threshold effects in price transmission the case of brazilian wheat maize and soya prices recent studies into price transmission have recognized the important role played by transport and transaction costs threshold models are one approach to accommodate such costs we develop a generalized threshold error correction model to test for the presence and form of threshold behavior in price transmission that is symmetric around equilibrium we use monthly wheat maize and soya prices from the united states argentina and brazil to demonstrate this model classical estimation of these generalized models can present challenges but bayesian techniques avoid many of these problems evidence for thresholds is found in three of the five commodity price pairs investigated

relational goods and participation incorporating sociability into a theory of rational action theoretical explanations of why rational individuals would participate in politics remain unsatisfactory this paper addresses the problem by developing and analyzing models which include among citizens payoffs relational goods objectives which depend upon interactions among persons the models predict more participation than do the standard approaches for example under some circumstances persons will be more likely to act if they believe others will act contrary to free rider logic more importantly conditions are identified under which leaders could increase mass activity thus a model is provided of mobilization in terms of the preferences and decisions of a rational individual

1 000 cash back the pass through of auto manufacturer promotions automobile manufacturers frequently use promotions involving cash incentives while payments are nominally directed to either customers or dealers the ultimate beneficiary of the promotion depends on the outcome of price negotiation we use program evaluation methods to compare the incidence of these two types of promotions customers obtain 70 to 90 percent of a customer rebate but only 30 to 40 percent of a dealer discount promotion a 500 difference for a typical promotion our leading hypothesis is that pass through rates differ because of information asymmetries customer rebates are well publicized to customers while dealer discount promotions are not

on the co movement between coffee and cocoa prices in international markets in this article we study the movement between cocoa and coffee prices two close substitute commodities using the ardl approach developed by pesaran et al 2001 we found that the two prices are cointegrated the long run elasticity of coffee price with respect to the cocoa one is estimated at 0 88 also using the lag augmented var approach of toda and yamamoto 1995 which is valid whatever the order of integration of the data the cocoa price is found to granger cause the coffee price and not vice versa this finding suggests that models aiming at forecasting coffee prices should incorporate cocoa prices as well

price setting supergames with capacity constraints this paper examines the role of industry capacity in enforcing collusion in the context of repeated games for a fixed capacity per firm it is shown that changes in the number of firms have a non monotone effect on the best enforceable cartel price this is due to the fact that while an additional firm lowers the share that each of the other firms enjoys at the collusive price it also increases the losses to each firm should the cartel fail

the competitive effects of partial equity interests and joint ventures abstract antitrust authorities should consider the trade off between enhanced efficiency and reduced competition in cases of partial ownership this paper examines the competitive effects side of that trade off in the context of a modified cournot model we show that in markets where entry is difficult partial ownership arrangements could result in less output and higher prices than otherwise even if the ownership shares are relatively small these effects arise solely because these arrangements link the fortunes of actual or potential competitors producing a positive correlation among their profits in this sense the effects are purely structural they arise not because of increased opportunities for collusion or changes in the concentration of control but because the linking of profits reduces each firm s incentive to compete since these links internalize free rider problems associated with policing collusion and investing in entry deterrence however they could also enhance cartel stability and profitability

determinants of protest responses in environmental valuation a meta study abstract certain design characteristics of stated preference surveys are often linked to protest responses the dichotomous choice format for example is said to result in fewer protest responses however not much is known at present about the relationship between survey characteristics and the level of protesting only partial analysis comparing for instance the influence of different payment vehicles on protesting has been conducted to date this paper analyses the determinants of protest responses using 254 samples derived from 157 environmental valuation studies determinants include the elicitation format the payment vehicle the survey method and the geographical origin results of bivariate and multivariate analyses confirm some of the propositions presented in the literature such as a higher number of protesters when entrance fees are used as a payment vehicle however many of the characteristics included in the analysis do not significantly impact protesting another result is that reporting on identification and treatment of protest responses in subsequent analysis is inadequate in the majority of studies and would benefit from some standardisation

