supermarket shopping and nutritional outcomes a panel data analysis for urban kenya summary overweight and obesity are growing health problems in many developing countries rising obesity rates are the result of changes in people s diets and lifestyles income growth and urbanization are factors that contribute to these changes modernizing food retail environments may also play a certain role for instance the rapid spread of supermarkets in many developing countries could affect consumer food choices and thus nutritional outcomes however concrete evidence about the effects of supermarkets on consumer diets and nutrition is thin a few existing studies have analyzed related linkages with cross sectional survey data we add to this literature by using panel data from households and individuals in urban kenya employing panel regression models with individual fixed effects and controlling for other factors we show that shopping in supermarkets significantly increases body mass index bmi we also analyze impact pathways shopping in supermarkets contributes to higher consumption of processed and highly processed foods and lower consumption of unprocessed foods these results confirm that the retail environment affects people s food choices and nutrition however the effects depend on the types of foods offered rather than thwarting modernization in the retail sector policies that incentivize the sale of more healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables in supermarkets may be more promising to promote desirable nutritional outcomes

smallholder market participation concepts and evidence from eastern and southern africa abstract this paper reviews the evidence on smallholder market participation with a focus on staple foodgrains i e cereals in eastern and southern africa in an effort to help better identify what interventions are most likely to break smallholders out of the semi subsistence poverty trap that appears to ensnare much of rural africa the conceptual and empirical evidence suggests that interventions aimed at facilitating smallholder organization at reducing the costs of intermarket commerce and perhaps especially at improving poorer households access to improved technologies and productive assets are central to stimulating smallholder market participation and escape from semi subsistence poverty traps macroeconomic and trade policy tools appear less useful in inducing market participation by poor smallholders in the region

the food retail revolution in poor countries is it coming or is it over abstract global retail chains are becoming increasingly dominant in the global food trade and their rise leads to dramatic impacts on agricultural supply chains and on small producers however the prospects and impacts of a food retail revolution in poor countries are not yet well understood here i examine this question in madagascar a poor but stable country in which global retailers have been present for over a decade the survey and analysis find that while global retail chains sell better quality food their prices are 40 90 higher ceteris paribus than those seen in traditional retail markets in poor settings characterized by high food price elasticities a lack of willingness to pay for quality and small retail margins supermarkets appear to set prices with an eye toward maximizing profits on the basis of price inelastic demands for quality products from a small middle class interested in one stop shopping it seems unlikely that global retail chains will further increase their food reta

governance of competitive transmission investment in weak institutional systems despite progress in economic analysis in recent years transmission investment governance still poses policy design challenges in competitive electricity systems the degree of regulatory intervention in allocating investment costs is a central issue scholars tend to agree that centralized solutions are almost inevitable mainly due to free riding and coordination problems in systems with weak institutional endowments and pressures of distributive politics however there is an increased likelihood of regulators acting opportunistically or imposing arbitrary changes to the cost allocation rules which makes centralized solutions less desirable we provide some examples from argentina el salvador and peru and suggest that a two tier governance scheme composed of a self governing forum of transmission stakeholders with regulation as a subsidiary measure may be a more adequate design to restraint undue government interference the expected outcome is twofold a better match with users preferences and a restraint to government opportunism and arbitrariness measuring the robustness of this scheme in minimizing the risks for either too much or too little investment will certainly require further research

labour chains analysing the role of labour contractors in global production networks abstract third party labour contractors are increasingly prevalent in global production networks gpns and can provide a channel for new forms of unfree labour review of case study evidence from south african and uk horticulture suggests this often emerges off site through labour intermediaries analytical approaches to labour in gpns and value chains are examined the article argues that labour contracting is driven by the commercial dynamics of global outsourcing a cascade system allows unscrupulous intermediaries to coerce vulnerable workers we examine strategies of civil society alliances and regulatory reform and argue for extending liability of all commercial actors across global boundaries

nutrition agriculture and the global food system in low and middle income countries the entire food value chain and diet of low and middle income countries lmics are rapidly shifting many of the issues addressed by the nutrition community ignore some of the major underlying shifts in purchases of consumer packaged foods and beverages at the same time the drivers of the food system at the farm level might be changing there is a need for the agriculture and nutrition communities to understand these changes and focus on some of their implications for health this rapid growth of the retail sector will change the diets of the food insecure as much as that of the food secure across rural and urban lmic s this short commentary contents that current research programs and policies are ignoring these rapid dynamic shifts

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

the hidden middle the quiet revolution in the midstream of agrifood value chains in developing countries the food security debate has focused largely on the farm sector and on trade relatively neglected or hidden from mainstream debate are the middle segments processing logistics wholesale of agrifood value chains in developing countries and yet this midstream forms 30 40 per cent of the value added and costs in food value chains the productivity of the midstream is as important as farm yields for food security in poor countries the article shows that over the past several decades the middle segments have transformed quickly and surprisingly with a huge volume expansion a proliferation of small and medium enterprises smes but also concentrating and multinationalizing in some places and products with technology change characterized by capital led intensification and with the incipient emergence of branding and labelling and packaging of new organizational arrangements in procurement and marketing interfaces with farmers and retailers and of private standards and contracts economic policies of market and foreign direct investment fdi liberalization commercial and business climate regulations hard and soft infrastructure investment and food safety laws have paved the path to the expansion and shaped the transformation of the important midstream segment of food value chains

private agri food standards implications for food policy and the agri food system abstract this paper provides a brief introduction to the evolution and nature of private food safety and quality standards highlighting the resultant impacts on the structure and modus operandi of supply chains for agricultural and food products and the challenges posed for processes of agricultural development it serves as an introduction to a series of papers that provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge regarding private food safety and quality standards in both an industrialised and developing country context in so doing it aims to provide a catalyst for further research on this rapidly evolving field of inquiry

