bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Short and long‐run returns to agricultural R&D in South Africa, or will the real rate of return please stand up?
Authors: Schimmelpfennig David , Thirtle Colin , van Zyl Johan , Arnade Carlos , Khatri Yougesh 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis paper briefly presents the results of a total factor productivity (TFP) study of South African commercial agriculture, for 1947‐1997, and illustrates some potential pitfalls in rate of return to research (ROR) calculations. The lag between R&D and TFP is analyzed and found to be only 9 years, with a pronounced negative skew, reflecting the adaptive focus of the South African system. The two‐stage approach gives a massive ROR of 170%. The predetermined lag parameters are then used in modeling the knowledge stock, to refine the estimates of the ROR from short‐ and long‐run dual profit functions. In the short run, with the capital inputs treated as fixed, the ROR is a more reasonable 44%. In the long run, with adjustment of the capital stocks, it rises to 113%, which would reflect the fact that new technology is embodied in the capital items. However, the long‐run model raises a new problem since capital stock adjustment takes 11 years, 2 years longer than the lag between R&D and TFP. If this is assumed to be the correct lag, the ROR falls to 58%, a best estimate. The paper draws attention to the possible sensitivity of rate of return calculations to assumed lag structure, particularly when the lag between changes in R&D and TFP is skewed.
The allocative efficiency and conservation potential of water laws encouraging investments in on‐farm irrigation technology
Authors: Huffaker Ray , Whittlesey Norman 
Published: August 2005

AbstractAgricultural water conservation statutes are emerging in the West encouraging private irrigators to improve on‐farm irrigation efficiency as a basinwide conservation measure. We investigate whether private improvements promote the economic efficiency and conservation of water use basinwide under a wide variety of hydroeconomic circumstances. The standard of efficiency is how an irrigation district manager should optimally invest in improving the irrigation efficiencies of individual farms located along a stream while internalizing intrabasin allocative externalities of these investments. The results indicate that the popular Oregon legislative model may be the least effective in conserving water and promoting economically efficient water allocation.
R&D policies for desalination technologies
Authors: Tsur Yacov , Zemel Amos 
Published: August 2005

AbstractIn many arid and semi‐arid regions whether or not to desalinate seawater has long been a non‐issue and policy debates are focused on the timing and extent of the desalination activities. We analyze how water scarcity and demand structure, on the one hand, and cost reduction via R&D programs, on the other hand, affect the desirable development of desalination technologies and the time profiles of fresh and desalinated water supplies. We show that the optimal R&D policy is of a non‐standard most rapid approach path (NSMRAP) type, under which the state of desalination technology — the accumulated learning from R&D efforts — should approach a pre‐specified target process as rapidly as possible and proceed along it thereafter. The NSMRAP property enables a complete characterization of the optimal water policy. The renewable nature of the fresh water stock permits a non‐monotonic behavior of the optimal stock process: under certain conditions, the stock is depleted, to be fully or partly) refilled at a later date.
Linking technical change to research effort: an examination of aggregation and spillovers effects
Authors: Traxler Greg , Byerlee Derek 
Published: August 2005

