----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEP: New Economics Papers
Agricultural Economics
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edited by: Angelo Zago
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pza49.html
Universita degli Studi di Verona
Date: 2005-12-14
Papers: 19
This document is in the public domain, feel free to circulate it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Note: Access to full contents may be restricted +
+ NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In this issue we have:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Distortions to World Trade : Impacts on Agricultural Markets
and Farm Incomes
Kym Anderson; William J. Martin; Dominique van der
Mensbrugghe
2. Disciplining Agricultural Support through Decoupling
John Baffes; Harry De Gorter
3. The WTO Doha Round, Cotton Sector Dynamics and Poverty Trends
in Zambia
Jorge F. Balat; Guido G. Porto
4. Social and Environmental Attributes of Food Products in an
Emerging Mass Market : Challenges of Signaling and Consumer
Perception, With European Illustrations
Jean-Marie Codron; Lucie Sirieix; Thomas Reardon
5. Activities, Employment, and Wages in Rural and Semi-Urban
Mexico
Dorte Verner
6. Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda
Kym Anderson; Will Martin
7. The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment
in Ghana
Markus Goldstein; Christopher Udry
8. Pesticide Poisoning of Farm Workers : Implications of Blood
Test Results from Vietnam
Susmita Dasgupta; Craig Meisner; David Wheeler; Nhan Thi
Lam; Khuc Xuyen
9. Financial Health of Credit Cooperatives in the state of
Maharashtra in India: Case Studies of DCCCBs
Deepak Shah
10. The Structure of Lobbying and Protection in U.S. Agriculture
Kishore Gawande
11. Health Effects and Pesticide Perception as Determinants of
Pesticide Use : Evidence from Bangladesh
Susmita Dasgupta; Craig Meisner; Mainul Huq
12. Growing together or growing apart ? A village level study of
the impact of the Doha round on rural China
Marijke Kuiper; Frank van Tongeren
13. Poverty in Rural and Semi-Urban Mexico during 1992-2002
Dorte Verner
14. The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Household Welfare in
Vietnam
Ganesh Seshan
15. Cultivate or Rent Out ? Land Security in Rural Thailand
Xavier Gin?
16. Feedback Links Between Economy-Wide and Farm-Level Policies :
Application to Irrigation Water Management in Morocco
Terry Roe; Ariel Dinar; Yacov Tsur; Xinshen Diao
17. Crop Insurance in Karnataka
Vijay Kalavakonda; Olivier Mahul
18. Applications of Negotiation Theory to Water Issues
Carlo Carraro; Carmen Marchiori; Alessandra Sgobbi
19. The Cost of Compliance with Product Standards for Firms in
Developing Countries : An Econometric Study
Keith E. Maskus; Tsunehiro Otsuki; John S. Wilson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Distortions to World Trade : Impacts on Agricultural Markets
and Farm Incomes
Kym Anderson (The World Bank)
William J. Martin (The World Bank)
Dominique van der Mensbrugghe (The World Bank)
The authors provide estimates of the impact that removing all
merchandise trade distortions (including agricultural subsidies)
would have on food and agricultural production, trade, and
incomes. Using the latest versions of the Global Trade Analysis
Project (GTAP) database and the World Bank's LINKAGE model of the
global economy (projected to 2015), their results suggest farm
employment, the real value of agricultural output and exports,
the real returns to farm land and unskilled labor, and real net
farm incomes would all rise substantially in developing country
regions with a move to free merchandise trade, thereby
alleviating rural poverty-despite the decline in international
terms of trade for developing countries that are net food
importers or are enjoying preferential access to agricultural
markets of high-income countries.
Keywords: Agriculture, Poverty, Rural development, International
economics
Date: 2005-10-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3736&r=agr
2. Disciplining Agricultural Support through Decoupling
John Baffes (The World Bank)
Harry De Gorter (Cornell University)
Agricultural protection, particularly in high income countries,
have induced overproduction, thereby depressing world commodity
prices and reducing export shares of countries which do not
support agriculture. One-and perhaps the only-effective way to
bring a socially acceptable and politically feasible reform is to
replace payments linked to current production levels, input use,
and prices by payments which are decoupled from these measures.