developing technological capabilities in agro industry ghana s experience with fresh pineapple exports abstract this article examines the emergence and trajectory of a new agro industry in ghana the pineapple export industry using the technological capabilities approach it explains the limited expansion of the industry and its declining competitiveness in the face of new competition by looking at how ghanaian exporters developed technological capabilities initially and the incentives and disincentives to building on those capabilities the article argues that at the heart of the industry s crisis was an inability to further develop technological capabilities the crisis had systemic features that have broader implications for developing new agro industries in ghana as well as other african countries

agrifood supply chain private sector standards and farmers health evidence from kenya this article evaluates the impact of adoption of european union eu private sector standards on farmers health in rural kenya the study utilizes cross sectional farm household level data collected in 2006 from a randomly selected sample of 439 small scale export farmers we estimate the casual impact by utilizing a two stage poisson regression model two stage standard treatment effect model as well as by regression based on propensity score to assess the robustness of the results using these techniques we demonstrate that the pesticide ascribed incidence of acute illness symptoms and the associated cost of illness significantly decrease with the adoption of standards ceteris paribus farmers who adopt standards experience 70 lesser incidence of acute illness and spent about 50 60 less on restoring their health than nonadopters although standards can potentially prevent resource poor smallholders from maintaining their position in lucrative export markets they can also result in positive changes in the health of those farmers who do adopt them as shown by these results this implies that if adopted on a large scale standards may reduce production externalities corroborating the view that they may serve as a catalyst to transform production systems in developing countries

market line deviations and market anomalies with reference to small and large firms previous anomaly research may have misinterpreted corrected for the market index mean returns on small firms assuming mean variance preferences it is shown theoretically that corrected mean returns i e market line deviations are not indicative of the relative desirability of increasing the proportional investment in small firms the correct improvement criterion is derived and estimated tests indicate that the value weighted market index is not significantly improved with greater weight on small firms in the aver age month when seasonality is considered the observed performance improvements due to small or large firms are significant in some months but the required portfolio position is unclear if a case exists for a small firm anomaly in january it probably exists in other months and it also exists for large firms it is doubtful whether such an anomalous stock market exists

small farmers and big retail trade offs of supplying supermarkets in nicaragua summary in nicaragua and elsewhere in central america small scale farmers are weighing the risks of entering into contracts with supermarket chains we use unique data from cooperatives supplying supermarkets to study the effect of supply agreements on producers mean output prices and price stability we find that prices paid by the domestic retail chain approximate the traditional market in mean and variance while mean prices paid by walmart are significantly lower than the traditional market however the walmart contract is found to systematically reduce price volatility we find some evidence however that farmers may be paying too much for this contractual insurance against price variation

spillovers from modern supply chains to traditional markets product innovation and adoption by smallholders there is an emerging body of literature analyzing how smallholder farmers in developing countries can benefit from modern supply chains however most of the available studies concentrate on export markets and fail to capture spillover effects that modern supply chains may have on local markets here we analyze the case of sweet pepper in thailand which was initially introduced as a product innovation in modern supply chains but which is now widely traded also in more traditional markets using survey data from smallholder farmers and econometric techniques we show that sweet pepper cultivation contributes significantly to higher household incomes strikingly at this stage participation in modern supply chains does not lead to higher incomes than supplying sweet pepper to traditional markets however the results also indicate that missing land titles weak infrastructure conditions and limited access to information constituted serious constraints during the early phases of sweet pepper adoption such constraints need to be overcome so that smallholder farmers are better prepared for the prompt reactions needed under rapidly changing market conditions

viewpoint customized competitiveness strategies for horticultural exporters central america focus with lessons from and for other regions abstract this paper presents the idea of customized competitiveness as a strategy necessary for overall competitiveness in particular in globalized horticulture markets and in the second round of globalization that started in the mid late 1990s customized competitiveness is additional and complementary to basic structural competitiveness that is the focus of competitiveness debates today and for the past decade the paper illustrates the need for this new strategy using the example of central america highlighting the severe challenges similar to those facing other developing regions it faces in the second round of globalization of horticulture markets magnified by market liberalization culminating recently in implementation of cafta the paper then illustrates solutions by providing examples of cutting edge programs in various developing countries of de facto customized competitiveness in the form of public private partnerships and the provision of public and semi public goods to help their exporters access and succeed in the new markets we conclude with policy implications for central america and other developing regions

is decoupling economic growth from fuel consumption possible in developing countries a comparison of china and india abstract a better understanding the coupling decoupling of economic growth from energy demand in china and india can serve both countries and other developing countries to achieve the goal of gaining higher economic growth with less energy demand to demonstrate the relationship between coupling decoupling economy and energy in china and india better this work has made following contributions i analyzes the decoupling elasticity between economic growth and energy consumption by using the tapio model ii explores the five key effects labor input investment energy structure energy intensity technology level of decoupling elasticity by combining the cobb douglas c d function and log mean divisia index lmdi method and iii evaluates the decoupling efforts by applying decoupling efforts model in china and india between 1990 and 2015 the decoupling elasticity results show china s decoupling elasticity curve is in an inverted u shaped trend and the decoupling elastic value is concentrated between 0 and 0 8 in most years showing a weak decoupling state furthermore the decoupling state is strong decoupling during 2014 2015 indicating china has initially achieved the decoupling of economy and energy consumption while india s decoupling elasticity presents irregular fluctuations indicating that india s decoupling status is not very satisfactory the decomposition results uncover that major effects of decoupling in china and india are similar i e the investment effect is the biggest driver which contributed to a cumulative increasing impact in energy consumption in china and india by 3017 10 million tonnes oil equivalent and 675 18 million tonnes oil equivalent respectively whereas the energy intensity effect is the greatest inhibiting factor which contributed to a cumulative reduction in energy consumption in china and india by 1437 81 million tonnes oil equivalent and 139 21 million tonnes oil equivalent the decoupling efforts results show decoupling effort in china is better than that in india improving energy efficiency is the leading contributor to china s decoupling efforts while advancing technology is the major contributor to india s decoupling effort