AbstractWe used a disaggregate approach to examine investment efficiency of wheat breeding research in India. India's total research effort comprizes 20 research programs spread across 50 experiment stations. A technology spillover matrix was constructed for both potential and actual spillovers. Spillovers and free‐riding were dominant characteristics of technical change during the period studied. Although the aggregate rate of return to wheat improvement research in India was estimated to be 55%, eight programs were found to have earned a negative rate of return when spillins were taken into account. Research output is concentrated on a few strong programs. The two strongest programs generated 75% of all the technical change benefits, even though they claimed just 22% of research resources. These two programs include a significant degree of overlap, while on the other hand many farmers were not reached by any of the programs – 56 and 78% of rainfed and durum area, respectively, in 1990 was still sown with pre‐1976 varieties.
Wine market prices and investment under uncertainty: an econometric model for Bordeaux Crus Classés
Authors: Jones Gregory V. , Storchmann Karl‐Heinz 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis paper describes an econometric assessment of wine market prices for 21 of the Crus Classés châteaux in the Bordeaux region of France. The model developed in the analysis attempts to define the relationship between factors that influence wine quality and those that influence wine prices. Characteristics of the models are: (1) climate influences on grape composition (acid and sugar levels), (2) grape composition influences on market prices, (3) subjective quality evaluations (Parker‐points) on market prices, and (4) the effects of age of the wine on market prices.The results indicate that composition levels of Merlot‐dominated wines are more climate sensitive than those from Cabernet Sauvignon‐dominated wines. Overall, warm, dry summers result in high sugar and low acid levels at harvest which in turn lead to higher quality wines.Wine market price sensitivity to Parker‐point ratings indicates that properties with high Cabernet Sauvignon‐dominated wines are highly dependent on the external ratings while Merlot‐dominated wines have a decreased rating sensitivity. Smaller properties tend to gain over proportionally from high ratings indicating great jumps in price from year to year. Additionally, châteaux that have experienced high ratings for past vintages exhibit great sensitivity to point steps in ratings for current vintages.Aging has a positive effect on Bordeaux wine pricing. This is due to the increasing maturity as well as the increasing absolute scarcity. Absolute scarcity of product is expressed by the size of the property, with small properties producing less per vintage and therefore having less in the market. Additionally, Merlot‐dominated wines exhibit more maturing potential and profit more from aging than Cabernet Sauvignon‐dominated wines.Average per château real annual profit ranges from 1 to 10%. High levels of grape ripeness, absolute scarcity, and smaller properties that are dominated by Merlot in their blend lead to the highest profits. Forecasts for a vintage not yet on the market indicates that 1995 is better than 1994 for both Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot‐dominated wines, but that 1996 and 1997 are not as good as 1995, especially for Merlot‐dominated wines.
An ex ante economic and policy analysis of research on genetic resistance to livestock disease: trypanosomosis in Africa
Authors: Falconi Cesar A. , Omamo Steven Were , ďIeteren Guy , Iraqi Fuad 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis paper undertakes an ex ante economic analysis of research on how resistance to trypanosomosis‐a dominant livestock disease in Africa‐can be maintained and enhanced while retaining and reinforcing characteristics of economic importance to farmers, and on how‘trypanotolerance’ can be imparted to susceptible animals while retaining their other important traits. The results indicate that potential benefits to research‐historically field‐based but increasingly biotechnology‐driven‐range from two to nine times potential costs and that the internal rate of return on investments can be six times the real interest rate. Field‐based research, while exhibiting lower potential benefits on aggregate than does biotechnology research, is also less costly and, because of its more immediate payback, has higher internal rates of return. Returns to biotechnology research hinge on close links with field‐based research and on strategic but relatively small incremental human and capital investments. The results also suggest that further research is needed to consistently identify and track the impacts of alternative intellectual property rights (IPRs) options on the levels and distributions of biotechnology research benefits.
A prospective evaluation of biotechnology in semi‐subsistence agriculture
Authors: Qaim Matin 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThe paper analyses ex ante the economic implications of transgenic virus‐ and weevil‐resistant sweet potatoes in Kenya. These technologies are being developed within international projects, involving public and private organisations. It is expected that the resistant varieties will significantly reduce the crop losses in farmers’ fields. Model calculations show that both innovations are likely to bring about substantial growth in economic surplus. The projected annual gross benefit is 5.4 mUS$ (million US$) for virus resistance and 9.9 mUS$ for weevil resistance. Due to the semi‐subsistence nature of sweet potato, the producing households will be the main beneficiaries. However, market consumers will also capture about one‐fourth of the aggregate welfare gains. The high profitability of the projects is confirmed by significantly positive returns on research investments. The examples demonstrate the viability of successful research partnerships between the public and private sectors. As most of the basic biotechnology tools available to date are patented by private companies in the North, which often do not have sufficient market incentives to develop end‐technologies for the South, more interactions of this kind are required from a development policy perspective. Working with typical semi‐subsistence crops is particularly appealing because it immediately targets the poor and avoids conflicts with the private sector's commercial interests.
Is livestock research unproductive? Separating health maintenance from improvement research
Authors: Townsend Robert , Thirtle Colin 
Published: August 2005

