capitalization of government support in agricultural land prices what do we know abstract the objective of this paper is to provide an overview of existing literature both theoretically and empirically on the extent to which agricultural subsidies do translate into higher land values and rents and finally benefit landowners instead of agricultural producers our review shows that agricultural support policy instruments contribute to increasing the rental price of farmland and that the extent of this increase closely depends on the level of the supply price elasticity of farmland relative to those of other factors inputs on the one hand and on the range of the possibilities of factor input substitution in agricultural production on the other hand the empirical literature shows that land prices and rents have in general a significant positive and inelastic response to government support such inelastic response is thought to reflect the uncertain future of the farm programmes and in general studies have indicated that land prices are more responsive to government based returns than to market based returns

the economics of a blend mandate for biofuels a biofuel blend mandate may increase or decrease consumer fuel prices with endogenous oil prices depending on relative supply elasticities biofuel tax credits always reduce fuel prices tax credits result in lower fuel prices than under a mandate for the same level of biofuel production if tax credits are implemented alongside mandates then tax credits subsidize fuel consumption instead of biofuels this contradicts energy policy goals by increasing oil dependency co 2 emissions and traffic congestion while providing little benefit to either corn or ethanol producers these social costs will be substantial with tax credits costing taxpayers 28 7 billion annually by 2022 copyright 2008 oxford university press

industry and country effects on managers perceptions of environmental uncertainties international management research highlights political government policy and macroeconomic uncertainties strategy studies focus on input supply product market and competitive uncertainties this study develops and tests the reliability of an instrument for measuring managers uncertainly perceptions data analyses using an international sample provide insights into the relative importance of country and industry factors for explaining managers perceptions of different environmental uncertainties

scale economies and consolidation in hog slaughter we use establishment based panel data to estimate a cost function which identifies the role of scale economies in hog slaughter consolidation we find modest but extensive technological scale economies in the 1990s and they became more important over time but wages rose sharply with plant size through the 1970s and those wage premiums generated a pecuniary scale diseconomy that largely offset the effects of technological scale economies the size wage relation disappeared in the 1980s with growing technological scale economies and disappearing pecuniary diseconomies large plants realized growing cost advantages over smaller plants and production shifted to larger plants copyright 2000 oxford university press

the transfer efficiency and trade effects of direct payments all the different ways governments use to provide financialsupport to farmers can potentially distort trade and reduce net economic welfare however there are some types of support that are less trade distorting and more efficient than others this article reports the results of an analysis that examined different policy measures providing support to crop producers to rank them in terms of their effects on a selection of indicators with a particular focus on trade distortion and income transfer efficiency 1 we begin with an analysis of the differences in policy impacts among the three main categories of support provided to crop producers in oecd countries market price support payments based on land use and payments based on use of purchased inputs oecd 2001c that analysis is based on a two region model of equilibrium in the world market for a representative crop analytical solutions to this modelare devel oped to compare the production trade and income effects of the different support measures following procedures used in cahill and in moro and sckokai comparisons are of impact ratios using market price support as the reference category these ratios measure the effect on production trade or farm income of a given joe dewbre jesus anton and wyatt thompson are economists in the agricultural directorate of the organization for economic cooperation and development where the underlying analysis was undertaken the views expressed are our own and not necessarily those of the oecd secretariat or its member countries we thank our secretariat colleagues ken ash carmel cahill wilfrid legg and michele patterson for helpful comments on an earlier draft and stephane guillot for computer programming assistance this article was presented in a principal paper session at the aaea annualmeeting chicago il august 2001 the articl es in these sessions are not subjected to the journal s standard refereeing process 1

impacts of declining u s retail beef demand on farm level beef prices and production a systems model was estimated to determine the effects of declining u s retail beef demand on farm level beef prices and production retail beef demand declined by nearly 66 from 1976 to 1999 results indicate autonomous shifts in retail demand significantly impacted farm level demands and production based on equilibrium multipliers the 1976 99 reduction in beef demand decreased real slaughter cattle prices and production by 32 1 and 11 2 respectively real feeder cattle prices and production decreased by 8 0 and 22 6 respectively combining the decreases in farm prices and production slaughter and feeder cattle producers experienced a real revenue reduction of 13 3 billion 61 due to the long term decline in demand

