impacts of supermarkets on farm household nutrition in kenya summary many developing countries experience a food system transformation with a rapid growth of supermarkets we analyze impacts of supermarkets on farm household nutrition with survey data from kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with significantly higher calorie vitamin a iron and zinc consumption we use simultaneous equation models to analyze impact pathways supermarket supplying households have higher incomes a higher share of land under vegetables and a higher likelihood of male control of revenues furthermore income and the share of land under vegetables have positive impacts while male control of revenues has negative impacts on dietary quality policy and further research implications are discussed

incentive compatible regulation of a foreign owned subsidiary abstract transfer prices are administered charges for intra firm transfers of factors of production for a multinational firm transfer prices for international transfers provide the means to redistribute costs and increase global profits given variations in national tax and profit repatriation policies local regulation of a subsidiary may thus be necessary to limit the welfare costs of strategic transfer pricing prusa journal of international economics 1990 28 155 172 characterizes the welfare maximizing regulations for a monopoly subsidiary that induce the firm to report transfer prices truthfully we show however that it can be more efficient to implement regulations that encourage the firm to misrepresent its true transfer costs

contract farming and smallholder outgrower schemes in less developed countries abstract some studies of outgrower schemes involving smallholders and public or private corporations in less developed countries suggest the potential value of such arrangements in facilitating transfer of technology access to markets and other benefits for growers a diverse literature is surveyed to see what economic and political questions have been raised which have a bearing on the issue of grower welfare in some cases existing literature or the author s own research provides adequate answers to the questions raised in others the need for further research is indicated some possible directions and methodologies for systematic comparative studies are suggested

intangible capital market share and corporate strategy this paper theoretically and empirically identifies the determinants of firm profitability and market share for twelve broadly defined us manufacturing industry groups the effects of advertising research and development and diversification on profitability and market share are econometrically tested for each industry group and corporate strategy implications of the results are considered one major result of the analysis is that research and development r d tends to be much more effective as a means of enhancing firm profitability than advertising and research and development spending decisions are more closely related to the profitability of r d than advertising decisions are related to the profitability of advertising

cooperation v rivalry price cost margins by line of business fl c bureau of economics working papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment all data contained in them are in the public domain this includes information obtained by the commission which has become part of public record the analyses and conclusions set forth are those of the authors and do not n essarily ref1 t the views of other members of the bureau of economics other commission staff or the commission itself upon request single copies of the paper will be provided references in publications to fit bureau of economics working papers by ffc economists other than acknowledgement by a writer tnat ne has access to such unpublished materials should be cleared with the author to prot t the tentative character of these papers

the role of acquisitions in foreign direct investment evidence from the u s stock market this paper examines foreign direct investment by studying shareholder wealth gains for 1273 u s firms acquired during the period 1970 1987 three findings stand out first cross border takeovers are more frequent in research and development intensive industries than are domestic acquisitions furthermore in three fourths of cross border transactions the buyer and seller are in related industries these industry patterns suggest that costs and imperfections in product markets play an important role in foreign direct investment second targets of foreign buyers have significantly higher wealth gains than do targets of u s firms this cross border effect is comparable in size to the wealth effects of all cash and multiple bids two effects receiving substantial attention in the finance literature and is robust to inclusion of these two variables third while the cross border effect on wealth gains is not well explained by industry and tax variables it is positively related to the weakness of the u s dollar indicating a significant role for exchange rate movements in foreign direct investment

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

contracting out solutions political economy of contract farming in the indian punjab abstract this paper examines the rationale practice and problems of contract farming in vegetable crops in the agriculturally developed indian punjab which has faced the problem of sustainability of growth since the early 1980s it is found that agribusiness firms deal with relatively large producers and their contracts which are biased against the farmer perpetuate the existing problems of the farm sector such as high chemical input intensity and social differentiation contracting has however led to higher farm incomes and more employment for labor there seems to be an inherent contradiction in the objectives of the contracting parties and those of the local economy

contestable markets an uprising in the theory of industry structure presents a transcript of the presidential address delivered at the 94th meeting of the american economic association on december 29 1981 discussion of developments in the theory of industry structure welfare attributes of contestable markets behavior characteristics of oligopoly equilibrium intertemporal vulnerability to inefficient entry ebsco

