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

estimating the effect of hierarchies on information use theory suggests that greater hierarchical distance between a subordinate and his boss makes it more di cult to share abstract and subjective information in decision making a novel data set put together from credit dossiers of large corporate loan applicants enables us to observe the information collected by loan o cers and also how it is used by the ultimate loan approving o cer we flnd that greater hierarchical geographical distance between the information collecting agent and the loan approving o cer leads to less reliance on subjective information and more on objective information by exploiting non linearities in the assignment rules that determine an applicant s hierarchical distance and using information collecting agent flxed efiects we show that our result cannot be driven by endogenous assignment of applicants we also flnd that higher frequency of interactions between the information collecting agent and loan approving o cer both over time and through geographical proximity helps mitigate the efiects of hierarchical distance on information use our results show that hierarchical distance in uences information use and highlights the importance of human touch in communication

private food safety and quality standards for fresh produce exporters the case of hortico agrisystems zimbabwe abstract there is evidence that the challenges of complying with stricter food safety and quality standards are acting to exclude small scale producers from export supply chains for high value agricultural products the case of hortico agrisystems illustrates the considerable challenges and costs faced by supermarket suppliers in sourcing from a broad base of small scale producers in the context of evolving food safety and quality standards while small scale producers are able to achieve levels of compliance at least equal to those of large scale producers multi tiered and dynamic systems of control are required to maintain control these need to include measures that facilitate compliance incentives to reward good performance and penalties to punish non compliance in establishing a sustainable supply system in this context both exporters and small scale producers face a steep learning curve in adjusting to new requirements further emphasising the need for supply chains to be responsive to change

the elasticity of prices with respect to monetary components some estimates for the uk 1948 1979 this paper reports estimates of the elasticity of various monetary components in the uk by assessing their ability to explain prices tests of the monetarist proposition that a unit change in a weighted monetary aggregate migh lead to a unit change in the price level in the long run and of the appropriateness of the current practice of constructing monetary aggregates by the simple summation of monetary components are also performed

agroindustrialization globalization and international development an overview of issues patterns and determinants this paper offers an overview for a special issue on agroindustrialization globalization and international development it sets out a conceptual framework for understanding the links among these three broad phenomena and then discusses emerging issues and evidence concerning the factors conditioning agroindustrialization in developing countries and the subsequent effects on employment poverty and the natural environment we conclude with a research agenda

value chain dynamics settlement trajectories and regional development fold n value chain dynamics settlement trajectories and regional development regional studies global value chain gvc analysis has little to say about the interaction between regions and global chain dynamics however recent calls to address broader development issues have resulted in efforts to incorporate a spatial dimension in gvc analysis addressing this issue the paper argues that gvc analysis needs to be combined with the examination of livelihoods at settlement level livelihood diversification or lack thereof indicates particular settlement trajectories that constitute regional development pathways it is also suggested that the understanding of how regions are shaped by value chain dynamics will improve by adding elements from global production network gpn theory to the combined methodology namely by an examination of territorial embeddedness and value creation enhancement capture distribution at settlement level

saving or stripping rural industry an analysis of privatization and efficiency in china abstract this paper describes the process of privatization of china s township enterprises findings from a recent field survey by the authors show how far privatization has proceeded and how it has affected firm performance the pervasiveness and impact of privatization are readily apparent the privatization in the mid 1990s was deep and fundamental more than 50 of local government owned firms have transferred their shares to the private sector partially or completely privatization is widespread regardless of what definition we use share shifting controlling interest shifting or complete although we do not find any evidence in our descriptive statistics that private and privatized firms outperform government ones the private sector does appear to be beginning to manage its firms e g labor and inventories somewhat differently our multivariate analysis however finds a positive impact of privatization on technical efficiency efficiency of china s rural industries including agro industrial firms would rise if township enterprises privatized the impact of privatization however does not occur immediately transitional costs apparently reduce private firm efficiency in the year that firms are being privatized it is possible to surmise that as privatized firms complete their ownership transition and continue to learn how to adapt to china s business environment that the gains could rise further however we cannot say if the gain in efficiency is enough to make rural industries competitive in the future

high tech firms and credit rationing abstract informational frictions between borrowers and lenders differ across classes of borrowers innovative firms undertake high risk high return projects which are likely to be little understood by financial intermediaries as a consequence they may end up allocating too large a share of funds to traditional low risk low return projects this proposition finds some support in a cross section of italian manufacturing firms using several proxies to classify firms into high tech and low tech groups and direct information on each firm s access to bank credit high tech firms are found to be more likely to be credit constrained than low tech firms the results suggest that the responsiveness of r d expenditure to cash flow found in the literature is likely due to pervasive credit constraints on innovative firms rather than to cash flow proxying for future expectations the paper also sheds light on the main factors affecting the probability of a firm being rationed in the credit market