the expansion of foreign direct investments discrete rational location choices or a cultural learning process it is recognized in the literature that experience may affect the cost and the uncertainty of operating in foreign markets and experience and market knowledge may therefore influence the location decisions of fdis economic theory does not however predict a general expansion pattern of fdis across industries on the other hand the theory associated with the internationalization process approach highlights the importance of cultural distance and predicts a movement from close to more distant markets as more experience is acquired by the firm the internationalization process approach is rooted in a behavioral theory of the firm

replacement of agricultural price supports by area payments in the european union and the effects on pesticide use this article determines the contribution of recent european union agricultural policy reforms on the use of pesticides our theoretical model extends the multioutput generalization of the lichtenberg zilberman damage control technology model developed by chambers and lichtenberg our empirical analysis uses farm level data for a sample of french farms results suggest that price effects on the use of pesticides are always more elastic than area payment effects this indicates that policy reforms consisting of a reduction in price supports in favor of area payments may reduce application of crop protection inputs such policy changes which represent a certain degree of decoupling took place under the 1992 common agricultural policy reforms

impact of policies and subsidies in agribusiness the case of oil palm and biofuels in colombia abstract we analyze the economic impacts of policies supporting biodiesel production in colombia such as subsidies and mandates for compulsory fuel mixtures in the major biodiesel source being palm oil we seek to establish the impact of these policies on oil palm producer incomes prices and production levels of crude palm oil cpo and biodiesel as well as the impacts on demand for land for oil palm plantation expansion we also calculate the so called deadweight costs to account for the social costs derived from the inefficiencies of government interventions in the biodiesel markets the analysis is done using a partial equilibrium models for the two interrelated sectors the production of palm oil and biodiesel and the demand for new land needed to cope with the additional palm oil needed the model was calibrated for 2009 to simulate for the 2010 2020 period the results of the simulations reveal that the subsidies alone are themselves not effective tools to achieve the government objectives defined in the biofuels program in colombia subsidies need to be complemented by increased blending mandates to ensure that palm cultivation and production of biodiesel investments are profitable enough that producers would bet on such business additionally we find that producers of palm oil benefit most from subsidies in the short term however in the long term it is the biodiesel entrepreneurs who will appropriate the larger share of growth revenue of the entire production chain the social costs of the biofuels program are small in the short term and represent only between 0 2 and 0 7 of the tax expenditure however in the long term they would become significant and would account for around 4 1 to 6 1 of the tax payers expense

choice of foreign market entry mode impact of ownership location and internalization factors firms interested in servicing foreign markets face a difficult decision with regards to the choice of an entry mode the options available to a firm include exporting licensing joint venture and sole venture several factors that determine the choice of a specific foreign market entry mode have been identified in previous literature these factors can be classified into three categories ownership advantages of a firm location advantages of a market and internalization advantages of integrating transactions this study examines the independent and joint influences of these factors on the choice of an entry mode multinomial logistic regression model is employed to test the hypothesized effects

the degree of decoupling of area payments for arable crops in the european union in 1992 the common agricultural policy cap of the european union eu significantly changed direction in the arable crop sector with the so called macsharry reform this reform which reduced cereal intervention prices eliminated output payments for oilseeds and introduced per hectare compensatory payments and a compulsory set aside requirement attached to these payments implied a significant change in the policy incentives to produce in 1999 intervention prices were cut further bringing them closer to world market levels as well as aligning payments of cereals and oilseeds the most recent reform in

measuring the impact of meat packing and processing facilities in nonmetropolitan counties a difference in differences approach considerable controversy exists regarding the costs and benefits of growth in the meat packing and processing industry for rural counties this study investigates the effects of this industry on social and economic outcomes in nonmetropolitan counties of 23 midwestern and southern states from 1990 to 2000 results suggest that as the meat packing industry s share of a county s total employment and wage bill rises total employment growth increases however employment growth in other sectors slows as does local wage growth industry growth has little impact on local crime rates or on growth of government spending on education health or police protection