examining the relationship between the use of supermarkets and over nutrition in indonesia this study examines the relationship between the use of modern food retailers and health outcomes using data from a survey of 1 180 urban households in indonesia the dependent variables include adult and child body mass index and the share of individuals overweight and obese after controlling for individual and household characteristics and using standard and lewbel instrumental variable approaches to control for unobservable characteristics we do not find a statistically significant relationship between use of supermarkets and adult nutrition measures on the other hand there is mixed evidence for a negative effect of supermarkets on child nutrition particularly for those in high income households

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

on the jensen measure and marginal improvements in portfolio performance a note the marginal performance contribution made by new assets in a portfolio is identified the maximum change in a portfolio s sharpe performance from the addition of new assets is a simple function of a generalized jensen index and the unexplained covariances from a multivariate market model deviations from a higher dimension market line may be used to rank the desirability of asset additions to an existing portfolio statistical tests for the equality of the performance contributions by new assets is possible the portfolio performance measures of treynor 11 and jensen 12 are based on the systematic or beta measure of risk when originally developed it was advocated that these measures of performance were useful for comparing and ranking performances of various portfolios after many years of use in this area it was demonstrated by roll 7 and ross 8 that it is theoretically inappropriate to use these performance measures for this purpose since differences in portfolios performance indicate only inefficiency in the index used for the computation of beta dybvig and ross 1 subsequently proved that a portfolio can be improved by adding or shorting a small investment in another asset if the asset lies above or below the security market line a potentially important use of the market line was therefore preserved the purpose of this note is the development of a procedure which identifies the exact performance contribution made by one or more assets when they enter the investor s optimal portfolio of assets it is demonstrated that the change in squared sharpe 10 performance is a simple function of a generalized jensen index and the unexplained covariances from a multivariate market model new assets may be ranked according to the magnitude of their performance contribution the improvements in a portfolio are easily computable from the same linear regression employed to calculate an asset s jensen measure thus the appeal of the security market line as a useful financial tool may be preserved the first section briefly establishes the efficient set algebra required to develop the marginal contribution made by new assets in a portfolio section ii presents the performance contribution dependent on the number of new assets and whether partial or full optimal adjustment of the portfolio weights are permitted section iii concludes the note

extending the bargaining power model explaining bargaining outcomes among nations mnes and ngos participants in international bargaining include different types nation states mnes ngos and multilateral organizations and different numbers of these actors our theoretical contribution is to extend the bargaining power paradigm with a framework that models bargaining in this complex environment as a network the configuration of supports and constraints among all participating actors in the bargaining environment is captured in the structure of the network antecedents of an actor s bargaining influence in the network include the actor s basis of power network position bargaining outcome preferences and motivation to influence bargaining the network bargaining power nbp model uses network theory to build upon and integrate insights from previous literature in a way that allows us to simultaneously apply these different insights to explain bargaining outcomes these insights include effects of coalitions strategies of less powerful actors leveraging more powerful allies integration of international and domestic politics and applicability to mne related issues beyond fdi finally we illustrate nbp in a scenario of privatized utilities in the dominican republic in which the bargaining power outcome predicted by nbp differs from that of the canonical bargaining power perspective

retail globalization and household welfare evidence from mexico the arrival of global retail chains in developing countries is causing a radical transformation in the way that households source their consumption this paper draws on a new and unique collection of mexican microdata to estimate the effect of foreign supermarket entry on household welfare and its underlying channels the richness of the data allows us to estimate a general expression for the welfare gains from retail fdi and to decompose the total effect into several distinct components to base our estimates on plausibly exogenous variation in foreign retail entry we propose an event study design that exploits data on the universe of foreign store locations and opening dates in combination with high frequency data on barcode level store prices consumption quantities and household incomes in those same locations over the period 2002 2014 we find that foreign retail entry causes large and significant welfare gains for the average household that are mainly driven by a reduction in the cost of living a substantial share of this price index effect is due to pro competitive effects on consumer prices charged by domestic stores we find little evidence of significant changes in average municipality level incomes wages or employment we do however find evidence of store exit and adverse effects on domestic store profits and the incomes of traditional retail sector workers finally we present evidence that the gains from retail fdi are on average positive for all income groups but strongly regressive and quantify the opposing forces that underlie this finding

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

the likelihood ratio test statistic of mean variance efficiency without a riskless asset abstract the question whether a given porfolio is mean variance efficient is a basic problem of investment analysis mean variance efficiency is also the basis of the capital asset pricing model this paper presents the explicit form of the likelihood ratio test of the hypothesis that a given portfolio or a particular market index is ex ante mean variance efficient in the case where there is no riskless asset geometric relations are illustrated to provide intuition about the constrained maximum likelihood estimators and the test statistic and two simple economic interpretations of the test are given

capital accumulation and economic growth the case of the retail food industry in developing countries the share of resources allocated to food marketed through supermarkets and their marketing channels has grown at an unprecedented rate in developing countries during the 1990s this expansion has caused some resources to depart traditional channels differences in the relative capital intensity of the modern marketing channels in contrast to the traditional channels is shown to explain at least part of this evolution as the process of economic growth and capital deepening even when the food share of total expenditures declines in this case incomplete markets and policy distortions can exacerbate the effects of adjustment in traditional agriculture placing a greater need