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

the transition to modern agriculture contract farming in developing economies recent years have seen considerable interest in the impact of contract farming on farmers in developing countries motivated out of belief that contract farming spurs transition to modern agriculture in this article we provide a thorough review of the empirical literature on contract farming in bo

links between economic liberalization and rural resource degradation in the developing regions this paper examines evidence of the effects of economic liberalization and globalization on rural resource degradation in developing countries the principal resource effects of concern are processes of land use change leading to forestland conversion degradation and deforestation the main trends in globalization of interest are trade liberalization and economy wide reforms in developing countries that have opened up the agroindustrial sectors thus increasing their export orientation such reforms have clearly spurred agroindustrialization rural development and economic growth but there is also concern that there may be direct and indirect impacts on rural resource degradation the direct impacts may occur as increased agricultural activity leads to conversion of forests and increased land degradation from unsustainable production methods however there may also be indirect effects if agroindustrial development displaces landless near landless and rural poor generally who then migrate to marginal agricultural lands and forest frontier regions this paper explores these direct and indirect effects of globalization and agroindustrialization on rural resource degradation both generally plus through examining case study evidence the paper focuses in particular on the examples of structural adjustment trade liberalization and agricultural development in ghana and maize sector liberalization in mexico under north american free trade agreement nafta

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

the information content of monetary aggregates in the u k abstract this paper presents some results evaluating the information content of several monetary aggregates formed as simple sums or as divisia quantity indices the former tend to dominate the latter there is considerable support for the new broader official monetary aggregate psl2

relationship lending during a financial crisis this paper studies whether relationship lending mitigates the transmission of the lehman default shock to the supply of credit in italy exploiting the presence of multiple banking relationships we control for banks and firms unobserved characteristics results show that the growth of credit itself is higher and its cost lower the shorter the distance between the bank and the firm the longer the relationship and the higher the share of credit held by the bank credit growth by relationship lenders is 4 6 higher than that by transactional lenders the increase in the cost of credit is 50 basis points lower the positive effect of relationship lending on credit supply increased during the crisis compared to a pre crisis period the beneficial effect of relationship lending is weaker if the relationship lender is more exposed to the financial crisis especially when lending to weaker borrowers

is relationship lending special evidence from credit file data in germany the german financial market is often characterized as a bank based system with strong bank customer relationships the corresponding notion of a housebank is closely related to the theoretical idea of relationship lending it is the objective of this paper to provide a direct comparison between housebanks and normal banks as to their credit policy therefore we analyze a new data set representing a random sample of borrowers drawn from the credit portfolios of five leading german banks over a period of five years we use credit file data rather than industry survey data and thus focus the analysis on information that is directly related to actual credit decisions in particular we use bank internal borrower rating data to evaluate borrower quality and the bank s own assessment of its housebank status to control for information intensive relationships the major results of our study support the view that housebanks are able to establish a distinct behavioral pattern consistent with the idea of long term commitment we find that housebanks do provide liquidity insurance in situations of unexpected deterioration of borrower ratings with respect to loan pricing we find no evidence for intra or intertemporal price differentiation related to housebanking

agroindustrialization through institutional innovation transaction costs cooperatives and milk market development in the east african highlands abstract some small holders are able to generate reliable and substantial income flows through small scale dairy production for the local market for others a set of unique transaction costs hinders participation cooperative selling institutions are potential catalysts for mitigating these costs stimulating entry into the market and promoting growth in rural communities trends in cooperative organization in east african dairy are evaluated empirical work focuses on alternative techniques for effecting participation among a representative sample of peri urban milk producers in the ethiopian highlands the variables considered are a modern production practice cross bred cow use a traditional production practice indigenous cow use three intellectual capital forming variables experience education and extension and the provision of infrastructure as measured by time to transport milk to market a tobit analysis of marketable surplus generates precise estimates of non participants distances to market and their reservation levels of the covariates measures of the inputs necessary to sustain and enhance the market policy implications focus on the availability of cross bred stock and the level of market infrastructure both of which have marked effects on participation the velocity of transactions in the local community and inevitably the social returns to agroindustrialization