estimating markups and market conduct with multidimensional product attributes we demonstrate how to estimate a model of oligopoly pricing when products are multi dimensionally differentiated we provide an empirical counterpart to recent theoretical work on product differentiation using specifications informed by economic theory we estimate price cost margins for products differentiated in many dimensions

market equilibrium and welfare effects of a fuel tax in china the impact of consumers response through driving patterns abstract we investigate the market equilibrium and welfare effects of a fuel tax in china relative to an alternative policy instrument that rations the number of new automobile sales through auctioned quotas unlike those of previous studies our modeling approach incorporates both household car purchase and utilization decisions the latter of which have been ignored in previous studies on china s fuel tax ignoring this margin of choice will underestimate the fuel tax s ability to mitigate externalities using detailed household level panel data and a fixed effects econometric specification we estimate the fuel price elasticity of vehicle miles traveled is 0 59 on average the results of the counterfactual analysis suggest that a 51 increase in tax inclusive gasoline prices will reduce car sales by 24 9 but increase social welfare to a degree that depends on vehicles lifetime we find that compared to auctioned quotas the fuel tax results in greater car sales but higher social welfare

social capital and willingness to pay for coastal defences in south east england globally it is widely acknowledged that constructing hard engineered coastal defences is both financially and environmentally unsustainable here we seek to investigate the willingness of residents in rapidly eroding coastal zones to contribute towards the costs of constructing and maintaining such structures the originality of this paper is that it provides one of the first analyses of the influence of social capital parameters social trust institutional trust social reciprocity and social networks on respondents willingness to pay wtp fieldwork for the study was conducted in romney marsh a low lying coastal area of south east england the findings have substantive public policy implications for coastal management first is that we demonstrate that while social and institutional trust exerts a positive influence on wtp the presence of social networks militates against wtp secondly while the study found 45 6 of respondents were willing to pay an average monthly premium of 3 53 a high level of refusal to pay was evident among respondents thirdly even among those respondents willing to pay disagreement was expressed over the political administrative level at which a coastal defence tax should be collected

spatial market efficiency and policy regime change seemingly unrelated error correction model estimation we investigate the degree to which the wheat markets of france germany and the united kingdom are in spatial equilibrium and how reforms to the cap affect the speed of convergence to the longrun relationship due to the interrelationship among these markets and the nonstationarity of our data we introduce a seemingly unrelated regression augmented dickey fuller and error correction methodology we argue this methodology is more efficient than ordinary cointegration and error correction models empirically we find strong evidence of efficient spatial markets and conformity to the law of one price market liberalization reforms in the eu increased the comovement of domestic and world wheat prices our post uruguay round price transmission elasticity was 0 183

modifying agricultural export taxes to make them less market distorting abstract from 2006 to 2014 close to 40 countries levied an export tax on at least one agricultural product export taxes impose costs on the global economy by reducing total world welfare compared to free trade and in particular hurt the tax imposing country s own domestic producers of the taxed good yet countries with export taxes have objectives that might make it unlikely for them to eliminate or even reduce the taxes this article examines how a conventional export tax could be modified to make it less market distorting and thereby less welfare diminishing for both the tax imposing country and the rest of the world from a total world welfare perspective the modified policy analyzed here is a second best alternative to the first best policy of abolishing the export tax and allowing free trade but nonetheless it improves global economic welfare compared to the standard export tax the modified policy discussed here achieves the same economic objectives as the tax such as reducing the domestic price of the exported good increasing domestic purchases and raising revenue but also generates additional exports beyond the volume that occurs under the tax alone also the tax does not involve any government subsidies to producers or consumers the main original feature of the modified export tax policy therefore is that it not only increases net economic welfare compared to the unmodified tax scenario but does so in a way that does not reduce the welfare of any economic group