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

food value chain transformations in developing countries selected hypotheses on nutritional implications we examine how the transformation of food value chains fvcs influence the triple malnutrition burden undernourishment micronutrient deficiencies and over nutrition in developing countries we propose a fvc typology modern traditional modern to traditional and traditional to modern that takes into account the participants the target market and the products offered next we propose selected hypotheses on the relationship between each fvc category and elements of the triple malnutrition burden the primary finding is that the transformation of fvcs creates challenges and opportunities for nutrition in developing countries for example modern fvcs may increase over nutrition problems and alleviate micronutrient deficiencies for urban people with relatively high incomes however they have little nutritional impacts among rural residents and urban poor people who primarily depend on traditional fvcs to access adequate quantities of calories and micronutrients in addition modern food manufacturers are leveraging traditional distribution networks modern to traditional fvcs substantially increasing access to low priced processed packaged foods in rural areas and low income urban neighbors with mixed impacts on the triple burden of malnutrition further research should focus on the influence of fvc transformation on reduction of micronutrient deficiencies on modeling demand substitution effects across food categories and the attendant policy implications for malnutrition

potential performance and tests of portfolio efficiency abstract the potential performance of an asset set may be obtained by choosing the portfolio proportions to maximize the sharpe 1966 performance measure if a portfolio has a sharpe measure equivalent to the potential performance of the underlying set of assets then it is efficient multivariate statistical procedures for comparing potential performance and testing portfolio efficiency are developed and then evaluated using simulations two likelihood ratio statistics are then used to compare stock and bond indices against sets of 20 and 40 portfolios the procedures are also compared to the gibbons 1982 methodology for testing financial models

agricultural growth and economic development a view through the globalization lens this article re visits the age old proposition that agriculture growth contributes to overall economic development and asks whether the relationship still holds in an increasingly globalized world there is overwhelming empirical support for the above proposition indeed it is hard to find exceptions barring a few city states where sustained economic development has not been preceded by robust agricultural growth however there are a large number of countries that have witnessed neither agricultural growth nor economic development even in countries where agricultural growth has been significant dramatic inter regional differences persist this article examines the factors that contribute to or constrain the process of agricultural transformation does the process of globalization and the resultant changes in agrifood systems offer new opportunities for agriculture led growth or will it further marginalize excluded countries regions and groups the factors that cause exclusion are examined both in terms of globalization forces and in terms of domestic shortcomings in policies and governance policy interventions that attempt to reduce the costs of transition to a globalized agricultural system are explored including safety nets for those left behind

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

coffee value chains on the move evidence in ethiopia abstract important changes have happened to the upstream segment of the coffee sector in ethiopia africa s biggest in the last decade as illustrated by the increasing adoption of improved production harvest and post harvest practices upstream marketing has also improved and there have been large investments in processing capacity shown by the extended coverage of wet mills these improved practices are shown to be associated with positive impacts on coffee productivity and prices changes appear to be linked with multiple factors including local market reform greater presence of public extension agents high international prices and a push for certification by international buyers on the other hand a combination of production lack of improved seedlings weather and disease shocks as well as institutional issues saving constraints and lack of vertical integration and traceability have seemingly impeded more widespread uptake of improved practices and therefore better farm performance the study illustrates the significant complexity in obtaining transformation at the farm level in these settings

the role of input vouchers in modernizing the fresh fruit and vegetable market in turkey contractual arrangements between farmers and traders aiming at providing input credit in return for output selling have been widely studied in the literature on agricultural economics nonetheless there is one issue which is barely mentioned in the literature how to enforce the contract terms when traders offer credit in cash rather than input advances this article aims to describe an innovation in farming contracts used by fresh fruit and vegetable wholesalers in turkey which involves a kind of private voucher system drawing on original data collected from wholesalers a segment in the supply chain hardly covered in the literature we investigate the factors determining contract adoption using a two limit tobit model our results suggest that this private voucher system contributes to supply chain coordination and facilitates smallholder farmer participation in export and supermarket channels which are growing rapidly in this developing country resume d auteur

food safety and urban food markets in vietnam the need for flexible and customized retail modernization policies access to safe and healthy food is a crucial element of food security in vietnam the safety of daily vegetables is of great concern to both consumers and policymakers to mitigate food safety risks the vietnamese government enforces rules and regulations and relies strongly on a single approach for organizing food provision being modernizing retail by replacing wet markets with supermarkets in general reorganizing food provision in this way is increasingly considered to be a guarantee for food safety especially in urban settings with growing populations to assess the effectiveness of this induced retail modernization of the fresh vegetables market in vietnam s capital hanoi this paper examines for whom and under which conditions does this approach deliver the desired outcomes the survey data and interviews show that ongoing retail modernization in hanoi reaches only a minor segment of the population and drives a large group of shoppers into informal vending structures on the basis of five case studies this paper demonstrates how similar supermarket interventions can yield contrasting outcomes when they do not accommodate for differences in shopper population and do not adapt to variations in the urban conditions to reduce exposure to unsafe food particularly for poorer segments of the population we conclude that developing a flexible portfolio of retail modernization pathways and adopting a reflexive policy approach provide better impact and leverage as opposed to the current trend of promoting supermarkets as a single ideal type form of food shopping