partner contributions as predictors of equity share in international joint ventures the type of expertise that a company contributes to a joint venture may affect the amount of equity that it owns this research observes the ownership patterns associated with four common combinations of partner expertise in international joint ventures the results rank company assets with respect to the contributor s ability to negotiate majority ownership in the original joint venture contract and that company s tendency to buy up equity from the partner later on

government policies market imperfections and foreign direct investment the internalization eclectic theory of foreign direct investment includes the important insight that government policies create market imperfections which make foreign direct investment an economically rational strategic alternative for firms this paper reexamines the effects of government policies on market imperfections and foreign direct investment fdi it broadens and refines the analysis of the impact of government policies by developing the following arguments 1 there is a wide range of government policies that affect firms fdi decisions via their effects on market imperfections 2 there are numerous dimensions of variability in government policies that need to be identified in order to understand fully the effects of government policies on market imperfections and hence fdi flows 3 some of the effects of government policies on market imperfections and fdi are the opposite of those previously noted in the fdi literature 4 the effects of government policies vary across the several individual components of fdi flows the paper thus examines the following variables and relationships more extensively and precisely than has the previous literature government policy variables as causal factors affecting fdi market imperfection variables as intervening factors in the causal connections between government policies and fdi and the multiple indicators of the various dimensions of fdi as dependent variables

technological change and economies of scale in u s poultry processing this article uses a unique data set provided by the census bureau and a translog cost function to empirically examine technological change in the u s poultry industry results reveal substantial scale economies that show no evidence of diminishing with plant size and that are much greater than those realized in cattle and hog slaughter findings suggest that consolidation is likely to continue particularly if demand growth diminishes and that controlling for plant product mix is critical to accurate cost estimates

global strategy and multinationals entry mode choice this paper makes a case directed towards establishing the importance of global strategic considerations in choosing multinationals entry mode specifically it is our contention that beyond the environmental and transaction specific factors well established in the literature to affect the entry mode decision we should also consider the strategic relationship a multinational envisages between its operations across borders in reaching this decision after incorporating various global strategic variables into an eclectic framework of the factors influencing the entry mode choice this paper tests both the validity of the overall framework and the importance of each entry mode determinant in differ entiating among entry modes this is done based on ninety six multinational managers responses to a survey questionnaire concerning their entry mode decision experiences the results suggest that an express incorporation of global strategic variables into an analysis of the entry mode decision is warranted

multiple policy goals in a trade model with explicit factor markets as trade protectionism has been reduced through multilateral agreements concerns have been raised about competitiveness effects of cross country differences in environmental and labor standards costs associated with decreased competitiveness are distributed across consumers and the various providers of inputs used in the production of affected commodities in this paper we present a trade model which can be used to help quantify the magnitude and distribution of costs associated with changes in input regulations the model can also be used to identify levels of policies required to offset or redistribute costs associated with regulations which reduce international competitiveness

input measurement and productivity growth in japanese and u s manufacturing in their article in this review j r norsworthy and david h malmquist 1983 have presented interesting comparisons of productivity growth in the japanese and u s manufacturing sectors their paper starts with the discussion of whether the conventional value added or gnp measurement of output is an appropriate framework for productivity analysis some confusion frequently arises as to whether a production function should be structured on the basis of gross output or value added output separability is a pivotal concept in the analysis of production structures especially in relation to the existence of a real value added aggregate it is well known that there are two types of separability which pertain to the existence of a real value added function weak local separability and strong partial separability the practical advantage of distinguishing these two different forms of separability is that the double deflation method in conventional gnp accounting is justified only when strong partial separability holds using the approximate separability tests of michael denny and melvyn fuss 1977 norsworthy and malmquist have shown that a value added aggregate does not exist in either u s or japanese manufacturing and they conclude that the appropriate output measure for joint investigation of both countries for purposes of productivity analysis is gross output p 953 the purpose of this comment is to indicate some deficiencies in norsworthy and malmquist s analysis in particular it will be demonstrated that the conditions for weak local and strong partial separability in norsworthy and malmquist s paper are incorrectly formulated and as a consequence their findings may not be used as conclusive evidence that a gross output measure is an appropriate basis for the analysis of capital labor substitutability and productivity growth in japan and the united states