exclusive territories and manufacturers collusion this paper highlights the rationale for exclusive territories in a model of repeated interaction between competing supply chains we show that with observable contracts exclusive territories have two countervailing effects on manufacturers incentives to sustain tacit collusion first granting local monopolies to retailers softens competition in a one shot game hence punishment profits are larger thereby rendering deviation more profitable second exclusive territories stifle deviation profits because retailers of competing brands adjust their prices to the wholesale contract offered by a deviant manufacturer whereas intrabrand competition prevents such instantaneous reaction we show that the latter effect tends to dominate thereby making exclusive territories a more suitable organizational mode to cooperate these insights are robust to endogenous communication between manufacturers we also consider retailers service investments here a novel effect emerges that softens the procollusive value of exclusive territories retailers of a deviant manufacturer increase investments which renders deviation more profitable this paper was accepted by preyas desai marketing

empirical effects of short term export bans the case of african maize abstract temporary export restrictions have been widely used in recent years in an attempt to stabilize domestic prices of staple grains i use monthly market level price data to investigate the empirical effects of 13 short term export bans on maize implemented by 5 countries in east and southern africa i find no statistically significant effect of export bans on the price gaps between pairs of affected cross border markets my results for price gaps match those from a model simulation in which export bans are not implemented however prices and price volatility in the implementing country are significantly higher during export ban periods in the data than in the model simulation with no bans export bans in the region are imperfectly enforced divert trade into the informal sector and appear to destabilize domestic markets rather than stabilizing them

how do export controls affect price transmission and volatility spillovers in the ukrainian wheat and flour markets abstract this study investigates the impact of export controls implemented on ukrainian wheat during two periods of significant commodity price spikes and volatility first we investigate the equilibrium price relationship between wheat and flour prices to identify whether export restrictions dampened the price transmission from the wheat market to the flour market second we estimate an asymmetric vec bekk garch model to characterize the nature of short run price adjustments and volatility spillovers between the ukrainian wheat and flour markets the results indicate that export controls insulated the flour market from price shocks in the wheat market by reducing the transmission elasticity by 25 we also find evidence that suggests export controls lead to increased volatility in the flour market in the periods immediately before and after the export controls however we find no evidence that the export controls increase the time invariant i e the constant part of volatility of wheat or flour prices lastly we do not observe asymmetric spillover effects in the flour market but we do find that the wheat market is more volatile when experiencing positive shocks than negative ones

partial ownership arrangements and collusion in the automobile industry this paper develops a conjectural variation model that allows for partial ownership arrangements and foreign trade this model is applied to the japanese and us automobile industries although collusion is found to occur in the japanese automobile industry it is found to be more competitive than the us automobile industry the effect imports have on firms price cost margins in both countries is also found to be different

evaluating the performance of merger simulation evidence from the u s airline industry abstract this paper uses merger simulations to predict postmerger prices for five airline mergers from the 1980s and compares these predictions with observed postmerger prices i find that standard simulation methods which measure the effect of the change in ownership on unilateral pricing incentives do not generally provide an accurate forecast by incorporating postmerger information into the model i measure the relative importance of other factors that also contributed to the observed price changes the results indicate that the unexplained component of the price change is largely accounted for by supply side effects i conclude that deviations from the assumed model of firm conduct play an important role in accounting for the differences between the predicted and observed price changes this conclusion suggests that the predictive performance of merger simulation would benefit if more flexible models of firm conduct were incorporated into the methodology

export restrictions do consumers really benefit the wheat to bread supply chain in serbia abstract our approach combines price transmission and gross margin analysis at different stages of the wheat to bread supply chain results suggest that the effects of export restrictions on the end consumer prices for bread and thus food price inflation heavily depend on the price behavior of the intermediates in contrast to theory consumers in serbia experienced welfare losses despite comprehensive governmental market interventions in particular consumers were confronted with increasing flour and bread prices which cannot be fully explained by increasing production costs whereas mills bakeries and retailers increased their profits thus export controls in combination with high price volatility in the supply chain have to be considered as a further factor driving food price inflation