Overall, the experience with decoupling agricultural support has
been mixed while the switch to less distortive support has been
uneven across commodities and countries. Rules have changed with
new decoupling programs added so expectations about future
policies affect current production decisions. Time limits were
not implemented and if so, were overruled. Ideally, compensation
programs would be universal (open to all sectors in the economy,
not just agriculture) or at least non-sector-specific within
agriculture. A simple and minimally distorting scheme would be a
one-time unconditional payment to everyone engaged in farming or
deemed in need of compensation that is nontransferable, along the
lines of one-time buyouts without remaining subsidies. To
maintain government credibility and reduce uncertainty,
eligibility rules need to be clearly defined and not allowed to
change. The time period on which payments are based, the level of
payments, and the sectors covered should all remain fixed.
Support to specific sectors within agriculture should be in the
form of taxpayer-funded payments. There should be no requirement
of production. Land, labor, and any other input should not have
to be in "agricultural use."
Keywords: Agriculture, International economics
Date: 2005-03-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3533&r=agr
3. The WTO Doha Round, Cotton Sector Dynamics and Poverty Trends
in Zambia
Jorge F. Balat (The World Bank)
Guido G. Porto (The World Bank)
The Zambian cotton sector went through significant reforms
during the 1990s. After a long period of parastatal control, a
process of liberalization in cotton production and marketing
began in 1994. These reforms were expected to benefit
agricultural farmers. In Zambia, these are rural, often
vulnerable, smallholders. The authors investigate the connection
between the dynamics of the cotton sector and the dynamics of
poverty and evaluate to what extent cotton can work as a vehicle
for poverty alleviation. They find that cotton can indeed act as
an effective mechanism for increased household welfare. They also
find income gains associated with cotton production, as well as
positive impacts on the long-run nutritional status of Zambian
children. The impacts, however, are relatively small.
Keywords: Agriculture, Poverty, Rural development
Date: 2005-09-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3697&r=agr
4. Social and Environmental Attributes of Food Products in an
Emerging Mass Market : Challenges of Signaling and Consumer
Perception, With European Illustrations
Jean-Marie Codron (Institut National de la Recherche
Agronomique - UMR MOISA - Place Viala - 34060 Montpellier
Cedex 1 - FRANCE)
Lucie Sirieix (Ecole Nationale Sup?rieure Agronomique de
Montpellier - UMR MOISA - Place Viala - 34060 Montpellier
Cedex 1 - FRANCE)
Thomas Reardon (Department of Agricultural Economics -
Michigan State University - East Lansing, Michigan - USA)
This paper focuses on the environmental and ethical attributes
of food products and their production processes. These two
aspects have been recently recognized and are becoming
increasingly important, in terms of signaling and of consumer
perception. There are two thematic domains: environmental and
social. Within each domain there are two movements. Hence the
paper first presents the four movements that have brought to the
fore new aspects of food product quality, to wit: (1) aspects of
environmental ethics (organic agriculture and integrated
agriculture) and (2)social ethics (fair trade and ethical trade).
Then it describes how the actors in the movements producers,
retailers, NGOs, and governments) are organized and how consumers
perceive each of the movements. From the perspective of the
actors in the movements themselves, the movements are grouped
into two 'actors' philosophies' : a ?radical? philosophy (the
organic production and fair trade movements that arose in radical
opposition to conventional agriculture or unfair trade relations)
and a ?reformist? philosophy (the integrated agriculture and
ethical trade movements that arose as efforts to modify but not
radically change conventional agriculture). From the point of
view of consumers, the classification of the movements is based
on perceptions of the 'domain' of the movements. That is,
consumers tend to perceive as a grouping the organic production
movement and the integrated agricultural movement, as they both
deal with the environment. By contrast, consumers tend to group
the fair trade movement and the ethical trade movement, as they
both deal essentially with social ethics. Recently, key players
such as large retailers and agribusinesses have adopted as part
of their overall quality assurance programs both the
environmental and the ethical attributes. Their involvement in
and adoption of the goals of the movements have, however,
generated tensions and conflicts, in particular within the
radical movements, because of concerns of cooptation. The paper
identifies challenges for those promoting food products with
environmental and social/ethical attributes to communicate
coherent signals to consumers at this crucial moment of an
emerging mass market for these products.