clean energy and international oil oil has been the world s dominant fuel for more than 50 years substitution of oil for power generation and heating has progressed since the 1970s but substitution of oil in transport remains elusive this paper examines the progress of clean energy and compares the unfolding co evolution of technologies markets and institutions with what we know about substitution of oil and technological paradigm shifts while the rhetoric in favour of clean energy is strong technologies policies and supportive infrastructure investments are still in a formative stage the transformative process will evolve over the next 10 20 years and change irreversibly the demand dynamics for oil although decline in the demand for oil is not imminent the impact of the clean energy transition on international oil is evident even now high oil prices accelerate commitment policies and market prospects for clean energy options and speed up the market readiness of substitutes for oil while 20 years appears a long time for the development and scale up of alternatives to oil it is a short period in the context of the required paradigm shift for international oil it is well within the time frame for resource rent optimization strategic planning and investment decisions high cost resource developers need to be aware copyright 2011 oxford university press

does structure matter the impact of switching the agricultural policy regime on farm structures abstract this paper investigates the relationship between structural change in agriculture and a policy regime switch at the regional level using the agent based spatial and dynamic simulation model agripolis we simulate structural change for two different farm structures in response to a policy change results show that structural adjustment differs depending on the initial structure

the experience factor in foreign market entry behavior of service firms the paper examines the effect of international experience on service firms selection of foreign markets and entry modes the investigation utilizes survey date from 151 united states based service firms results on market selection suggest that as their experience increases and becomes geographically more diversified service firms tend to choose markets that are culturally less similar to their home country on entry mode choice the paper departs from traditional linear conceptualizations and hypothesizes a u shaped relationship between experience and propensity for integrated entry modes results generally support the hypothesis the paper explains these findings and describes how service firms resemble and differ from manufacturing firms in their foreign market entry behavior

the political economy of biodiesel in an era of low oil prices abstract global biodiesel production grew by 23 per annum between 2005 and 2015 leading to a seven fold expansion of the sector in a single decade rapid development in the biodiesel sector corresponded to high crude oil prices but since mid 2014 oil prices have fallen dramatically this paper assesses the economic and policy factors that underpinned the expansion of biodiesel and examines the near term prospects for biodiesel growth under conditions of low fossil fuel prices we show that the dramatic increase in biodiesel output would not have occurred without strong policy directives subsidies and trade policies designed to support agricultural interests rural economic development energy security and climate targets given the important role of policy and the political context within each country that shapes policy objectives instruments and priorities case studies of major biodiesel producing countries are presented as a key element of our analysis although the narrative of biodiesel policies in most countries conveys win win outcomes across multiple objectives the case studies show that support of particular constituents such as farm lobbies or energy interests often dominates policy action and generates large social costs looking out to 2020 the paper highlights risks to the biodiesel industry associated with ongoing regulatory and market uncertainties

how useful is the pse in determining agricultural support the support of the agricultural sector in developed countries plays a major role in the international policy agenda the producer support estimate pse is one of the best known measures which has been developed by oecd and is used all over the globe in the pse all types of support are aggregated and one of the main components 70 at oecd level is the market price support mps here we show by means of characteristic examples that the mps has no clear relation to basic economic measures determining support for producers as a consequence of policy intervention the mps overestimates the consequences of tariffs and export subsidies and underestimates the consequences of quota systems in determining producer support misperception of the size and directions of support may affect policy decision making wrongly the paper indicates that weighted average producer prices corrected for quantity restrictions may be more useful than the reference prices and quantities used by oecd

the effect of national culture on the choice of entry mode characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence the selection of entry modes this article investigates this claim by developing a theoretical argument for why culture should influence the choice of entry two hypotheses are derived which relate culture to entry mode choice one focusing on the cultural distance between countries the other on attitudes towards uncertainty avoidance using a multinomial logit model and controlling for other effects the hypotheses are tested by analysing data on 228 entries into the united states market by acquisition wholly owned greenfield and joint venture empirical support for the effect of national culture on entry choice is found