willingness to pay for ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation assessing the willingness to pay wtp of the general public for climate change mitigation programmes enables governments to understand how much taxpayers are willing to support the implementation of such programs this paper contributes to the literature on the wtp for climate change mitigation programmes by investigating in addition to global benefits the ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation it does so by considering local and personal benefits arising from climate change policies the contingent valuation method is used to elicit the wtp for ancillary and global benefits of climate mitigation policies in the basque country spain results show that wtp estimates are 53 73 higher when ancillary benefits are considered

using contingent valuation to explore willingness to pay for renewable energy a comparison of collective and voluntary payment vehicles abstract this study uses a split sample dichotomous choice contingent valuation survey of 1574 u s residents to explore willingness to pay wtp for renewable energy under collective and voluntary payment vehicles and under government and private provision of the good we also evaluate the impact of participation expectations on stated wtp we find some evidence that when confronted with a collective payment mechanism respondents state a somewhat higher wtp than when voluntary payment mechanisms are used similarly private provision of the good elicits a somewhat higher wtp than does government provision we also find that contingent valuation responses are strongly correlated with expectations for the wtp of others our results shed light on strategic response behavior and the incentive compatibility of different cv designs and offer practical insight into u s household preferences for how to support renewable energy

wheat export restrictions and domestic market effects in russia and ukraine during the food crisis abstract studies investigating the effects of wheat export controls on the domestic market in the exporting country itself are scarce this paper analyses the domestic market impact of wheat export controls in russia and ukraine during the 2007 2008 global food crisis within a spatial price transmission approach using a markov switching vector error correction model we contrast our estimation for russia and ukraine with germany and the usa two countries that did not intervene in their wheat export markets an explicit crisis regime during times of export controls is exclusively identified for russia and ukraine we find that export restrictions temporarily reduced the degree of integration of russian and ukrainian domestic markets in world wheat markets which pushed the growers prices below their long run equilibrium level further domestic markets were disconnected from their equilibrium and market instability increased these effects were even more pronounced and long lasting in ukraine export quota than in russia export tax the negative market effects discouraged private investors thereby preventing russia and ukraine from maximizing their grain potential and contributing to global food security

market structure and pricing strategy of china s automobile industry in this study using market level data on quantities prices and automobile characteristics from 1995 to 2001 we conduct a market analysis of the chinese automobile industry under imperfect competition on the demand side we apply a nested multinomial logit model to the national market share data in order to ascertain the demand features of china s automobile market on the supply side we assume bertrand behavior to uncover the markups set by automobile manufacturers our empirical results suggest that some large automobile manufacturers set high markups indicating their strong market power in china s automobile market however their declining markups in the late 1990 s imply a reduction in market control by the major producers

price ceilings as focal points to reach price uniformity evidence from a chinese gasoline market abstract this paper studies the price uniformity in the chinese gasoline market using station level data of hohhot city inner mongolia we first document that the mode prices of the gasoline stations are consistent with the price ceilings set by the government implying that the price ceiling regulation in the chinese gasoline market may serve as a focal point for the gasoline stations to reach price uniformity we corroborate the focal point hypothesis by providing evidence showing that some stations would jump to the ceilings as their prices approach the ceilings also we find that local market structure distance between stations station capacity market characteristics and past pricing behavior could affect the probability of gas stations to price at the ceilings moreover a higher price ceiling would reduce the probability that stations reach price uniformity our results provide another piece of evidence to the literature regarding the unintended effect of price ceiling regulation

competition and collusion in the american automobile industry the 1955 price war movements in total quantity and in quality adjusted price suggest a supply side shock in the american automobile market in 1955 this paper tests the hypothesis that the shock was a transitory change in industry conduct a price war the key ingredients of the test are alternative equilibrium models of oligopoly under product differentiation in nonnested cox tests of hypotheses a collusive solution is sustained in 1954 and in 1956 while a competitive solution holds in 1955 the result does not appear to be an artifact since it is robust in tests against alternative specifications copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