trade and agroindustrialization in developing countries trends and policy impacts there have been important changes in the international trade of processed and high value added food products from developing countries over the past several decades one of them has been the emergence of oilseeds and fruits and vegetables replacing traditional products such as sugar coffee and cocoa as the main exports from developing countries another trend has been the collapse of african agroindustrial exports and the increase of exports from asia the paper highlights key trends and explores possible reasons for the trends focusing on trade policies in less developed countries ldcs and developed countries dcs the paper argues that national trade policies and other economic policies appear to have been relatively supportive of agroindustrial production and exports in asia in contrast policies have had more mixed effects in latin america and the caribbean lac and seem to have been just one component in a larger array of forces inhibiting economic development in africa the performance of agroindustrial production and exports from ldcs may be now more dependent than ever on the completion of reforms in the agricultural trade policies of dcs for africa however a more supportive international environment and better macroeconomic and trade policies will not be enough to ensure a thriving agroindustrial sector within a broader process of economic development until military confrontations stop

endogenous institutional innovation and agroindustrialization on the peruvian coast this paper presents an analysis of endogenous institutional innovations that have recently emerged in the agroindustrial zone of chincha on the coast of peru these innovations include 1 contracts between agroindustrial firms and large farmers introduced by the firms themselves to assure timely delivery and compliance with strict requirements implied by the emerging demanding quality and safety standards for agro export of processed asparagus 2 management services exchanged for labor supervision and land collateral in share tenancy contracts between a management company and farmer companies of small cotton farmers these contracts introduced by the management company illustrate those described theoretically by eswaran and kotwal am econ rev 75 3 352 367 the nature and importance of these institutional changes are twofold 1 they were induced institutional innovations driven by the requirements of agroindustrialization itself 2 together they had ambiguous employment and income impacts tending to the negative on the one hand the emergence of asparagus and firm farm contracts reduced employment through exclusion of small farms and shifts to capital intensive crops on the other hand the reinforcement of smallholder cotton and the emergence of farmer companies increased employment and income of smallholders the institutional innovation allowed them to reduce risk and increase profits and thus access some of the benefits of agroindustrialization and globalization while processing firm farm contracts are common in peru as is the presence of ngos bringing subsidized credit the private management firm innovation is rare and new in peru and apparently also in the region and of great interest in fact policymakers and ngos have recently discovered that this innovation is taking place and are asking hard questions about whether this innovation can and will be diffused the interest in the private for profit institutional change is sharpened by growing doubts about how economically sustainable and widespread a response ngo help can be to small farmers in maintaining their participation in income enhancing agroindustrialization moreover with changes in land laws and markets the fluidity of the situation is apparent with agroindustrial firms even starting to ask themselves whether contracts with large farms are necessary and best 2000 published by elsevier science b v

international shock transmission after the lehman brothers collapse evidence from syndicated lending after lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy in september 2008 cross border bank lending contracted sharply to explain the severity and variation in this contraction we analyze detailed data on cross border syndicated lending by 75 banks to 59 countries we find that banks that had to write down sub prime assets refinance large amounts of long term debt and experienced sharp declines in their market to book ratio transmitted these shocks across borders by curtailing their lending abroad while shocked banks differentiated between countries in much the same way as less constrained banks they restricted their lending more to small borrowers

the aggregation error in divisia monetary aggregates some findings for the u k 1963 1980 abstract in this paper we examine the potential aggregation error or information loss in the construction of divisia indices of monetary aggregates for the uk all the indices produce no information loss but in detail our findings differ from those for the us

new institutional arrangements for rural development the case of local woolgrowers associations in the transkei area south africa until recently smallholder farmers in the transkei area had very limited access to a profitable market outlet for their wool in response the south african wool industry built shearing sheds managed by a local association that sells directly to the brokers this article investigates the effect of joint wool marketing through the shearing shed on the farmers revenue from wool a three step regression model of the revenue from wool indicates that the farmers selling through the shearing shed obtain better financial results as compared to those who use alternative channels this analysis shows how new institutional arrangements may contribute to economic development