ownership patterns of u s joint ventures abroad and the liberalization of foreign government regulations in the 1980s evidence from the benchmark surveys data from the benchmark surveys of the commerce department show the beginning of a global liberalization in government restrictions on foreign equity in the 1980s this was manifested in a small but unmistakable across the board reduction in the share of 50 50 and minority affiliates out of all u s affiliates in a country across countries there remains a huge variation in this proportion and the second part of the paper seeks to statistically explain this variation in a cross sectional regression analysis

bargaining power of multinationals and host governments one of the outcomes of negotiation between multinationals and host governments in developing countries the extent of foreign ownership of subsidiaries is influenced by the bargaining power of the two parties foreign ownership measured in various ways appears to be affected by the level of technology of the multinational the degree to which a multinational attempts to differentiate its products the extent to which a subsidiary s output is exported to other parts of the multinational the diversity of products offered by the multinational and the extent of competition by other multinationals the relationship between some of these variables and ownership is not a simple one one variable that others have mentioned as probably affecting bargaining power size of the investment in question appears not to play a significant role in government policies toward ownership but many large projects tend to be located in countries that have lenient ownership policies

diversification exchange risk and corporate international investment all international investments inevitably have some diversification consequences yet the literature on foreign direct investment accords only a limited role to diversification or financial variables this paper develops a theory of corporate international investment from the standpoint of finance in an environment where the segmentation of international capital markets for individuals or the presence of agency costs provide some independence to corporate decisions separate from shareholders the model does not depend on any particular advantage of multinational firms and is specifies the stochastic properties of domestic and foreign output and input prices it is found that real exchange risk and diversification gains affect corporate international investment in a significant way it is also shown that the model embodies several existing explanations based on behavioral and economic variables

how much do decoupled payments affect production an instrumental variable approach with panel data how much decoupled payments such as direct payments in the u s affect agricultural production remains an open empirical question with implications for policy using data from multiple years of the census of agriculture we exploit a provision of the 2002 farm act that departed from previous policy by making oilseeds eligible for direct payments thus increasing payments to areas that historically produced more oilseeds our instrumental variable estimates in contrast to ols estimates suggest that changes in payments over the period 2002 to 2007 had little effect on aggregate production at the zip code level copyright 2012 oxford university press

the choice between mergers acquisitions and joint ventures the case of japanese investors in the united states this paper investigates the determinants of the choice between two alternative methods of pooling similar and complementary assets the merger acquisition and the greenfield equity joint venture two theories of the determinants of that choice are tested on a sample of japanese investments in the united states the results show that equity joint ventures are preferred over acquisitions when the desired assets are linked to nondesired assets because the u s firm owning them is large and not divisionalized when the japanese investor has little previous experience of the american market and hence seeks to avoid postmerger integration problems when the japanese investor and the u s partner manufacture the same product and when the industry entered is growing neither very rapidly nor very slowly

new ventures or acquisitions the choice of swedish multinational enterprises this study examines the factors influencing the multinational enterprises choice between the takeover of already existing firms and investments in new ventures as a means of entering a foreign market the results suggest that the degree of industrial diversification of the parent company and the host country s per capita income seems to have a positive influience on the propensity for takeovers this propensity appears to be negatively related to the rate of growth of industrial production in the industry entered further we found that the more recent the entry into a foreign market the greater the probability for choosing acquisition