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

modern value chains and the organization of agrarian production empirical studies of agrarian production in developing countries often find that small farms possess a productivity advantage over larger farms eswaran and kotwal 1986 famously derive this inverse farm size productivity relationship from the structure of agrarian production the focal prediction of their model is that in otherwise equivalent economies a more egalitarian land distribution raises both output and producer welfare the traditional spot procurement system implicit in the eswaran and kotwal model however diverges fundamentally from modern contractual procurement practices we therefore develop a new model of agrarian production in order to determine whether the introduction of a modern value chain alters the welfare effects of land redistribution the inverse farm size productivity relationship persists in our model but we find that more egalitarian land distribution leads to nonmonotonic changes in producer welfare we also find that the introduction of a modern sector can harm the laboring classes

contractual arrangements between farmer cooperatives and buyers in china the agrofood market in china is dominated by spot market exchanges of small farmers and various small traders with only minor penetration of the modern supply chain at the farmgate the emerging farmer professional cooperatives fpcs are expected to facilitate vertical coordination the overall goal of this study is to investigate the contractual arrangements between the fpcs and the buyers based on a national representative survey of 157 fpcs in china this study shows that 32 of fpcs introduced written contracts in the primary marketing channel contracts are more likely to be adopted in the livestock sector and are positively related to the scale of production while branding promotes contracts between fpcs and buyers public certification of quality and food safety often substitutes for contracts furthermore the membership heterogeneity of fpcs affects an fpc s decision to use contractual arrangements with the buyer

small farmers ngos and a walmart world welfare effects of supermarkets operating in nicaragua despite more than a decade of ngo and government activities promoting developing world farmer participation in high value agricultural markets evidence regarding the household welfare effects of such initiatives is limited this paper analyzes the geographic placement of supermarket supply chains in nicaragua between 2000 and 2008 and uses a difference in difference specification on measures of supplier and non supplier assets to estimate the welfare effects of small farmer participation though results indicate that selling to supermarkets increases household productive asset holdings they also suggest that only farmers with advantageous endowments of geography and water are likely to participate

optimal stock trading with personal taxes implications for prices and the abnormal january returns abstract the tax law confers upon the investor a timing option to realize capital losses and defer capital gains with the tax rate on long term gains and losses being about half the short term rate the law provides a second timing option to realize losses short term and gains long term if at all our theory and simulation over the 1962 1977 period establish that taxable investors should realize long term gains in high variance stocks and repurchase stock in order to realize potential future losses short term tax trading does not explain the small firm anomaly but predicts a seasonal pattern in trading volume which maps into a seasonal pattern in stock prices the january anomaly only if investors are irrational or ignorant of the price seasonality

are agricultural markets more developed around cities testing for urban heterogeneity in separability in tanzania abstract a key question for policymakers concerned about feeding sub saharan africa s ssa rapidly growing cities is whether or not nearby farms benefit from improved agricultural markets evidence from case studies and agricultural location theory suggest so but urban heterogeneity has not yet been found in a common economic test of functioning agricultural markets the separability result the test is based on a key insight of the agricultural household model which finds that a farm s profit should be maximized independently from household utility given perfect factor markets i e separability but not so if the household faces at least two market failures i e non separability in this paper i test for geographic heterogeneity in separability between rural peri urban and urban districts using 2014 15 data from the world bank s living standards measurement study and integrated surveys on agriculture lsms isa from tanzania i find strong evidence that the correlation between pre harvest labor demand and household size implying non separability in rural areas is significantly weaker in three of tanzania s five largest cities dar es salaam arusha and mbeya given certain assumptions this can be interpreted as evidence of increased agricultural market functionality around these cities relative to rural areas overall these results contribute to the debate on how to achieve urban food security in ssa and give some validity to agricultural location theory and the separability test as tools to help policymakers characterize the nature of agricultural factor markets

technology transport globalization and the nutrition transition food policy abstract diet and activity have been affected by the rapid worldwide shifts in technological innovations reducing energy expenditures during leisure transportation and work globalized modern food processing marketing and distribution techniques global mass media the increases occur increasingly in rural areas on all continents the resultant global increase in obesity increasingly is shifting the burden of obesity to the poor while few direct linkages between globalization of trade in goods services and technology can be directly linked to diet and activity a strong case exists for globalization s role as a key underlying force behind this stage of the nutrition transition

the politics of regulation in the turkish electricity market abstract turkey began reforming the electricity market in 2001 the regulatory reform aimed to liberalize the market however the institutional and political structure was not ready for creating an efficiently working competition the independent regulator did not have both experience and will to direct the industry to a more competitive environment currently the reform has slowed down and political preferences drive the industry this paper studies the reasons for the slowdown in the reform efforts by focusing on the relationships between the government judiciary and the independent regulator we conclude that strategic behaviors of players in the market including the judiciary the government and the regulator have made the introduction of competition to the market more costly