AbstractStudies of the rates of return to research have usually been based on the implicit assumption that if there were no research, then there would be neither growth nor decline in output or productivity. In the case of livestock, particularly in southern Africa, which has a sub‐tropical disease ecology and a long history of disastrous losses due to disease, the assumption is especially unreasonable. It ignores the losses that would have occurred in the absence of livestock health research, resulting in underestimation of rates of return. This study draws on data from South Africa to illustrate the magnitude of the error, by separating the maintenance effects of animal health research from output increases due to animal improvement research. This is possible because health and improvements research are conducted at separate research institutes and there are data on cattle deaths due to disease, which allows the effects of health expenditures to be calculated. Explicitly, taking the negative effect of diseases into account considerably increases the returns to the livestock research of the South African Agricultural Research Council (SAARC). Instead of a ROR of 18% for animal research in total, the result is a ROR of at least 35% for animal health research and 27% for improvements research, suggesting a minimum underestimation of about 50%. These results suggest that livestock research is productive, once it is properly decomposed. The implication is that all ROR estimates that implicitly assume that with no research, there would be no change in output, or productivity, must be severely biased downwards.
Impact of institutions and public research on private agricultural research⋆
Authors: Alfranca Oscar , Huffman Wallace E. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThe objective of this paper is to present econometric evidence of the effects of economic incentives and institutions on national aggregate private agricultural R&D investments. An econometric model of national aggregate annual private R&D investment is specified and fitted to panel data consisting of seven EU countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) over “1984”. We find strong impacts of both incentives and institutions on private agricultural R&D investment. Including institutional factors strengthens the story and in some cases greatly changes the results.
Alternative methods for environmentally adjusted productivity analysis
Authors: Hailu Atakelty , Veeman Terrence S. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractAdvances in the productivity with which food is produced around the world have been made possible through the intensive use of industrial inputs that have important environmental impacts. Like standard measures of macroeconomic performance, however, commonly used measures of agricultural efficiency and productivity account only for marketed commodities and inputs, but ignore the environmental effects of these production processes. A more complete analysis of trends in the sector's productivity requires the use of models that incorporate these environmental effects to provide better measures of the contributions of the sector from the social point of view. This paper compares the conceptual merits and empirical performance of alternative approaches that can be employed for this purpose: input distance functions, output distance functions, nonparametric methods, and index number approaches. Each of the methods has relative strengths and weaknesses. The methods are empirically illustrated using data from the Canadian pulp and paper industry.
An economic evaluation of the environmental benefits from pesticide reduction
Authors: Brethour Cher , Weersink Alfons 
Published: August 2005

AbstractPrevious studies on the environmental impacts of pesticide use have tended to focus either on measuring damages through changes in relative risks to various environmental categories or examining the trade‐off between pesticide use levels and abatement costs. This study uses the physical risk assessment approach combined with contingent valuation survey results on consumers’ willingness to reduce pesticide risk. The reduction in external costs associated with the changes in pesticide use in Ontario agriculture between 1983 and 1998 is U© 188 per household. The environmental benefits are largely due to the reduction in the level of high and moderate‐risk pesticides.
What explains price volatility changes in commodity markets? Answers from the world palm‐oil market⋆
Authors: Voituriez Tancrède 
Published: August 2005

AbstractWhat are the sources of commodity price volatility changes? Based on observation of the palm‐oil market (1818–1999). our hypothesis is that the superimposition of short‐distance operators located near the export supply, whose expectation horizon is limited to a few weeks, and long‐distance operators further from the export supply, whose expectation horizon exceeds six months to one year, is responsible for volatility changes and market instability. Because of the superimposition of expectations horizons, volatility grows along with the development of short‐distance trade. We support this hypothesis using a trader‐behavior model derived from Day and Huang [J. Econ. Behavior Org. 14 (1990) 299] and Day [Complex Economic Dynamics, Vol. I. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA]. Our simulation results challenge the argument that trade liberalization and market enlargement necessarily reduce commodity prices volatility.
Towards greater food security for India's poor: balancing government intervention and private competition
Authors: Umali‐Deininger Dina L. , Deininger Klaus W. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractTo achieve its strategic objective of food security, the Government of India (GOI) maintains an elaborate set of food grain policies which include public procurement and price support operations, price stabilisation through buffer stocks, public food grain distribution, and extensive controls on private trade. We use aggregate and household level evidence to show that this system is costly, generates inefficiencies in the food grain marketing system (for both the public and the private sector), and often offers few, if any, benefits to its intended beneficiaries, the poor. On this basis we propose an integrated reform agenda involving improvements in the targeting of the public distribution system, creation of an enabling environment for increased private participation in food grain markets and greater incentives for efficiency by the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
The impact of food scares on price adjustment in the UK beef market
Authors: Lloyd Tim , McCorriston S. , Morgan C.W. , Rayner A.J. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis paper considers the impact of‘food scares, predominately concerns relating to BSE, on UK beef prices at retail, wholesale and producer levels over the 1990s. Acknowledging the co‐movement that exists between prices in the meat marketing chain, we use a co‐integrating framework, the results of which show the importance of publicity regarding the safety of food in the transmission of beef prices in the UK. The‘food publicity’ index that we use has a marked negative impact on the prices at all levels, a result that is consistent with the effect of an inward shift in the demand function. Moreover, the extent of price decline varies between the marketing stages entailing that the price spreads rise in response to an increase in the (negative) publicity about food safety. While not a formal test of market power, these observations are consistent with recent theoretical results demonstrating that market power exacerbates price changes in the upstream sectors for a given change in the retail demand function. The implication of these varying price changes is that the food safety concerns also cause the marketing margins between the stages to widen. The UK's Competition Commission has recently investigated the abuse of market power in the food sector, inspired largely by this specific issue.
Measuring soil quality dynamics A role for economists, and implications for economic analysis
Authors: Kim Kwansoo , Barham Bradford L. , Coxhead Ian 
Published: August 2005