feedstock diversification for biodiesel production in brazil using the policy analysis matrix pam to evaluate the impact of the pnpb and the economic competitiveness of alternative oilseeds abstract while biodiesel feedstock diversification is a main objective of the brazilian national program for the production and use of biodiesel pnpb in portuguese its achievement has remained elusive and biodiesel is predominantly produced from soybean 75 this research uses the policy analysis matrix pam approach to evaluate the pnpb effects and compare the economic efficiency and the competitiveness of biodiesel from three oilseeds soybean rapeseed and sunflower in contrast to papers that present results of experimental biodiesel production initiatives this paper explores the case of representative production chains best available technology and management practices the findings indicate that biodiesel production is competitive from the three oilseeds but the profitability of biodiesel from the soybean is notably higher the tax breaks and subsidies provided by the pnpb have a positive impact on the profitability of biodiesel production chains 7 43 for soybean 3 88 for rapeseed 5 53 for sunflower these results are encouraging and suggest two actions i to review the incentive policies tax reduction and payments to farmers of the different crops pay for oil content instead of crop yield and ii to invest in organizational and managerial approaches in the alternative oilseed agricultural systems to improve their technical and economic efficiency

measuring market power and cost efficiency effects of industrial concentration in this paper i show how appelbaum s framework for testing price taking behavior in a single industry can be formally extended to consider concentration explicitly in so doing i separate the market power effect of concentration from its cost efficiency effect data from the us beef packing industry are used to illustrate an empirical application of the model the findings support oligopsonistic market power and slaughter cost efficiency in the industry however the cost efficiency effect outweighs the market power effect

market and cost structure in the u s beef packing industry a plant level analysis a resurgence of consolidation in the u s meat packing industry in the past few decades has stimulated academic and policy debate issues raised include the role of cost economies in driving these patterns and the effects on the agricultural sector cattle producers from market power here plant level cost and revenue data for u s beef packing plants are used to estimate a cost based model incorporating cattle and output market pricing behavior the robust results indicate little market power exploitation in either the cattle input or beef output markets and that any apparent evidence is counteracted by cost efficiencies such as utilization and scope economies copyright 2001 oxford university press

the transaction costs theory of joint ventures an empirical study of japanese subsidiaries in the united states this paper offers the first large sample empirical study of the factors which influence the choice of japanese firms between full or partial ownership of their u s manufacturing subsidiaries it studies for the first time the ownership policies of investors of a single home country in a single host country thus keeping variations within home and host countries constant one methodological improvement over previous studies is the use as independent variables of the relevant characteristics of the investing firms these had been proxied in previous studies by data on u s industries entered the results suggest that the degree of ownership taken by japanese manufacturing investors in their american subsidiaries is driven by the same general transaction costs variables that determine the choices made by their u s counterparts japanese parents joint venture when they need to combine with other firms intermediate inputs which are subject to high market transaction costs an intriguing result however is the lack of significance of two variables which in the u s case strongly push towards full control of foreign subsidiaries in this study neither the japanese parent s r d nor its advertising intensities had any significant impact on their ownership policies

the influence of firm s size and international experience on the ownership structure of italian fdi in manufacturing the literature on foreign direct investment fdi has analysed the entry mode choice by multinational enterprises mnes from several theoretical viewpoints nevertheless previous studies have mainly focused on the behaviour of large and established mnes while little attention has been given to small and medium sized firms the paper aims at providing further empirical evidence on the role of firm size and international experience in influencing the ownership structure of fdi the main hypothesis is that smaller firms characterised by financial and managerial con straints as well as firms lacking experience in managing foreign operations suffer from a condition of adverse asym metry in information costs compared to their competitors therefore they are forced to act prudently minimising risk and thus preferring a less control arrangement of foreign sub sidiaries a binomial logistic model is developed with reference to manufacturing foreign direct investments undertaken by italian firms in the period 1986 1993

technology labor wars and producer dynamics explaining consolidation in beefpacking beefpacking underwent a dramatic transformation in the 1970s and 1980s as plants got much larger and industry concentration rose dramatically we use individual census bureau plant records to analyze the sources of the transformation we find that there were modest but extensive scale economies in packing plants covering the full range of plant sizes and that such economies became more important throughout the period of the study as production shifted to larger plants we estimate that the industry s aggregate processing costs fell by 35 3 by 2002 compared to what they would have been without consolidation