estimation of a model of entry in the airline industry this paper considers the effect of an airline s scale of operation at an airport on the profitability of routes flown out of that airport the empirical methodology uses the entry decisions of airlines as indicators of underlying profitability the results extend the empirical literature on airport presence by providing a new set of estimates of the determinants of city pair profitability these estimates imply that city pair profits increase in airport presence and decrease rapidly in the number of entering firms the literature on empirical models of oligopoly entry is also extended via a focus on the role of differences between firms

the evolution of price dispersion in the european car market car prices in europe are characterized by large and persistent differences across countries the purpose of this paper is to document and explain this price dispersion using a panel data set extending from 1980 to 1993 we first demonstrate two main facts concerning car prices in europe i the existence of significant differences in quality adjusted prices across countries with italy and the u k systematically representing the most expensive markets 2 substantial year to year volatility that is to a large extent accounted for by exchange rate fluctuations and the incomplete response of local currency prices to these fluctuations these facts are analysed within the framework of a multiproduct oligopoly model with product differentiation the model identifies three potential sources for the international price differences price elasticities generating differences in markups costs and import quota constraints local currency price stability can be attributed either to the presence of a local component in marginal costs or to markup adjustment that is correlated with exchange rate volatility the latter requires that the perceived elasticity of demand is increasing in price we find that the primary reason for the higher prices in italy is the existence of a strong bias for domestic brancs that generates high markups for the domestic firm fiat in the u k higher prices are mainly attributed to better equipped cars and or differences in the dealer discount practices the import quota constraints are found to have a significant impact on japanese car prices in italy france and the u k with respect to local currency price stability a large percentage of the documented price inertia can be attributed to local costs and a smaller fraction to markup adjustment that is indicative of price discrimination based on these results we conjecture that the emu will substantially reduce the year to year volatility observed in the car price data but without further measures to increase european integration it will not completely eliminate existing cross country price differences

outsourcing and pass through a large share of international trade occurs through intra firm transactions we show that this common cross border organization of the firm has implications for the well documented incomplete transmission of shocks across such borders we present new evidence of an inverse relationship between a firm s outsourcing of inputs and its rate of exchange rate pass through we then develop a structural econometric model with final assemblers and upstream parts suppliers to quantify how firms organization of their activities across national borders affects their pass through behavior

collusion or competition interfirm relationships in the chinese auto industry the chinese passenger vehicle industry contains a large number of manufacturers some of them are members of big corporate groups centered around state owned enterprises these corporate relationships may facilitate collusion this paper applies the non nested hypothesis test methodology to data on passenger vehicles to identify whether price collusion exists within corporate groups or across groups our empirical results support the assumption of bertrand nash competition in the chinese passenger vehicle industry we find no evidence for within or cross group price collusion our policy experiments show that indigenous brands will gain market shares and profits if within group companies merge

protest beliefs in contingent valuation explaining their motivation abstract the definition and treatment of protest responses in contingent valuation cv can have a significant influence on the estimated values of the good in question if these responses are censored in order to understand how protest responses are motivated in a cv about forest biodiversity in germany we used an item battery to identify respondents protest beliefs the items were measured for all respondents irrespective of their willingness to pay wtp in principle then a scale based on these beliefs is taken as a dependent variable of regression analyses in addition to environmental concern we used norms the warm glow of giving and dilemma concern as further explanatory variables the latter focuses on cooperation problems in protecting the environment our results show that protest beliefs are significantly influenced by the explanatory factors furthermore the protest beliefs themselves have a significant effect on the decision to be wtp as well as on the amount of money stated by those who are wtp the censoring of protest responses may therefore be indefensible

understanding how income influences willingness to pay for joint programs a more equitable value measure for the less wealthy the preponderance of evidence from many studies is that less wealthy households are subjected to greater exposure per capita and in aggregate to air pollution water pollution and toxic wastes it also is the case that the less wealthy are provided with a disproportionately low amount of other programs to enhance amenities provided by the natural environment such as recreational resources and high quality esthetic opportunities both quality and quantity however to date no study has quantified the scale of this effect on the less wealthy as compared to their more wealthy counterparts when it comes to policy choices made on the basis of benefits analysis this study provides a new equity adjustment method to measure quantitatively the effect of this inequity in the case of public goods