Keywords: Consumer perception, Ethical trade, Fair trade,
Integrated agriculture, Organic agriculture,
Organization, Quality signals
JEL: L
Date: 2005-12-02
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0512002&r=agr
5. Activities, Employment, and Wages in Rural and Semi-Urban
Mexico
Dorte Verner (The World Bank)
The author addresses the labor markets in rural and semi-urban
Mexico. The empirical analyses show that non-farm income shares
increase with overall consumption levels and, also, with time.
Rural-dwellers in lower quintiles of the consumption distribution
tend to earn a larger share of their nonagricultural incomes from
wage labor activities. For the poorest, low-productivity wage
labor activities are important. The quantile wage regression
analysis for rural Mexico shows a rather heterogeneous impact
pattern of individual characteristics across the wage
distribution on monthly wages. The author's findings reveal that
education is key to earning higher wages, and that workers in
more dispersed rural areas earn less than their peers in semi-
urban rural areas (localities with less than 15,000 inhabitants).
The rural non-farm sector is heterogeneous and includes a great
variety of activities and productivity levels across non-farm
jobs. Moreover it can reduce poverty in a couple of distinct but
qualitatively important ways in rural Mexico. The analysis of non-
farm employment in rural Mexico suggests that the two key
determinants of access to employment and productivity in non-farm
activities are education and location.
Keywords: Agriculture, Poverty, Rural development, Social
Development, Labor and employment, Education
Date: 2005-04-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3561&r=agr
6. Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda
Kym Anderson (The World Bank)
Will Martin (The World Bank)
Anderson and Martin examine the extent to which various regions,
and the world as a whole, could gain from multilateral trade
reform over the next decade. They use the World Bank's linkage
model of the global economy to examine the impact first of
current trade barriers and agricultural subsidies, and then of
possible outcomes from the World Trade Organization's Doha round.
The results suggest moving to free global merchandise trade would
boost real incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (and
in Cairns Group countries) proportionately more than in other
developing countries or high-income countries. Real returns to
farm land and unskilled labor and real net farm incomes would
rise substantially in those developing country regions, thereby
alleviating poverty. A Doha partial liberalization could take the
world some way toward those desirable outcomes, but more so the
more agricultural subsidies are disciplined and applied tariffs
are cut.
Keywords: International economics
Date: 2005-05-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3607&r=agr
7. The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment
in Ghana
Markus Goldstein (The World Bank)
Christopher Udry (Economic Growth Center, Yale University)
We examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on
investment and productivity in agriculture in Akwapim, Ghana. We
show that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local
political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights, and that as a
consequence they invest more in land fertility and have
substantially higher output. The intensity of investments on
different plots cultivated by a given individual correspond to
that individual?s security of tenure over those specific plots,
and in turn to the individual?s position in the political
hierarchy relevant to those specific plots. We interpret these
results in the context of a simple model of the political
allocation of land rights in local matrilineages.
Keywords: Land tenure, Investment, Institutions
JEL: O12 O13 O17
Date: 2005-11
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:929&r=agr
8. Pesticide Poisoning of Farm Workers : Implications of Blood
Test Results from Vietnam
Susmita Dasgupta (The World Bank)
Craig Meisner (The World Bank)
David Wheeler (The World Bank)
Nhan Thi Lam (Tien Giang Preventive Medicine Centre)
Khuc Xuyen (National Institute of Occupational and
Environmental Health, Vietnam)
In this paper, the authors have assessed the incidence and
determinants of pesticide poisoning among rice farmers in
Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Blood cholinesterase tests suggest that
the incidence of poisoning from exposure to organophosphates and
carbamates is quite high in Vietnam. Using the medical test
results as benchmarks, the authors find that farmers' self-
reported symptoms have very weak associations with actual
poisoning. Regression analysis of blood tests reveals a lower
incidence of poisoning for farmers who avoid the most toxic
pesticides and use protective items. The authors also find very
large provincial differences in poisoning incidence after they
control for individual factors. The results highlight the
potential importance of negative externalities, and suggest that
future research on pesticide-related damage should include
information on local water, air, and soil contamination.