supply chain design and adoption of indivisible technology in this paper we develop a framework to analyze adoption of indivisible technologies by relatively small farms using a threshold diffusion model it shows that different supply chains may emerge to enable the adoption of indivisible technologies independent technology dealers may buy the indivisible equipment and rent it to farmers when the gain from adoption is not affected by scale or ownership of the technology also larger farmers may buy the technology equipment and rent it renting the machine per se or providing a set of services that includes use of the machinery for the farmer buying the service to smaller farmers especially when there are gains from scale or ownership the paper derives equilibrium prices and quantities in the output equipment and technology rental market these equilibrium prices and quantities depend on the heterogeneity of farmers and the features of the technology introduction of the new indivisible technology will benefit larger adopting farmers and consumers but may hurt non adopters we illustrate our conceptual findings with empirical examples

economic impact of direct marketing and contracts the case of safe vegetable chains in northern vietnam abstract the paper investigates the respective impacts on incomes of contractual arrangements direct sales and spot marketing for safe vegetable farmers in northern vietnam it is based on a survey of 137 peri urban vegetable farmers that was analyzed using different econometric methods to correct selection biases direct sales and contractual arrangements have a significant positive impact on income compared to spot marketing contracts have less impact on income compared to direct sales it is recommended that policies be formulated to stimulate direct dealings between farmers and consumers which enhance consumer confidence in terms of quality and translate into higher farmer income than anonymous exchanges or contracts

impact of contract farming on income linking small farmers packers and supermarkets in china summary this study compares contract and non contract growers of apples and green onions in shandong province china in order to explore the constraints on participation and the impact of contract farming on income we find little evidence that firms prefer to work with larger farms though all farms in the area are quite small using a heckman selection correction model we find that contract farming raises income even after controlling for observable and unobservable household characteristics these results suggest that contract farming can help raise small farm income though questions remain regarding the number of farmers that can be brought into such schemes 2009 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

comparing contracts an evaluation of contract farming schemes in africa abstract the sufferings of so many small farmers in africa who produce on contract have been well recorded and analyzed yet it seems that such production will continue to expand can governments and nongovernment organizations ngos take any action to reduce the suffering we examine our own experience of contract farming in nigeria and south africa in the context of earlier research and draw attention to important issues which have received little attention in the literature notably staffing of schemes farmers previous experience with multinational national companies mncs water control and labor issues we make recommendations toward codes of practice which could be issued to companies regulators and small farmers

domestic profit advantages of multinational firms this study uses confidential corporate data from the u s federal trade commission s line of business p rogram to test if u s multinational firms earn higher rates of profi t on domestic undertakings than do their nonmultinational rivals dom estic profits are regressed on various industry and firm characterist ics including three different measures of multinationality that correspond to industry overall firm and firm by industry classifica tions the evidence suggests that multinationals do have profit advan tages when foreign activities are in the same or related lines of bus iness the effects of foreign trade as a separate influence appear to be much as in previous studies but with richer interpretations copyright 1987 by the university of chicago

an analysis of contract farming in east java bali and lombok indonesia this article examines the emergence and benefits of contract farming in east java bali and lombok indonesia after a general review of contract farming in these regions three contracts for seed corn in east java seed rice in bali and broilers in lombok are described and analyzed using key informant interviews and household survey data a review of the contracts suggest that there is a wide array of contract types and this is related to the technical requirements of production and the associated costs probit analysis is used to identify factors contributing to smallholder participation in farm contracts and a two stage estimation process used to measure the effects of farm contracts on gross margins and labor use results indicate participation in contracts is influenced by farm size and other factors such as smallholder s age education and participation in farm groups contracts increased returns to capital for the seed corn and broiler contracts but not for the seed rice contract all three contracts influenced the types of labor used however none of them influenced total farm employment

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

nonlinear pricing and type dependent network effects abstract network effects can reduce consumption levels across customers when a monopolist chooses optimal nonlinear pricing the direction and extent of these distortions depend on the relative rates of variation in marginal intrinsic value and marginal network value with customer type

is small beautiful farm size productivity and poverty in asian agriculture the debate on the relationship between farm size and productivity has gone through a complete circle in the 1960s it was perceived that small farms were efficient because they can fully use their resources particularly family labor and they can monitor their production activities closely but in the 1970s and 1980s as many asian countries rapidly moved towards industrialization and urbanization small farms were considered a major obstacle in this process