market equilibrium and the environmental effects of tax adjustments in china s automobile industry this paper explores the effects of consumption tax and fuel tax adjustments in the chinese automobile industry applying the model and simulation method of berry levinson and pakes 1995 we conduct a comparative static analysis of equilibrium prices and sales fuel consumption and social welfare before and after tax adjustments for the first time we compare the progressivity of both taxes our empirical findings suggest that the fuel tax is effective in decreasing fuel consumption at the expense of social welfare while the consumption tax does not significantly affect either fuel consumption or social welfare

local impacts of a global crisis food price transmission consumer welfare and poverty in ghana abstract this paper takes a local perspective on global food price shocks by analyzing food price transmission between regional markets in ghana it also assesses the impacts of food price increases on various household groups taking the 2007 2008 global food crisis as an example we show that prices for domestic grain products are highly correlated with world market prices this is true both for products for which ghana is highly import dependent e g rice and the products for which ghana is self sufficient e g maize the econometric results also show that price transmission is high between regional producer markets and markets located in the country s largest cities and the distance between producer and consumer markets and the size of consumer markets matter in explaining the price transmission the welfare analysis for households as consumers shows that the effect of world food prices appears relatively modest for the country as a whole due to relatively diverse consumption patterns within country however the national average hides important regional differences both between regions and within different income groups we find that the poorest of the poor particularly those living in the urban areas are hardest hit by high food prices the negative effect of the food crisis is particularly strong in northern ghana the main explanations for this regional variation in the price effect is the different consumption patterns and much lower per capita income levels in the north of ghana compared to other regions in the country

smooth transition effects in price transmission the case of international wheat export prices international wheat prices are tested for cointegration allowing for exponential smooth transition adjustment the results suggest that owing to transactions costs it is plausible that arbitrage will be greater the further the prices deviate from each other

vertical relationships between manufacturers and retailers inference with limited data in this paper different models of vertical relationships between manufacturers and retailers in the supermarket industry are compared demand estimates are used to compute price cost margins for retailers and manufacturers under different supply models when wholesale prices are not observed the purpose is to identify the set of margins compatible with the margins obtained from estimates of cost and to select the model most consistent with the data among non nested competing models the models considered are 1 a simple linear pricing model 2 a vertically integrated model and 3 a variety of alternative strategic supply scenarios that allow for collusion non linear pricing and strategic behaviour with respect to private label products using data on yogurt sold in several stores in a large urban area of the u s the results imply that wholesale prices are close to marginal cost and that retailers have pricing power in the vertical chain this is consistent with non linear pricing by the manufacturers or high bargaining power of the retailers

what drives local food prices evidence from the tanzanian maize market this study quantifies the relationship between tanzanian and external maize markets while also accounting for domestic influences it concludes that external influences on domestic prices originate from regional rather than global markets it also shows that compared to external factors domestic factors exert a greater influence on tanzanian maize markets further the mechanisms through which trade policies influence maize markets involve interactions with both external market shocks and domestic weather shocks overall it provides evidence that the intermittent imposition of export bans in tanzania has had adverse impacts on its maize markets and consequently on the development of its agrarian economy

valuing climate protection through willingness to pay for biomass ethanol abstract this study uses a multi part split sample contingent valuation method cvm and fair share fs survey to better understand the public s valuation of mitigating global climate change through its willingness to pay for biomass or cellulosic ethanol in addition to a basic cvm question a related scenario was developed that asked half of the survey respondents to state their fair share cost to lessen a potential food shortage in the next decade also through the expanded use of cellulosic ethanol three alternative biomass feedstocks were assessed farming residues forestry residues and paper mill wastes and municipal solid wastes overall a slightly larger proportion of respondents were wtp extra for cellulosic ethanol in the basic cvm scenario than in the fs scenario though no significant differences were found in the wtp for the different feedstocks bid curve lognormal regression results for the two models were similar supporting the idea that asking a fs rather than a conventional wtp question may be justifiable in some circumstances such as in cases of a national emergency

