(e.g. Bates, 1981; Krueger, Schiff and Valdes, 1988; van de Walle, 2001; Anderson and Masters, 2009; Bates and Block, 2010).<sup>41</sup> Following recommendations by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Badiane et al., 2002), African cotton sectors have however seen their share of reforms.<sup>42</sup> Figure 5, which uses the database constructed by Delpeuch and Leblois (2011), depicts the proportion of competitive cotton markets in SSA countries in 1990 and in 2008. On the one hand, this figure shows that an increasing number of markets have become competitive; but on the other, it also points to the fact that, in many countries, markets remain noncompetitive. Indeed, while many countries have undertaken reforms over the past two decades, the nature of these reforms has widely varied across regions, ranging from farreaching market and price liberalizations, to only marginal adjustments.

Schematically, reforms have come in two waves: a first series of far-reaching reforms in ESA in the mid-1990s and a second series of more modest reforms in WCA in the course of the 2000s.<sup>43</sup> As illustrated in figure 6, a number of countries in ESA have privatized their parastatals, liberalized prices and allowed for competition.<sup>44</sup> Private stakeholders have however reacted to these reforms in different ways. While the Tanzanian cotton market is considered to be relatively highly competitive (Poulton, 2009); markets in Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe are said to exhibit lower degrees of competition (Brambilla and Porto, 2009; Poulton and Hanyami-Mlambo, 2009).

Resistance to market reforms has been much stronger in WCA, where the reforms implemented in the late 1990s and early 2000s have given rise to ‘hybrid markets’ characterized by regulation and mixed ownership (figure 7). While parastatals have often been privatized to some extent, including by allowing farmer associations to participate in ownership, competition has not been allowed. Where private companies are allowed to operate in addition to, or _in lieu_ of the parastatals, they have been granted regional

> 41 The agricultural sector is known to be taxed for government revenue generation, industrialisation objectives and rent-seeking in developing countries (Bates, 1981, vande Walle, 2001). Besides, exported cash crops are considered to be a relatively easy target for taxation, because it is easier to control exports than domestic market products, and because there are no local consumers for whom prices should be kept low (see Swinnen, 2010 for a review of the political economy literature on agricultural and food policies).

> 42 Since the late 1980s, Africa’s ‘white gold’ as it is sometimes called has been at the centre of a harsh debate on how best its production can be encouraged and, particularly, on the role governments should play in this process.

43 The geographical distinction between ESA and WCA in fact reflects more political/historical cleavages (Delpeuch and Leblois, 2011).

44 Markets were liberalized in the Kenya in 1993; Malawi; Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe in 1994 and Tanzania in 1995. Similar reforms also took place in the mid-1980s in a small number of non exFrench WCA countries (Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1978; Ghana in 1985; Nigeria in 1986). See Delpeuch and Leblois (2011) for more details.

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