do private standards benefit workers in horticultural export chains in peru private standards are spreading rapidly in international food production and trade and are moving beyond food quality and safety aspect to address environmental and social concerns we examine how effective private standards are in improving employment conditions in global food supply chains using panel data from own company and worker surveys and different econometric techniques we analyze how the adoption of a variety of private standards that differ with respect to their focus on labor influences employment conditions in production processing and exporting companies in the horticultural export chain in peru we find that workers employed in companies adopting private labor standards are more likely to be paid a minimum wage to have a contract and to receive training but there is no effect of private standards on the level of the wage and on the employment period we conclude that labor standards are most effective in reinforcing the respect of national labor laws and when there exists a clear cut definition on the employment requirements they push forward despite the existence of labor regulations at the national level and the wide spread use of private labor standards ethical labor concerns do remain an issue in the peruvian horticultural export sector

who is credit constrained in the u s economy an important assumption of the life cycle model of consumption is the postulate of perfect capital markets this hypothesis has recently been challenged by substantial empirical evidence hall and mishkin 1982 using the panel study of income dynamics estimate that 20 percent of united states families are liquidity constrained mariger 1986 derives a life cycle model with endogenous liquidity constraints and using a cross section estimates this fraction to be 19 4 percent hubbard and judd 1986 simulate a model with a constraint on net worth which shows that with reasonable assumptions about preferences 19 0 percent of united states consumers are liquidity constrained the emerging consensus points therefore to a fraction of approximately 20 percent of the population behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with the pure life cycle model in addition hayashi 1985 and zeldes 1989 investigate the correlation among consumption wealth and income for various population groups and infer that liquidity constraints are more important for younger families with low levels of wealth and saving the main limitation of these studies is that in their data sets constrained consumers are not observable and have to be identified via indirect evidence thus there is as yet little firm evidence about the characteristics of the consumers who are likely to be credit constrained this paper adopts an approach that differs from previous tests for liquidity constraints because it makes use of data where constrained consumers are observable and explicitly links their existence to credit market imperfections and personal characteristics the data drawn from the 1983 survey of consumer finances scf and described in section ii provide information on individuals whose request for credit has been rejected by financial intermediaries in section iii a model is developed in which consumers and lenders behavior jointly determines the probability that a consumer is rationed in the credit market this probability is then

relationship lending accounting disclosure and credit availability during the asian financial crisis we examine whether lending relationships benefit firms by making credit more available during periods of financial stress our main finding is that during the asian financial crisis of july 1997 through the end of 1998 relationship lending increased the likelihood that korean and thai firms would obtain credit but it had no effect on indonesian and philippine firms we ask if accounting disclosure might explain the observed differences among the three countries for which audit information is available we find that for indonesian firms with weak lending relationships banks replace relationship lending technology with a financial statement lending technology such a result does not hold for korean and philippine firms

agroindustrialization of the global agrifood economy bridging development economics and agribusiness research this paper examines the agroindustrialization process from two supposedly disparate views development economics and agribusiness research the evolution of conceptual and methodological approaches emanating from these fields is explored and general observations are made concerning farm economic interdependence institutional and organizational change differing scopes of interest the causes of agroindustrialization orientation and the choice of microanalytic tools terminology and unit of analysis despite an impressive list of hurdles disincentives and disconnects complementarities between the two fields are identified the paper concludes by exploring the potential of bridging development economics and agribusiness research to inform the future agroindustrialization research agenda

the impact of the tomato agroindustry on the rural poor in mexico this article addresses the issue of whether the tomato agroindustry tai has been an effective instrument in the reduction of rural poverty the tai is by far the most important agroindustry in mexico in terms of exports and employment creation most of the laborers employed by the tai in northwest mexico are temporary migrants coming from poverty stricken regions in southern mexico conditions of poverty induced migration are explained the characteristics and strategies of large modern tomato enterprises are analyzed the main conclusion is that migrant income earned in the tomato fields and packing plants is fundamental for the bare survival in villages in poverty stricken regions however this does not provide a solution to poverty alleviation because migrant income is not sufficient to contribute to capital formation in the migrating communities or the to create the conditions for endogenous local development