markov switching estimation of spatial maize price transmission processes between tanzania and kenya we discuss the markov switching vector au toregressive ms var class of nonlinear time series models that can be used to analyze recurring discrete structural changes in time series hamilton s 1989 seminal markov switching ms model of the u s business cy cle triggered considerable interest in the ms approach in economics most empirical appli cations to date have focused on the business cy cle and financial markets but we see potential for ms var models in agricultural economics for example in price transmission analysis in the following we first provide an overview of the ms var framework we then present an illustrative application to maize price trans mission between tanzania and kenya the article closes with a discussion of strengths weaknesses and potential uses of the ms var approach in price transmission analysis

forecasting the car penetration rate cpr in china a nonparametric approach with strong economic growth the auto industry has made great breakthroughs in recent years and has become a backbone industry in china while cars play an increasingly important role and are now the principal part of the auto industry both china s government and academic circles take strong interest in the prediction of cpr i e car penetration rate or cars per thousand people which will be the main guidance for the future industry policy we summarize the existing problems in recent research and propose to use nonparametric methods to estimate the cpr and its elasticity with respect to gdp per capita gdppc the results indicate that the nonparametric methods provide a much better fit than the conventional ols method and more importantly it captures the nonlinearity of the elasticity of cpr with respect to gdppc finally we predict future cpr in china

a dynamic oligopoly with collusion and price wars we provide a collusive framework with heterogeneity among jirms investment entry and exit it is a symmetric information model in which it is hard to sustain collusion when there is an activejim that is likely to exit in the near future numerical analysis is used to compare a collusive to a noncollusive environment only the collusive industry generates price wars also the collusive industry offers both more and higherquality products to consumers albeit often at a higher price the positive effect of collusion on variety and quality more than compensates consumers for the negative effect of collusive prices so that consumer surplus is larger with collusion

a quantitative analysis of trade policy responses to higher world agricultural commodity prices the worldwide spike in prices of agricultural commodities in 2007 2008 elevated food security and social stability issues to the forefront especially in many food deficit countries in order to mitigate the global food commodity price pressure on domestic markets several major exporting and importing countries mostly developing economies adopted trade policy changes such as export bans or raising export restrictions or reducing import tariffs during the same period this paper estimates the potential impacts of these policies on the world prices and trade of major agricultural commodities using a set of multi country multi commodity and partial equilibrium models our findings suggest that over all the trade policy responses in various countries increased the prices of all agricultural commodities although the impact on the total net trade varies by commodity the simulation results show that the overall impact of trade policy distortions on the world rice price is most significant at 24 followed by wheat 14 and barley 9 in general the poorer food deficit countries regions which have limited power to manipulate their trade policies experienced higher price increases compared to those major trading countries that adopted policy interventions also the developing countries that are net importers which did not implement trade policy interventions experienced significant welfare losses resulting from interventions implemented by other major trading countries

explaining grain and oilseed price volatility the role of export restrictions this study examines the impact that export restrictions have had on price volatility food price volatility causes planning problems for policy makers and is disruptive to the food supply chain an increasingly common response to stabilizing domestic prices is to implement export restrictions however if the country is a large enough exporter the restriction can exacerbate global price volatility using price data on maize wheat rice and soy we estimate the effect of export taxes and quantitative restrictions as well as other macroeconomic variables on price volatility first we use a univariate structural time series approach to remove regularities such as cycles and trends to yield an estimate of filtered price volatilities second we regress the estimated volatilities from the first stage on a set of explanatory variables using a generalized method of moments gmm approach the results from the gmm regression show that export restrictions implemented between 2006 and 2011 increased price volatility for wheat and rice but not maize and soybean simulation results show that the contribution of export restrictions to price volatility is the same order of magnitude as key macroeconomic variables