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

access to variety contributes to dietary diversity in china in the canonical consumer demand problem an agent makes a decision about quantities to consume under the assumption that all varieties can be accessed at zero cost in reality the cost of accessing variety may not be zero in this paper we study the effect of variety access cost on the consumption of food variety and its role in explaining regional differences in dietary diversity in china we find that a higher cost of access negatively affects the individual s ability to diversify her diet in terms of both the total counts and the balancing of varieties consumed the primary policy implication of this research is that attempts to create a healthy food environment in china must be differentiated along rural and urban lines in rural communities where consumers have been limited in their ability to diversify food baskets by high electricity and transportation costs infrastructure development and modernization may effectively improve nutritional balance for more urbanized communities where the cost of consuming additional food variety is relatively low food policies might instead focus on interventions that promote healthy eating to mitigate the burden of over nutrition

domestic technology consumption economies of scale and poverty evidence from sri lanka while it is well known that new technologies enhance consumer welfare the manner in which these technologies impact the ability to realize economies of scale in consumption is not well understood we use sri lankan household data to examine how the adoption of new technologies by households positively impacts their ability to achieve household economies of scale this suggests that new technologies not only deliver a greater variety of consumption goods to consumers but they may also play an important role in enabling large households to escape poverty by lowering the per capita costs of maintaining a given standard of living given the importance of consumption economies of scale in the measurement of poverty this study provides some insights on the extent to which the number of poor households changes when food consumption scale economies due to technology adoption in the domestic sphere are incorporated

deregulating with no regulator is the german electricity transmission regime institutionally correct abstract from 1998 to 2005 the german transmission grid has been put under a self regulated arrangement it seems hard to believe that transmission lines can be opened to third party access only with a negotiated access regime and no regulator supervision it seems contradictory with the notion of ex post contractual hazards promoted by v goldberg and o williamson if a weak institutional arrangement is implemented one might assume that it has to be harmful to network and market access if it is not to be inefficient why and how could it work when looking at rules and prices for accessing the transmission network and the corresponding wholesale markets in germany the club arrangement for transmission opening does not appear so harmful accordingly we have to reconsider the ex ante and ex post institutional mechanism of such a club arrangement ex ante we first reconsider skills and strengths of industrial consumers and german business associations in defining and assessing rules of transmission access we underline that incomplete vertical and horizontal integration of german electricity companies impeded extensive cartel collusion ex post we first look at a strong competition authority backing then we discover that ex ante and ex post dimensions are much more mixed and reinforced in an open cumulative pro competition process framed by the competition authority

the development of private fresh produce safety standards implications for developing mediterranean exporting countries integration into global markets offers the potential for more rapid growth and poverty reduction for poorer countries however market barriers within advanced economies to agricultural imports have made it harder for developing countries to take full advantage of this opportunity this article examines the impact of increasing demands for food safety and quality by european food retailers and how the fundamental structure and culture of supplier organisations required by european retail chains are a major entry barrier for developing mediterranean fresh produce exporting countries and for developing countries in general the long term solution for such countries to sustain an international demand for their products lies in structural strategic and procedural initiatives that build up the trust and confidence of importers retailers in the quality and safety assurance mechanisms for their produce

changing coalitions in value chains and the political economy of agricultural and food policy within this issue of the oxford review of economic policy which focuses on the growing divergence between the agriculture sector and the food sector this paper focuses on how this changing divergence affects the political economy of agricultural and food policies

economics of agricultural supply chain design a portfolio selection approach agrifood firms in a globalizing and competitive market both in developing and developed countries often undertake innovations in products and technologies innovators such as firms and other agents develop supply chains to accommodate the nature of the innovations in this article we analyze an innovator s supply chain design problem the design of the supply chain involves three sets of decisions the first is how much to produce the second involves how to undertake production and how many resources to allocate to the production of feedstock agricultural products that are inputs for processing processing and marketing the third set involves deciding on the amount of feedstock to be obtained through contracts with farmers we show that the innovator determines its overall level of production by taking advantage of its monopoly power derived from the innovation in the output market and behaves as a monopsony in buying feedstock from contractors these decisions are constrained by the marginal cost of capital and the properties of production and marketing technologies when the innovator is risk averse risks in farm production processing and marketing will affect both processed output and the share of feedstock bought through contracts

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

post green revolution food systems and the triple burden of malnutrition developing country food systems have changed dramatically since the green revolution period at the same time malnutrition still represents a challenge and is now understood to encompass the three simultaneous dimensions of undernourishment micronutrient deficiencies and over nutrition manifest in overweight and obesity these changes in food systems and in the understanding of the global malnutrition challenge necessitate fresh thinking about food systems based strategies to reduce malnutrition this paper introduces a special section that offers such new perspectives we discuss trends with respect to indicators of the triple burden of malnutrition to understand the extent of global malnutrition challenges and then relate those to food systems transformation in developing countries

farmer organization collective action and market access in meso america abstract farmer organization and collective action are often seen as key factors in enhancing farmers access to markets often too little attention is directed at a the most appropriate types of organization b whether organization makes less or more sense in the case of producers of an undifferentiated commodity or a higher value product c whether the public or private sector is best placed to support farmer organizations and d the conditions necessary for ensuring their economic viability research in mexico and central america explored these issues for commodity maize and high value vegetables respectively the benefits of farmer organization are more evident in the vegetable sector characterized by high transaction costs associated with market access however horticultural farmer organizations in honduras and el salvador include less than 5 of total horticultural producers this is possibly due to farmer organizations limited business skills and non replicable organizational models there is less incentive for maize farmers to organize to access output markets as the transaction costs are relatively low the benefits of maize farmer organization are clearer when it comes to accessing inputs such as credit seed and fertilizer farmer organization is a critical factor in making markets work for the poor but the role and timing of public and private investment in these organizations is poorly understood

rural industrialization in china and india role of policies and institutions summary the dynamic rural nonfarm sector in china has been a major contributor to the country s remarkable growth while in india the growth in output and employment in this sector has been rather stagnant this paper argues that the observed patterns in the rural nonfarm development are the results of institutional differences between the two countries especially in their political systems ownership structure and credit institutions a review of the strengths and weaknesses of the rural nonfarm economy in china and india highlights the potentials and challenges of growth in the sector

