our empirical evidence is based on a two stage survey methodology qualitative evidence on dairy companies assistance programs was gathered in the first stage through in depth interviews at the level of the dairy companies quantitative data on 290 milk producing rural households in poland was collected through a random survey in the second stage the empirical analysis shows that dairy companies have played an important role in financial assistance in particular for dairy specific investments in addition they had an important indirect impact on farm activities and investments through feed supply and loan guarantee programs

a gendered value chain approach to codes of conduct in african horticulture codes of conduct covering the employment conditions of southern producers exporting to european markets mushroomed throughout the 1990s especially in the horticulture sector linking uk and european supermarkets with export firms in africa the majority of employment in this sector is informal a significant proportion of which is female this paper explores the gender sensitivity of codes currently applied in the african export horticulture sector from an analytical perspective that combines global value chain and gendered economy approaches through an analysis of these two approaches it develops a gender pyramid which provides a framework for mapping and assessing the gender content of codes of conduct the pyramid is applied to codes that cover employment conditions in three commodity groups and countries exporting to european markets south african fruit kenyan flowers and zambian vegetables and flowers it concludes that the gender sensitivity of codes needs to be greatly enhanced if they are to adequately address employment conditions relevant to informal and especially women workers

agrifood industry transformation and small farmers in developing countries summary this article introduces this special issue on the rapid transformation of the agrifood industry in developing countries and its effects on small farmers we review the literature from the late 1980s to the present and find evidence first of food processing then retail transformation and mixed evidence of impacts on small farmers both inclusion particularly with resource providing contracts and exclusion sometimes from scale constraint sometimes from inadequate non land assets the special issue papers contribute to the debate by confirming the mix of cases of inclusion and exclusion the cases are main in horticulture and dairy key hopes for smallholder development

supermarkets farm household income and poverty insights from kenya summary the expansion of supermarkets in developing countries may have important implications for poverty and rural development while previous studies have compared farm profits between participants and non participants in supermarket channels wider income effects have hardly been analyzed moreover most existing studies do not account for structural differences between the two groups we address these issues by using endogenous switching regression and building on a survey of vegetable farmers in kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with a 48 gain in average household income which also contributes to poverty reduction to realize these benefits on a larger scale will require institutional support

nonprofits and public good provision a contest based on compromises abstract two competing nonprofits with ideologically distinct missions compete for donor funding to provide an indivisible public good in a population with heterogeneous preferences this paper examines the extent to which average public values are undermined and nonprofits ideology compromised in a contractual game in which the right to provide the public good is the outcome of competition between nonprofits we also scrutinize the roles of i cooperative versus competitive contracting ii multiple public goods iii enforceability of actions and iv observability of nonprofit costs in determining the equilibrium terms of the contract in each case the intensity of the ideological divide between the donor and the nonprofits jointly impact the degree to which compromises are made in terms of both the public s and nonprofit s missions and the ability on the part of the donor to reap double cost saving and strategic financial gains

goodwill bazaar ngo competition and giving to development this paper builds a model of competition through fundraising between horizontally differentiated ngos ngos allocate their time resource between working on the project and fundraising which attracts private donations if the market size is fixed the fundraising levels increase with the number of ngos and the free entry equilibrium number of ngos can be larger or smaller than the socially optimal number depending on the efficiency of the fundraising technology if the market size is endogenous and ngos cooperate in attracting new donors fundraising levels decrease with the number of ngos and the free entry equilibrium number of ngos is smaller than the one that maximizes the welfare of donors and beneficiaries if ngos can divert funds for private use multiple equilibria with high diversion and no diversion of funds appear

protectionism indices for non tariff measures an application to maximum residue levels abstract we propose aggregation indices of non tariff measures ntms to quantify their protectionism relative to international standards of stringency we apply the indices to national maximum residue limit mrl regulations on pesticides and veterinary drugs affecting agricultural and food trade and using a science based criteria embodied in codex alimentarius international standards the approach links two streams of the ntm literature one concerned with the aggregation of various ntms into operational indices for econometric and modeling purposes and the other attempting to evaluate the protectionism of ntms the data used in the application come from a large international dataset on veterinary and pesticide mrls and codex mrl standards for a large set of countries

political economy of the media and consumer perceptions of biotechnology although households are flooded with information through dozens of tv channels plenty of newspapers journals and radio the public is said to be poorly informed on many important issues for example european consumers oppose genetically modified gm foods despite scientists and official institutions claiming those products are safe these reactions are blamed on consumers being poorly informed there is an extensive literature on imperfect information see akerlof stiglitz an important implicit assumption in this literature is that such information problems may be solved by providing more information the problem is that information provision is assumed to be neutral however in reality most information is not provided by institutions whose objective is to foster the public good but by organizations who have an internal incentive to select certain information and certain forms of information over other information it is either provided by private sources with their own profitmaximizing objectives or by public sources that may have the formal goal of providing objective information but administrators and governments may have incentives to bias the information this issue is particularly relevant for consumers risk perceptions about gm foods over 90 of consumers receive information about food and biotechnology primarily through the popular press and television hoban and kendall extensive media coverage of possible risks can lead to decreased demand for example johnson shows how media coverage of product contamination by

increasing returns and market efficiency in agricultural trade abstract using detailed trader surveys in benin madagascar and malawi this paper investigates the presence of increasing returns in agricultural trade after analyzing margins costs and value added we find little evidence of returns to scale motorized transport is found more cost effective for large loads on longer distances but transporters appear to pool quantities from multiple traders margin rates show little relationship with transaction size personal travel costs are a source of increasing returns but the effect is small consequently total marketing costs are nearly proportional to transaction size working and network capital are key determinants of value added constant returns to scale in all accumulable factors working capital labor and network capital cannot be rejected this implies that policies to restrict entry into agricultural trade are neither necessary nor useful governments should focus instead on technological and institutional innovations to upgrade agricultural markets

economic growth convergence and agricultural economics after nearly two centuries of lagging behind the industrial countries growth in many developing countries has surged since the early 1990s this outperformance has major implications for almost all areas of agricultural economics and if continued will likely do so into the future this article aims to identify the key ways in which the changes in rich and poor country growth rates matter for agricultural economists as a basis for formulating better research agendas a key impact arises through sharp increases in demand for agricultural resources as demand for livestock products increases this changing structure of food demand has important implications for nutrition studies and policies with the emergence of a double burden of malnutrition on the supply side growth in developing countries tends to increase domestic food supply which is also boosted by increases in research and development spending growth in developing countries both stimulates and benefits from increases in infrastructure investment evaluation of which requires new analytical tools negative impacts include the contribution of increased demand for livestock products to global greenhouse gas emissions in terms of trade policy growth in developing country is tending to lead to convergence of agricultural policies with the pattern of assistance seen in today s developed countries raising concerns about the future need to deal with collective action problems particularly those that increase the volatility of world prices

labor turnover wage structures and moral hazard the inefficiency of competitive markets a multiperiod general equilibrium model of the labor market is developed in which risk averse workers are faced with job related uncertainty and labor turnover is costly if a worker is unlucky and suffers a bad job match he quits and joins another firm hoping that he will like its work environment more because the quality of a job match is unobservable workers cannot insure against the risk of a bad match the firm provides implicit insurance against job dissatisfaction typically by paying workers more than their net marginal products in their early years with the firm and less subsequently since the probabilities of the insured against events the quit rates over time are affected by the amount of such insurance provided this implicit insurance is characterized by moral hazard individuals quit when in the absence of insurance they would not the equilibrium contract balances out efficiency in risk bearing with efficiency in turnover incentives we show that the equilibrium contract is not con