the effects of product differentiation on collusive pricing abstract using the spatial competition framework of hotelling 1929 this paper explores the relationship between the degree of product differentiation and the ability of firms to collude with respect to price we show that the minimum discount factor required to support the joint profit maximum as an equilibrium outcome monotonically increases as products become better substitutes when the joint profit maximum cannot be supported the optimal collusive price is shown to decline as products become more substitutable these findings suggest that firms producing stronger substitutes tend to find it tougher to collude in terms of their product price

product differentiation and oligopoly in international markets the case of the u s automobile industry this paper develops and estimates a model of the u s automobile industry on the demand side a discrete choice model is adopted that is estimated using micro data from the consumer expenditure survey the estimation results are used in conjunction with population weights to derive aggregate demand on the supply side the automobile industry is modelled as an oligopoly with product differentiation equilibrium is characterized by the first order conditions of the profit maximizing firms the estimation results are used in counterfactual simulations to investigate two trade policy issues the effects of the ver and exchange rate pass through

modeling the effect of social factors on improving biodiversity protection the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of social factors expressed as social and institutional trust social norms and social networks on the decision of individuals to pay for improvement of environmental protection of biodiversity for this purpose an empirical study was carried out in two national parks of northern greece three scenarios were proposed differing in the management options regulatory market based and community based scenarios and the payment mechanism our empirical results show that social capital variables especially social norms and social trust have a strong influence both on the decision of individuals to pay and the specific amount stated specifically we find that social norms have a positive influence for the willingness to pay wtp of individuals of a state tax and an entrance fee regulatory and market based scenario respectively furthermore social trust has a positive impact for the wtp through an entrance fee and a community tax market based and community based scenario respectively we also find a higher wtp of individuals towards the market based scenario where participation of citizens is higher compared to the current management status concerning the impact of demographic factors we find that income does not influence the specific amount stated by individuals

the impact of remittances on economic growth an econometric model abstract remittances in the world represent one of major international financial resources which sometimes they exceed the flows of foreign direct investment fdi for centuries there have been heated debates on the sources of economic growth in developing economies and also why some countries reflect strong economic growth comparing to others this study aims to observe the impacts of remittances on economic growth using panel data set of six high remittances receiving countries albania bulgaria macedonia moldova romania and bosnia herzegovina during the period 1999 2013 these countries have experienced a major increase in remittance inflows and at this time accounts for the bulk of total remittance receipts compared with other regions most countries remittances represent the largest source of foreign exchange earnings and represent more than 10 percent of gdp in other words the econometric analysis will be based on those six remittance receiving countries the paper is then to review the empirical literature devoted to the impact of remittances on economic growth in order to identify empirically if there are significant relationships between remittances and growth in these countries the results suggest that remittances have a positive impact on growth and that this impact increases at higher levels of remittances relative to gdp

spatial market integration in the presence of threshold effects a large body of research has evaluated price linkages in spatially separate markets much recent research has applied models appropriate for nonstationary data such analyses have been criticized for their ignorance of transactions costs which may inhibit price adjustments and thus affect tests of integration this analysis utilizes threshold autoregression and cointegration models to account for a neutral band representing transactions costs we evaluate daily price linkages among four corn and four soybean markets in north carolina nonlinear impulse response functions are used to investigate dynamic patterns of adjustments to shocks our results confirm the presence of thresholds and indicate strong support for market integration though adjustments following shocks may take many days to be complete in every case the threshold models suggest much faster adjustments in response to deviations from equilibrium than is the case when threshold behavior is ignored a large amount of empirical research has evaluated the extent to which spatially separate markets are integrated though the term is used loosely in the literature tests of market integration usually consider the extent to which shocks are transmitted among spatially separate markets the integration of markets can have important implications for price discovery and the operation of the market since persistent deviations from integration may imply riskless profit opportunities for spatial traders