a century long perspective on agricultural development this article strategically surveys the past century s literature on agricultural development we organize the discussion around three grand themes that reveal the richness of agricultural development as an intellectual endeavor first we explore the role of agriculture in the broader development process from a macroeconomic and political economy perspective we then examine the role of technological and institutional change in successful agricultural development finally the focus turns to a microeconomic perspective on agricultural household decision making and the problems of imperfect and missing markets asymmetric information and transactions costs that lead to widespread apparent inefficiency and disequilibrium

welfare effects of vegetable commercialization evidence from smallholder producers in kenya we investigate whether smallholder horticultural commercialization is able to as often stipulated reduce poverty in developing countries with the help of panel household survey data from kenya we find evidence for a positive association between vegetable commercialization and household welfare even when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity across households interestingly the effect differs depending on which market vegetables are being produced for commercialization through the export market is consistently positively associated with income but not wealth while there is some limited evidence for commercialization through the domestic market channel being positively related to welfare measured by asset holdings and income depending on the specification

supermarkets and agricultural labor demand in kenya a gendered perspective abstract many developing countries are experiencing a rapid expansion of supermarkets new supermarket procurement systems could affect farming patterns and wider rural development while previous studies have analyzed farm productivity and income effects possible employment effects have received much less attention special supermarket requirements may entail intensified farm production and post harvest handling thus potentially increasing demand for hired labor this could also have important gender implications because female and male workers are often hired for distinct farm operations building on data from a recent survey of vegetable farmers in kenya a double hurdle model of hired labor use is developed and estimated farmer participation in supermarket channels increases the likelihood of hiring labor by 20 and demand for hired labor by 61 a gender disaggregation shows that positive employment effects are especially pronounced for female laborers who often belong to the most vulnerable population groups rural employment generation can be an important vehicle for poverty reduction

passing the food and agricultural r d buck the united states and china abstract the global geographical balance of food and agricultural r d spending is shifting characterized by a declining u s share and a rising middle income country share propelled heavily by the rapid rise of spending in china based on our newly compiled data we estimate that china now outspends the united states on both public and private food and agricultural research on a purchasing power parity basis the public private orientation of the research has also changed markedly with the private sector now accounting for around two thirds of the food and agricultural r d spending total in both china and the united states our estimates indicate that china s private sector tilts heavily towards post farm r d activities whereas the u s private sector is split more evenly between on farm and post farm spending while the intensity of chinese investment in food and agricultural r d relative to agricultural gdp is beginning to grow it still lags well behind the food and agricultural r d investment intensities of the united states and other higher income asian countries e g japan and south korea the development regularities we reveal in the longer run trends are indicative of future r d investment patterns with potentially profound long run implications for the size shape and accessibility of the global stocks of scientific knowledge that underpin food and agricultural sectors worldwide

the food system transformation in developing countries a disaggregate demand analysis for fruits and vegetables in vietnam abstract food systems in developing countries are currently undergoing a rapid transformation towards high value products and modern supply chains while supply side aspects of this transformation have been analyzed previously issues of consumer demand have received much less attention this article analyses demand patterns for fresh fruits and vegetables in vietnam using household survey data and a demand systems approach demand for products from modern supply chains particularly supermarkets and non traditional imports is highly income elastic and the income effect is stronger than the impact of prices and supermarket penetration this highlights the importance of considering demand side aspects when projecting future trends our results imply a continued restructuring of the food sector in the further process of economic development

income variability evolving diets and elasticity estimation of demand for processed foods in nigeria we present evidence on evolving dietary patterns in nigeria using six rounds of household consumption data from the nigerian general household survey panel between 2011 and 2016 first following conventional definitions in the literature we show that nigeria has not shown any aggregate increase in consumption of highly processed foods over this period contrary to patterns observed elsewhere in the region in fact consumption of highly processed foods at home has declined while food consumed away from home often assumed to be highly processed has risen substantially we then show that estimates of food expenditure elasticities of different food types are highly sensitive to different estimation approaches and raise concerns about some frequently used methods in the literature in the absence of credible exogenous variation we argue for the importance of panel methods and household fixed effects to control for time invariant factors likely to confound cross sectional estimates finally we examine semiparametric engel curves for different food groups and find that apparent curvature in the relationships between food budget shares and overall food expenditure levels in the raw data become nearly linear when removing variation explained by time invariant household factors

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

linking smallholders to the new agricultural economy the case of the plataformas de concertacion in ecuador abstract this article examines the challenges of linking smallholders to high value food markets by looking at the experience of the plataformas programme in the ecuadorian sierra multiple evaluation methods are employed to ensure identification of program impact the findings suggest that the programme successfully improved the welfare of beneficiary farmers as measured by yields and gross margins these benefits are achieved through improving the efficiency of agricultural production and through selling at higher prices no significant secondary health or environmental effects were found overall the programme provides clear evidence that combining production support with facilitating market access can be successful

evolving dairy markets in asia recent findings and implications abstract this paper is an overview of important findings regarding the ongoing evolution of asian dairy markets based on a series of new economic investigations these investigations provide systematic empirical foundations to assess asian dairy markets with their new consumption patterns changing industries and trade prospects under different domestic and trade policy regimes with four case studies china india japan and korea a prospective analysis of future regional patterns of consumption and a policy analysis of trade liberalization of asian dairy markets the overview distills the findings of these new investigations and integrates them in the earlier economic literature it draws policy implications and identifies lessons for countries outside of asia especially for emerging exporters in latin america