Keywords: Agriculture, Health and population
Date: 2005-06-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3624&r=agr
9. Financial Health of Credit Cooperatives in the state of
Maharashtra in India: Case Studies of DCCCBs
Deepak Shah (Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics, B.M.
C.C. Road, Deccan Gymkhana, Pune 411004, Maharashtra, India)
An analysis encompassing two case studies conducted in forward
and backward regions of Maharashtra (India) has shown
deterioration in the financial health of central level credit
cooperatives (Sangli District Central Cooperative Bank (SDCCB))
in forward region and gross inefficiency in their functioning (
Buldana District Central Cooperative Bank (BDCCB)) in the
backward region of the state, due mainly to their mounting NPAs
or overdues?. Because of substantially high NPAs, the fixed
expenses of these institutions have been adversely affected,
which in turn have grossly affected the break-even levels of loan
advances and deposits of these credit institutions, so much so
that there has been huge gap between the break-even levels of
loan advances and deposits and the actual loan advances and
deposits. In the case of BDCCB, the deficit between actual and
the break-even levels are so high (about 60 per cent) that it
will be well-nigh impossible for it to overcome this situation.
High transaction costs, poor repayment performance, and mounting
NPAs are the root causes of the moribund state of rural credit
delivery through these cooperatives. Further, it is to be noted
that the estimated trend over the past two decades in Maharashtra
shows a slower growth in institutional finances through credit
cooperatives and also in their membership during the decade of
economic reforms (1991-2000) as against the decade preceding it (
1980-1990). On the other hand, the outstanding loans of these
cooperatives have grown at much faster rate as compared to their
loan advances during both pre- and post economic reform periods.
The slower growth in institutional finance through credit
cooperatives during the decade of 1991-2000 is mainly due to
adverse environment created by the financial sector reforms. Due
to unfavourable policy framework, much of the deposits of the
credit cooperatives are going into investments, instead of
advancing loans to the farming sector. As a result, the C-D
ratios of these credit cooperatives have been adversely affected.
With a view to revive agricultural credit delivery through
cooperatives, the need of the hour is to adopt innovative
approaches like linking of SHGs and NGOs with mainstream
financial institutions, including cooperatives. Such linkages are
reported to have not only reduced transaction costs but also
ensured better repayment performance. In brief, in order to
rejuvenate rural credit delivery system through cooperatives, the
root problems facing the system, viz., high transaction cost,
poor recovery performance, and NPAs, need to be tackled with more
fiscal jurisprudence reserving exemplary punishment for willful
defaults, especially by large farmers, and the individual cases
who have borrowed credit from these institutions. In fact,
insofar as rural credit delivery through credit cooperatives is
concerned, the focus should be on strategies that are required
for tackling issues such as sustainability and viability,
operational efficiency, recovery performance, small farmer
coverage and balanced sectoral development.
Keywords: Financial Health of Credit Cooperatives in India
JEL: G
Date: 2005-12-07
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0512007&r=agr
10. The Structure of Lobbying and Protection in U.S. Agriculture
Kishore Gawande (Bush School of Government, Texas A&M)
The author surveys the empirical literature on the political
economy of agricultural protection. He uses a detailed data set
of agricultural Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions
over five U.S. congressional election cycles over the 1991-2000
period to investigate the relationship between lobbying spending
and agricultural protection. A detailed graphical analysis of
campaign contributions by the agricultural PACs indicates that
although there are very many PACs, in most sectors the majority
of contributions are made by very few PACs. Econometric analysis
reveals that lobbying spending by agricultural PACs is positively
associated with the use of nontariff barriers and specific
tariffs by the United States. There is a strong association
between the average U.S. tariff on goods that benefit from U.S.
export subsidies and lobbying spending. And there is no
association between agricultural protection and trade measures
such as import penetration and the export-to-output ratio.