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

a framework to facilitate institutional arrangements for smallholder supply in developing countries an agribusiness perspective the industrialization of agriculture and the potential problem of small scale farmer marginalization calls for a fresh approach to the design of agribusiness supply chain arrangements in developing countries the objective of the paper is to contribute to a better understanding of institutional arrangements that can promote stable smallholder agribusiness contracting arrangements in a developing country context a case study approach incorporating a transaction cost framework is used to test whether trust can significantly change the contract characteristics of supply the results suggest that although the presence of trust can influence the contract characteristics of a supply arrangement it may not be significant because of other factors in a developing country context bearing this in mind a number of institutional arrangements are recommended in order to promote more stable contract conditions

when arm s length is too far relationship banking over the credit cycle we conduct face to face interviews with bank ceos to classify 397 banks across 21 countries as either relationship or transaction lenders we then use the geographic coordinates of these banks branches and of 14 100 businesses to analyze how the lending techniques of banks in the vicinity of firms are related to credit constraints at two contrasting points of the credit cycle we find that while relationship lending is not associated with credit constraints during a credit boom it alleviates such constraints during a downturn this positive role of relationship lending is stronger for small and opaque firms and in regions with a more severe economic downturn moreover our evidence suggests thatrelationship lending mitigates the impact of a downturn on firm growth and does not constitute evergreening of loans

a more complete conceptual framework for sme finance abstract we propose a more complete conceptual framework for analysis of sme credit availability issues in this framework lending technologies are the key conduit through which government policies and national financial structures affect credit availability we emphasize a causal chain from policy to financial structures which affect the feasibility and profitability of different lending technologies these technologies in turn have important effects on sme credit availability financial structures include the presence of different financial institution types and the conditions under which they operate lending technologies include several transactions technologies plus relationship lending we argue that the framework implicit in most of the literature is oversimplified neglects key elements of the chain and often yields misleading conclusions a common oversimplification is the treatment of transactions technologies as a homogeneous group unsuitable for serving informationally opaque smes and a frequent misleading conclusion is that large institutions are disadvantaged in lending to opaque smes

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

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

distance and private information in lending we study the effects of physical distance on the acquisition and use of private information in informationally opaque credit markets using a unique data set of all loan applications by small firms to a large bank we show that borrower proximity facilitates the collection of soft information leading to a trade off in the availability and pricing of credit which is more readily accessible to nearby firms albeit at higher interest rates ceteris paribus analyzing loan rates and firms decision to switch lenders provides further evidence for banks strategic use of private information however distance erodes our lender s ability to collect proprietary intelligence and to carve out local captive markets suggesting that the requisite soft information is primarily local the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies all rights reserved for permissions please e mail journals permissions oxfordjournals org oxford university press

credit rationing and relationship lending does firm size matter abstract using survey based data we investigate factors influencing credit rationing within a bank based financial system we show that rationing depends on various dimensions of the firm bank relationships and that the effects of relationship lending on rationing are not identical for different firm size groups multiple banking increases the probability of rationing for small and large firms debt concentration with the main bank affects positively smaller firms while the opposite is true for large companies the length of the relationship with the main bank decreases the probability of rationing for both groups but more so for large firms endowed with more bargaining power finally the firm bank spatial proximity measured by the headquarters vicinity does not affect the firm s access to credit

money inflation and casuality another look at the empirical evidence for the usa 1953 84 this paper addresses the issue of the existence of a causal relationship between inflation i e change in the price level and change in the money supply three different causality tests are discussed and implemented for two separate time periods the results are mixed and somewhat difficult to interpret on intuitive grounds while a causal relationship is found to exist between changes in the consumer price index and changes in the narrowly defined money supply there is no relationship indentifiable between the other price and money supply data series used given this result one can see why different results are frequently obtained the different researchers focusing on the question of a relationship between the supply of money and prices finally the results of a previous paper by feige and pearce are called into question as the result of a serious misspecification

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

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

effects of trade and agricultural policies on the structure of the u s tomato industry abstract over the last few decades accelerated growth of mexican tomato imports to the united states has caused several trade disputes with u s growers a data driven approach was used to analyze trade flows in the tomato industry from 1970 to 2015 and all structural changes to policy interventions implemented during the same period were linked tests for endogenous breakpoints reveal that nafta and trade pricing policies are two of the main factors that caused structural changes in the tomato industry in 1992 and 1999 while u s agricultural policies sought to protect domestic tomato producers they did not stop mexican tomatoes from taking an important share of the u s market mexican imports to the united states especially post nafta have a high explanatory power for u s domestic production

bank lending technologies and credit availability in europe what can we learn from the crisis abstract using a unique sample of european manufacturing firms we empirically investigate how bank lending technologies nd soft information adoption affected firms credit availability during the 2007 2009 financial crisis estimation results indicate that transactional lending technologies increased firms credit rationing whereas soft information mitigated asymmetric information problems and improved firms access to credit by looking at the combined effect of bank lending technologies and soft information we also provide evidence about the complementarity between transactional lending techniques and soft information adoption when soft information was incorporated in transactional lending technologies firms credit rationing significantly reduced this result is especially strong for small borrowing firms and for companies matching with large financial institutions