AbstractMeasuring soil quality is extremely difficult, yet it has clear economic importance. In particular, there is a great deal of empirical interest in the dynamics of soil quality evolution when land managers respond to policies and other incentives. Yet current methodologies for measuring changes in agricultural land quality are largely static and rely heavily either on incomplete measures such as proxy variables, or ad hoc indexes of selected soil characteristics. Moreover, much empirical work relies on static econometric techniques or simulation models. In this paper, we develop a means to infer soil quality changes from input and output data using a dynamic production function model. Using data from field experiments, we estimate the model in a way that allows the recovery of a dynamic measure of soil quality whose evolution depends on variations in management practices. Our methodology and findings will help provide firmer empirical foundations for analyses of the economic implications of land degradation and the soil quality implications of agricultural policies.
How does gender affect the adoption of agricultural innovations?
Authors: Doss Cheryl R. , Morris Michael L. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractWhy do men and women adopt agricultural technologies at different rates? Evidence from Ghana suggests that gender‐linked differences in the adoption of modern maize varieties and chemical fertilizer result from gender‐linked differences in access to complementary inputs. This finding has important policy implications, because it suggests that ensuring more widespread and equitable adoption of improved technologies may not require changes in the research system, but rather introduction of measures that ensure better access for women to complementary inputs, especially land, labor, and extension services.
The effect of barge and ocean freight price volatility in international grain markets
Authors: Haigh Michael S. , Bryant Henry L. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis paper looks at the potential role of time‐varying volatility of Mississippi river barge and ocean freight prices on commodity prices in Illinois, at the US Gulf and in Rotterdam using a Vector Error Correction GARCH‐in‐Mean model. The model is used to infer the extent to which transportation price risk affects price dynamics in international grain markets. Results from a simulation exercise indicate that both barge and ocean price volatility influence grain prices, but barge price volatility tends to have a greater impact on grain prices and marketing margins than that arising from ocean price volatility. Consistent with most studies that evaluate the role of risk in marketing channels, results here suggest that a reduction in barge rate risk would reduce marketing margins between Illinois and the US Gulf, and between the US Gulf and Rotterdam. The existence of an ocean freight futures contract coupled with the lack of a futures contract for barge rates may be partially responsible for the finding that barge rates have a significant influence on grain prices and contribute most to wide marketing margins found throughout the international grain‐marketing system.
Income distribution in rice–growing villages during the post‐Green Revolution periods: the Philippine case, 1985 and 1998
Authors: Estudillo Jonna P. , Quisumbing Agnes R. , Otsuka Keijiro 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis paper aims to examine changes in household income sources and its impact on household income distribution in the post‐Green Revolution periods in 1985 and 1998 in the rural Philippines. We found that there has been a structural shift of household income away from farm in favor of nonfarm labor income sources. This finding indicates that rural development is being led by nonfarm sectors. Such a shift has resulted in an increase in household income inequality as the distribution of nonfarm income has become less equal over time and was markedly more unequal than that of farm income in 1998.
The potential impact of climate change on Taiwan's agriculture
Authors: Chang Ching‐Cheng 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis paper intends to estimate the potential impact of climate change on Taiwan's agricultural sector. Yield response regression models are used to investigate the climate change's impact on 60 crops. A price‐endogenous mathematical programming model is then used to simulate the welfare impacts of yield changes under various climate change scenarios. Results suggest that both warming and climate variations have a significant but non‐monotonic impact on crop yields. Society as a whole would not suffer from warming, but a precipitation increase may be devastating to farmers.