Keywords: Agriculture, International economics
Date: 2005-09-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3722&r=agr
11. Health Effects and Pesticide Perception as Determinants of
Pesticide Use : Evidence from Bangladesh
Susmita Dasgupta (The World Bank)
Craig Meisner (The World Bank)
Mainul Huq (Development Policy Group, Bangladesh)
In a recent survey of 820 Boro (winter rice), potato, bean,
eggplant, cabbage, sugarcane, and mango farmers in Bangladesh,
over 47 percent of farmers were found to be overusing pesticides.
With only 4 percent of farmers formally trained in pesticide use
or handling, and over 87 percent openly admitting to using little
or no protective measures while applying pesticides, overuse is
potentially a threatening problem to farmer health as well as the
environment. To model pesticide overuse, the authors used a 3-
equation, trivariate probit framework, with health effects and
misperception of pesticide risk as endogenous dummy variables.
Health effects (the first equation) were found to be strictly a
function of the amount of pesticides used in production, while
misperception of pesticide risk (the second equation) was
determined by health impairments from pesticides and the toxicity
of chemicals used. Pesticide overuse (the third equation) was
significantly determined by variation in income, farm ownership,
the toxicity of chemicals used, crop composition, and
geographical location. The results highlight the necessity for
policymakers to design effective and targeted outreach programs
that deal specifically with pesticide risk, safe handling, and
averting behavior. Ideally, the approach would be participatory
in nature to address key informational gaps, as well as
increasing a farmers' awareness retention. The results also point
to specific crops and locations experiencing a higher prevalence
of overuse-bean and eggplant in general-and overall production in
the districts of Chapainawabganj, Chittagong, Comilla, Jessore,
Narshingdi, Rajshahi, and Rangpur. Focusing efforts in these crop
and geographical areas may have the most measurable effects on
pesticide overuse.
Keywords: ???
Date: 2005-11-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3776&r=agr
12. Growing together or growing apart ? A village level study of
the impact of the Doha round on rural China
Marijke Kuiper (Agricultural Economics Research Institute (
LEI) ? Wageningen UR)
Frank van Tongeren (Agricultural Economics Research
Institute (LEI) ? Wageningen UR)
Most studies of the opening of the Chinese economy focus at the
national level. The few existing disaggregated analyses are
limited to analyzing changes in agricultural production. The
authors use an innovative village equilibrium model that accounts
for nonseparability of household production and consumption
decisions. This allows them to analyze the impact of trade
liberalization on household production, consumption, and off-farm
employment, as well as the interactions among these three aspects
of household decisions. They use the village model to analyze the
impact of price changes and labor demand, the two major pathways
through which international trade affects households. Analyzing
the impact of trade liberalization for one village in the Jiangxi
province of China, the authors find changes in relative prices
and outside village employment to have opposite impacts on
household decisions. At the household level the impact of price
changes dominates the employment impacts. Comparing full trade
liberalization and the more limited Doha scenario, reactions are
more modest in the latter case for most households, but the
response is nonlinear to increasing depth of trade reforms. This
is explained by household-specific transaction (shadow) prices in
combination with endogenous choices to participate in the output
markets. Rising income inequalities are a growing concern in
China. Whether trade liberalization allows incomes to grow
together or to grow apart depends on whether one accounts for the
reduction in consumption demand when household members migrate.
Assessing the net effect on the within-village income
distribution, the authors find that poorer households that own
draught power gain most from trade liberalization. The households
that have to rely on the use of own labor for farm activities and
are not endowed with traction power, nor with a link to
employment opportunities in the prospering coastal regions, have
fewer opportunities for adjustment.
