A model that can be used to capture the long term process that is involved has been developed and tested using data from Ghana. The model is later applied to analyze the outcomes of further liberalization of groundnut markets in Senegal. The findings highlights the potential cost of failing to pay sufficient attention, when liberalizing domestic markets, to the emergence of a competitive and efficient private distribution sector. The results also indicate that, when state-run processing sectors with monopoly power are involved, effective liberalization of pricing and marketing policies in all likelihood would not yield the anticipated benefits, unless accompanied with efforts to improve productivity and cut unit costs of production in the processing sector. Download full-text discussion paper .
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