firm ownership preferences and host government restrictions an integrated approach two approaches may explain how multinational enterprises mnes select ownership structures for subsidiaries the first argues that mnes prefer structures that minimize that transaction costs of doing business abroad the second argues that ownership structures are determined by negotiations with host governments whose outcomes depend on the bargaining power of the firm this paper presents a framework integrating these two approaches and uses statistical methods to separate their effects empirically

the production effects of agricultural income support policies under uncertainty this analysis decomposes the production impacts of income support programs into wealth insurance and coupling effects under the usual assumptions about preferences the wealth and insurance effects of many support programs increase optimal input levels even for supposedly decoupled programs if the program is coupled in the usual sense then all three effects often act in the same direction it is concluded that studies of trade and domestic policy reform in stochastic environments should consider insurance and wealth effects the derivative conditions required to obtain results are also subjected to scrutiny simulations for an iowa corn producer confirm the comparative statics

the welfare economics of a biofuel tax credit and the interaction effects with price contingent farm subsidies a framework is developed to analyze the effects of a biofuel consumer tax exemption and the interaction effects with a price contingent farm subsidy ethanol prices rise above the gasoline price by the amount of the tax credit corn farmers gain directly while gasoline consumers only gain from any reduction in world oil prices due to the extra ethanol production domestic oil producers lose historically the intercept of the ethanol supply curve is above the gasoline price hence part of the tax credit is redundant and represents rectangular deadweight costs that dwarf triangular deadweight cost measures of traditional farm subsidies copyright 2007 oxford university press

transfer efficiency and distributional impacts of u s farm support evidence from a macro micro simulation the objective of this analysis is to provide insight into the transfer and distributional efficiency of farm support policies a one shot macro micro simulation model weaves together the two prominent threads in the agri cultural decoupling literature that focuses for the first part on economy wide impacts and for the second on the role of cross household het erogeneity experimental shocks to output and land subsidies that generate a 1 increase in net national farm income are compared for the united states with output subsidies shown to have lower transfer efficiency but comparable distributional impact surprisingly a more cou pled approach to policy whereby some agricul tural enterprises are excluded from program participation is found to generate a stronger reduction in inequality this is partially at tributed to the inclusive definition of a farm

environmental risks and joint venture sharing arrangements multinational enterprises mnes have responded to the open door policies of socialist countries in recent years by investing in their economies through joint ventures mnes must formulate their investment strategies to control and manage the environmental risks peculiar to a traditional centrally planned economy cpe in which contextual and transactional environments are blurred joint venture sharing arrangements may be structured to control exposures to uncertainties and to align the interests of transactional parties mostly state owned enterprises to those of the venture this study tests the hypothesis that a foreign investor s share in a joint venture in a cpe is inversely correlated with 1 the amount of uncertainties and risks and 2 the external dependency of the venture on the contextual and transactional relationships of the host country the hypothesis is supported by empirical evidence from data on american joint ventures in china

measuring global gasoline and diesel price and income elasticities abstract price and income elasticities of transport fuel demand have numerous applications they help forecast increases in fuel consumption as countries get richer they help develop appropriate tax policies to curtail consumption help determine how the transport fuel mix might evolve and show the price response to a fuel disruption given their usefulness it is understandable why hundreds of studies have focused on measuring such elasticities for gasoline and diesel fuel consumption in this paper i focus my attention on price and income elasticities in the existing studies to see what can be learned from them i summarize the elasticities from these historical studies i use statistical analysis to investigate whether income and price elasticities seem to be constant across countries with different incomes and prices although income and price elasticities for gasoline and diesel fuel are not found to be the same at high and low incomes and at high and low prices patterns emerge that allow me to develop suggested price and income elasticities for gasoline and diesel demand for over one hundred countries i adjust these elasticities for recent fuel mix policies and suggest an agenda of future research topics

long term crop productivity response and its interaction with cereal markets and energy prices abstract crop yields are endogenous as long as economic agents adjust to permanent changes in expected prices the literature however does not offer a definitive value of how much yield would change in response to sustained price changes to fill the gap we use available scientific findings and data to estimate yield elasticities that enable agricultural commodity and food policy analysis using a world market model with short to long run yield response we show the impacts of sustained energy price shocks on global cereal supply and demand the results highlight substantial differences in quantity and price effects depending on the yield elasticities these results demonstrate the need to recognize yield response when assessing impacts of energy prices or biofuel production on food uses or more generally on food security in the face of income and population growth evolving dietary patterns climate change implications or other long run pressures