Keywords: Rural development, International economics
Date: 2005-09-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3696&r=agr
13. Poverty in Rural and Semi-Urban Mexico during 1992-2002
Dorte Verner (The World Bank)
This paper analyzes poverty in rural and semi-urban areas of
Mexico (localities with less than 2,500 and 15,000 inhabitants,
respectively) and provides guidance on a social agenda and
poverty alleviation strategy for rural Mexico. The analyses are
based on INIGH and ENE data sets for 1992-2002. Monetary extreme
poverty affected 42 percent of the rural dwellers in dispersed
rural areas and 21 percent in semi-urban areas in 2002, slightly
less than one decade earlier. Most of the rural poor live in
dispersed rural areas and 13.2 million people live in poverty in
rural Mexico with less than 15,000 inhabitants. It is
disproportionately a feature of households whose main job is in
the agricultural sector, as self-employed farmers or rural
laborers, and that have at most a primary education. However, the
incidence of extreme rural poverty has declined since 1996 but at
a slower pace than the decline in urban poverty. Hence, the rural-
urban poverty gap increased in recent years and in some places
extreme poverty is at least four times higher in rural than in
urban areas. Moreover, not only is the income gap in urban areas
increasing, but also the gap between richer and poorer segments
of the population in the rural areas is growing. Finally, the gap
between rich and poor regions is still large.
Keywords: Agriculture, Urban development, Poverty, Rural
development, Social Development, Education
Date: 2005-04-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3576&r=agr
14. The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Household Welfare in
Vietnam
Ganesh Seshan (The World Bank)
What is the effect of trade liberalization on households in
developing countries? To what extent do the poor benefit when
local markets are made more accommodative to international trade?
The author empirically analyzes the distributional impact of
trade policies on households in a low-income country with a large
rural economy where labor markets are imperfect. The methodology
in this paper, which can be applied to various types of labor
market conditions, relates changes in prices attributed to trade
reforms to changes in household welfare, income distribution, and
poverty using theoretically consistent measures of producer and
consumer welfare. The author investigates the effects on poverty
and income distribution of national and international market
integration in Vietnam's rice sector and fertilizer market
between 1993 and 1998, a period of ongoing market reforms when
the national poverty rate fell sharply from 59 percent to 37
percent. He finds that when the effects of opening the rice and
fertilizer market are isolated, Vietnam's agricultural trade
reforms did not contribute to a significant improvement in
overall household welfare or decline in poverty over this period.
Nonetheless, the liberalization exercise can explain about half
of the reduction in poverty incidence among farm households. The
results also show that liberalization did not exacerbate income
inequality, but did generate gains for rural households across
the distribution, particularly the poor, at the expense of urban
households.
Keywords: Agriculture, Rural development, International
economics, Labor and employment
Date: 2005-03-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3541&r=agr
15. Cultivate or Rent Out ? Land Security in Rural Thailand
Xavier Gin? (The World Bank)
In the 1980s the Thai government tried to legalize squatters by
issuing special titles that restricted the sale and rental of the
land. Using data from 2,874 farming households collected in 1997,
the author finds that in places where these government titles
where issued, leased plots are more likely to be titled than
those that are self-cultivated. For these areas, he uses a model
to estimate a 6 percent risk premium in the rental rate for
untitled plots. In other areas, however, land rights play no role
in the decision to lease land and the rental rate of untitled
plots does not include a risk premium. The results indicate that
this policy distorted the land rental market by triggering a
sense of insecurity among landowners.
Keywords: Rural development
Date: 2005-10-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3734&r=agr
16. Feedback Links Between Economy-Wide and Farm-Level Policies :
Application to Irrigation Water Management in Morocco
Terry Roe (University of Minnesota)
Ariel Dinar (The World Bank)
Yacov Tsur (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Xinshen Diao (International Food Policy Research Institute)
The authors focus on policy interventions for improving
irrigation water allocation decisions by including both macro and
micro considerations in a unified analytical computable general
equilibrium (CGE) framework. The approach is demonstrated, using
the case of Morocco, by analyzing selected policy (top-down and
bottom-up) interventions and external shocks that affect the
water sector. Both direct and indirect effects of these
interventions are identified. The top-down (macro-to-micro) links
are of a trade reform type. The bottom-up (micro-to-macro) links
pertain to changes in farm water assignments and the possibility
of water trading. The authors find that water productivity is
strongly influenced by these policies, with the general
equilibrium (indirect) effects modifying and sometimes reversing
the partial equilibrium (direct) effects. They also find that the
impacts of the two reforms assessed are different, with trade
reform having an absolute impact of a higher magnitude than the
water reform. Finally, the authors show that the sequence of
introducing the policy reforms has different consequences.