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

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

intangible resources tobin s q and sustainability of performance differences this paper tests empirically the hypothesis that the greater the intangibility of a firm s resources the greater the sustainability of its competitive advantage resource intangibility is measured by 1 tobin s q and 2 the predicted value from a hedonic regression of q on several accounting measures of intangibles sustainability is measured by the persistence of firm specific profits using a dynamic panel data regression model i find that intangibles play an effective role in sustaining a firm s competitive advantage as predicted by the resource based view of the firm however the results suggest that intangibles can also lock firms into persistent disadvantages

agricultural workers credit rationing and family networks in rural mexico abstractwe use mixed methods and first hand household data in mexico to investigate credit practices by households engaged in agricultural wage employment quantitative analysis shows evidence of rationing in the formal sector but also suggests the existence of mitigating mechanisms qualitative analysis provides additional insights first income patterns associated with agricultural wage generate income smoothing needs that are sometimes better met by the informal sector second family networks can perform key functions as gateways to the formal sector through specific informal arrangements that inject flexibility into formal rules and procedures

reforms globalization and endogenous agricultural structures in this paper i draw lessons from two quasi natural experiments the transition process in former communist countries and the rapid globalization of food chains on the optimality of farms and agricultural structures more generally i argue that a the farm structures that have emerged from the transition process are much more diverse than expected ex ante b this diversity is to an important extent determined by economic mechanisms which are influenced by initial conditions eg technology and reform policies c non traditional farm structures have played an important role during transition since they were optimal to address the specific institutional and structural constraints imposed by the transition process d there is more diversity than often argued in the farms that are integrated in global food chains e endogenous institutional contracting innovations in food chains may lock existing farm structures in a long run institutional framework and f indicators based on farm structures are not a good measure of welfare effects of the globalization of food chains

engel curves for fair trade consumption and development perspectives for producers evidence from data on real fairtrade purchases while fairtrade sales have exhibited two digit growth rates over recent decades their capacity to become large enough to generate substantial gains for producers is still uncertain estimating fai

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

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

the benefits of lending relationships evidence from small business data this paper empirically examines how ties between a firm and its creditors affect the availability and cost of funds to the firm we analyze data collected in a survey of small firms by the small business administration the primary benefit of building close ties with an institutional creditor is that the availability of financing increases we find smaller effects on the price of credit attempts to widen the circle of relationships by borrowing from multiple lenders increases the price and reduces the availability of credit in sum relationships are valuable and appear to operate more through quantities rather than prices

the benefits of relationship lending in a cross country context a meta analysis relationship lending may create benefits for borrowers by reducing information asymmetries however empirical evidence is mixed we conduct a meta analysis to summarize and explain the heterogeneity in the results in the literature using hand collected information from 101 studies in the united states europe asia and latin america from 1970 to 2010 we find that strong relationships are generally beneficial for borrowers but lending outcomes differ across the relationships dimensions long lasting exclusive and synergy creating bank relationships are associated with higher credit volume and lower loan rates these benefits are more likely in the united states and in countries where bank competition is high they are not related to the importance of small and medium sized enterprises in an economy suggesting that prevalence of relationship lending does not necessarily come along with borrower benefits our inferences are robust when we control for observed systematic heterogeneity in the original

from financial crisis to great recession the role of globalized banks this paper provides evidence of the role of globalized banks in transmitting financial stresses to the real economy during the global financial crisis a novel dataset is constructed from quarterly balance sheet reports provided by all uk resident banks to the bank of england i find that the shock to bank funding from non resident creditors was transmitted domestically through a significant reduction in bank credit supply resident subsidiaries and branches of foreign owned banks reduced lending by a larger amount than domestically owned banks while the latter calibrated the reduction in domestic lending more closely to the size of the funding shock

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