sustaining linkages to high value markets through collective action in uganda abstract uganda s rapid urbanization offers new market opportunities for smallholder farmers to supply higher value markets such as supermarket chains and fast food restaurants supplying these formal outlets offers higher incomes but accessing and maintaining links to these markets requires significant upgrading in terms of product quality and business management to meet these conditions farmers need to become more organized which requires increased levels of social capital to strengthen internal and external relations with group members service providers and market chain actors one farmers group in south western uganda has successfully sustained sales of potatoes to a fast food outlet in kampala farmers had to learn a series of new skills and integrate multiple technical organizational financial and marketing innovations this paper outlines how collective action combined with strong leadership and an iterative market led learning process enabled a smallholder farmers association to meet the considerable challenges of achieving the stringent quality parameters of a modern food outlet

following up on smallholder farmers and supermarkets in kenya in many developing countries supermarkets are expanding rapidly this affects farmers marketing options previous studies have analyzed welfare effects of smallholder participation in supermarket channels from a static perspective using cross section data we develop a conceptual framework and use panel data to better understand participation and impact dynamics the analysis focuses on vegetable producers in kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with income gains however many farmers have dropped out of the supermarket channel due to various constraints the initial income gains cannot be sustained when returning to the traditional market organizational support may be needed to avoid widening income disparities

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

domestic regulation and the wto the case of water services in developing countries n recent years the interface between domestic regulation and trade liberalisa tion in services has received increasing attention in public policy debate inboth developed and developing countries trade in services to a much greaterextent than trade in goods is affected by a variety of domestic regulations whichmay in uence the effects of trade and investment liberalisation mattoo andsauve 2002 and 2003 many services particularly those provided by utilities ornetwork industries are characterised by various forms of market imperfection and regulation is needed in order to ensure a certain level of quality of service toprotect consumers or to protect the environment understandably governmentshave been concerned to retain national autonomy in regulation policy and havebeen wary of agreeing to commit themselves to common international rules inthis area as part of the uruguay round the general agreement on trade in services gats entered into force on 1 january 1995 with a set of binding rules anddisciplines to promote liberalisation of services trade and investment ows thewto ministerial declaration at doha in november 2001 agreed to negotiationson the reduction or elimination of tariff and non tariff barriers for environmentalgoods and services as part of the negotiations on trade in services within thegats framework wto 2001

raising offtake from cattle grazed on natural rangelands in sub saharan africa a transaction cost economics approach farmers in sub saharan africa are constrained by large transaction costs associated with marketing of their livestock however transaction costs are often not taken into account in the analysis of factors hampering the development of livestock marketing in this region this article empirically measures the influence of transaction costs on the offtake from cattle grazed on natural rangelands in uganda the study is based on the monitoring of 696 cattle transactions in three districts of uganda from august 2004 to august 2005 the estimated models suggest that proportional transaction costs represented by the state of roads distance to markets and time taken to reach the market are important variables constraining market participation in order to raise offtake from the national herd it is essential to explicitly address these costs one potential solution is collective action in marketing of livestock in which proportional and fixed transaction costs are reduced and shared among the group members

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

diet transformation in africa the case of ethiopia africa s food systems are changing fast amid rapid economic growth emerging urbanization and structural transformation in this study we use four rounds of nationally representative data from ethiopia to document changes in household food consumption patterns over a period of unprecedented economic growth we find that while the share of food in the total consumption basket is declining food quantities and calorie intakes have considerably increased between 1996 and 2011 a decomposition analysis suggests that this was mostly driven by improvements in household incomes a finding that is consistent across the calorie distribution also the content of the food basket is changing with a gradual shift toward high value foods such as animal products fruits and vegetables and processed foods overall this diet transformation has important implications for the food security debate and for agricultural and food policy in the country

adaptability of competitive electricity reforms a modular analysis abstract among the competitive electricity reforms that have been implemented in europe and the us for the last 18 years none has survived over several years without major changes their changing nature raises the question of their adaptability two characteristics of reforms play a key role on their adaptation properties firstly they are modular objects in the sense of baldwin c 2008 where do transactions come from modularity transactions and the boundaries of firms industrial and corporate change 17 1 155 195 secondly they are produced in an institutional process which leads to incomplete rules and designs pistor k xu c 2003 incomplete law international law and politics 35 931 1013 we propose a typology of adaptations based on the framework proposed by williamson o e 1991 comparative economic organization the analysis of discrete structural alternatives administrative science quarterly 36 2 269 296 for contracts 1 in case of small disturbances adaptations are realized quasi automatically by autonomous decisions of the institutions governing the implementation of reforms 2 in case of middle range disturbances adaption is made by coasian bargaining 3 finally in case of strong disturbances or when bargaining is not feasible the adaptation of reforms is in the hands of legislative and executive institutions north d c 2005 le processus du developpement economique editions d organisation these institutions can reform the reforms joskow p l 2006 introduction to electricity sector liberalization lessons learned from cross country studies in sioshansi f p ed electricity market reform an international perspective elsevier amsterdam pp 1 32 hogan w w 2002 electricity market restructuring reforms of reforms journal of regulatory economics 21 103 132 the role of these types of adaptations in each electricity reform is a consequence of the allocation of rights to the regulator to stakeholders and to legislative and executive institutions

institutions and commitment the thrust of this paper is that to understand the roles institutions play in society a deep analysis of opportunism and its implications is necessary for that purpose a transactions costs cum positive political theory approach is developed with a focus on the role of institutions and their implications for regulatory commitment a major issue is restraining political opportunism countries that have succeeded in developing a healthy private sector are those that have developed institutions that restrain governmental decision making but such restraining is itself a political choice countries with electoral and legislative systems that bring about decentralized government have stronger chances of developing equilibria where government discretion is restrained copyright 1996 by oxford university press