Keywords: Agriculture, Poverty, Rural development, Labor and
employment, Macroeconomics and growth
Date: 2005-03-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3550&r=agr
17. Crop Insurance in Karnataka
Vijay Kalavakonda (The World Bank)
Olivier Mahul (The World Bank)
The authors examine the performance of the crop insurance scheme
in Karnataka, a southern state of India and the second driest
state in the country. Their analysis highlights weaknesses in
product design, implementation challenges, and operational
problems. The authors' finding is that the crop insurance scheme
in its current form does not achieve its objectives, either
explicit (risk management) or implicit (safety net and
containment of both the central and state governments' contingent
liability). The crop insurance scheme performs poorly both in
terms of coverage (number of hectares insured and number of
farmers purchasing insurance) and financial performance. The
authors provide a framework for designing a crop insurance scheme
based on the premise that insurance is a cost effective risk
management techniques. They also provide some new ideas and
thinking toward both improving the existing crop insurance scheme
and exploring alternatives to the current product, based on an
area-yield approach.
Keywords: Agriculture, Rural development
Date: 2005-07-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3654&r=agr
18. Applications of Negotiation Theory to Water Issues
Carlo Carraro (University of Venice)
Carmen Marchiori (London School of Economics)
Alessandra Sgobbi (Fondazione Eni E. Mattei)
The authors review the applications of noncooperative bargaining
theory to water related issues-which fall in the category of
formal models of negotiation. They aim to identify the conditions
under which agreements are likely to emerge and their
characteristics, to support policymakers in devising the "rules
of the game" that could help obtain a desired result. Despite the
fact that allocation of natural resources, especially trans-
boundary allocation, has all the characteristics of a negotiation
problem, there are not many applications of formal negotiation
theory to the issue. Therefore, the authors first discuss the
noncooperative bargaining models applied to water allocation
problems found in the literature. Key findings include the
important role noncooperative negotiations can play in cases
where binding agreements cannot be signed; the value added of
politically and socially acceptable compromises; and the need for
a negotiated model that considers incomplete information over the
negotiated resource.
Keywords: Agriculture, Infrastructure, Environment, Governance
Date: 2005-06-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3641&r=agr
19. The Cost of Compliance with Product Standards for Firms in
Developing Countries : An Econometric Study
Keith E. Maskus (University of Colorado at Boulder)
Tsunehiro Otsuki (Osaka University)
John S. Wilson (The World Bank)
Standards and technical regulations exist to protect consumer
safety or to achieve other goals, such as ensuring the
interoperability of telecommunications systems, for example.
Standards and technical regulations can, however, raise
substantially both start-up and production costs for firms.
Maskus, Otsuki, and Wilson develop econometric models to provide
the first estimates of the incremental production costs for firms
in developing nations in conforming to standards imposed by major
importing countries. They use firm-level data generated from 16
developing countries in the World Bank Technical Barriers to
Trade (TBT) Survey Database. Their findings indicate that
standards do increase short-run production costs by requiring
additional inputs of labor and capital. A 1 percent increase in
investment to meet compliance costs in importing countries raises
variable production costs by between 0.06 and 0.13 percent, a
statistically significant increase. The authors also find that
the fixed costs of compliance are nontrivial-approximately $425,
000 per firm, or about 4.7 percent of value added on average. The
results may be interpreted as one indication of the extent to
which standards and technical regulations might constitute
barriers to trade. While the relative impact on costs of
compliance is relatively small, these costs can be decisive
factors driving export success for companies. In this context,
there is scope for considering that the costs associated with
more limited exports to countries with import regulations may not
conform to World Trade Organization rules encouraging
harmonization of regulations to international standards, for
example. Policy solutions then might be sought by identifying the
extent to which subsidies or public support programs are needed
to offset the cost disadvantage that arises from nonharmonized
technical regulations.
Keywords: Industry, Private sector development, International
economics
Date: 2005-05-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3590&r=agr
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/nep-agr/attachments/20051220/28f56acd/attachment.htm