an economic analysis of technology in the meat products industry the meat products industry underwent significant structural change during the last two decades the relocation and expansion of commercial cattle feeding stimulated development of new single species slaughtering facilities to replace older multi species plants an essentially new processing industry arose specializing in breaking and packaging carcasses this forward integration has significantly changed distribution methods of slaughtering and fabricating firms increased emphasis on coordination of inputs led to interest in backward integration from packing into cattle feeding the steer and heifer slaughtering sector which was decentralized and competitive in the 1950s has turned toward centralization and concentration although the largest firm accounted for only 13 of total u s steer and heifer slaughter in 1977 it had more than doubled its share since 1970 in 1978 this firm slaughtered more than twice as many steers and heifers as its nearest competitor in addi

demand for farm output in a complete system of demand functions demand interrelationships for farm outputs that are theoretically consistent with consumer demand and marketing group behavior provide important linkages between retail and farm prices a conceptual model based on reduced form specifications for retail and farm prices is formulated and applied empirically to a set of eight disaggregated food commodities this approach circumvents the need for retail quantities which are frequently unavailable for disaggregated food commodities the results are consistent with theory and generally indicate significant substitution between farm and marketing inputs except for poultry derived demand elasticities are at least 40 larger compared to those derived assuming fixed proportions

beef and pork packing costs and input demands effects of unionization and technology the effects of unionization technology and structural considerations on value added beef and pork packing costs and the demand for labor capital packaging and other inputs are analyzed by econometric methods for the period 1963 88 although unions do not appear to have had significant wage effects over this period relative to broader u s wage rates significant nonwage cost effects are observed these nonwage effects help explain the technological structural and geographic changes that have occurred in meat packing in recent years which in turn help explain the erosion of union strength in meat packing observed over the study period

information costs and location of fdis within the host country empirical evidence from italy the literature on foreign direct investments fdis has analysed the location strategies of multinational enterprises across national borders but there have been few studies of location decisions by foreign investors within the borders of a single country the paper argues that the driving factors of these location choices have differing influences on indigenous and foreign investors specifically foreign investors suffer from a condition of adverse asymmetry in information costs compared to insiders thus foreign investors decisions on the location of their activities within a host country mainly reflect a rational responses to the existence of information costs

credit market imperfections and the distribution of policy rents this article shows that credit market imperfections have important implications for the distribution of policy rents in a model with land as fixed factor and credit market imperfections when an area payment is given land rents go up by more than the subsidy on aggregate farms may lose from the subsidy the results depend on the extent to which subsidies have direct and indirect effects on the credit constraints on whether farms rent or own land and on farm heterogeneity

modes of foreign entry a transaction cost analysis and propositions a frontier issue in international marketing is the appropriate choice of entry mode in foreign markets the objective of this paper is to offer a transaction cost framework for investigating the entry mode decision this framework provides 1 a theoretical basis for systematically interrelating the literature into propositions 2 propositions about interactions which resolve the apparently contradictory arguments advanced to date specifically the paper illustrates the feasibility of clustering 17 entry modes into the degree of control the mode provides the entrant proposes that the most appropriate i e most efficient entry mode is a function of the tradeoff between control and the cost of resource commitment advances testable propositions delimiting the circumstances under which each mode maximizes long term efficiency

negotiating reductions in agricultural support implications of technology and factor mobility this paper highlights the joint significance of agricultural technology and factor mobility in determining the impact of changing support policies the impact of across the board reductions in farm support on output exports employment and land values will vary systematically across countries depending on their relative reliance on export output and input subsidies furthermore considerable maneuvering room exists even after an aggregate reduction in support is agreed upon for example the aggregate u s producer subsidy equivalent could be reduced while leaving unchanged the demand for farm labor by shifting the mix of remaining subsidies toward inputs which are complementary