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NEP: New Economics Papers
Agricultural Economics
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Edited by: Angelo Zago
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pza49.html
Universita degli Studi di Verona
Date: 2006-11-18
Papers: 29
This document is in the public domain, feel free to circulate it.
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+ Note: Access to full contents may be restricted +
+ NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego +
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In this issue we have:
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1. Agricultural Policies and Development of Myanmar's
Agricultural Sector: An Overview
Fujita, Koichi; Okamoto, Ikuko
2. Distributional effects of WTO agricultural reforms in rich
and poor countries
Hertel, Thomas W.; Keeney, Roman; Ivanic, Maros; Winters, L.
Alan
3. Endogenous Technology Adoption Under Production Risk: Theory
and Application to Irrigation Technology
Phoebe Koundouri; Celine Nauges; Vangelis Tzouvelekas
4. Forests, biomass use, and poverty in Malawi
Bandyopadhyay, Sushenjit; Shyamsundar, Priya; Baccini,
Alessandro
5. Evaluating the Impact of Public and Private Agricultural
Extension on Farms Performance: A Non-neutral Stochastic
Frontier Approach
Ariel Dinar; Giannis Karagiannis; Vangelis Tzouvelekas
6. Interaction Between Food Attributes in Markets: The Case of
Environmental Labeling
Gilles Grolleau; Julie A. Caswell
7. Market Power in Direct Marketing of Fresh Produce: Community
Supported Agriculture Farms
Daniel A. Lass; Nathalie Lavoie; T. Robert Fetter
8. Expansion of Asparagus Production and Exports in Peru
Shimizu, Tatsuya
9. Efficiency in Damage Control Inputs: A Stochastic Production
Frontier Approach
Giannis Karagiannis; Efthymios Tsionas; Vangelis Tzouvelekas
10. EXPLAINING OUTPUT GROWTH WITH A HETEROSCEDASTIC NON-NEUTRAL
PRODUCTION FRONTIER: THE CASE OF SHEEP FARMS IN GREECE
Giannis Karagiannis; Vangelis Tzouvelekas
11. Transformation of the Rice Marketing System and Myanmar's
Transition to a Market Economy
Okamoto, Ikuko
12. Information Acquisition and Adoption of Organic Farming
Practices: Evidence from Farm Operations in Crete, Greece
Margarita Genius; Christos Pantzios; Vangelis Tzouvelekas
13. MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS AND EFFICIENCY--GROUNDWATER IRRIGATION
IN NORTH INDIA
A.Banerji; Gauri Khanna; J.V. Meenakshi
14. Trade Policy Lobbying in the European Union: Who Captures
Whom?
Woll, Cornelia
15. Design of Public Voluntary Environmental Programs for
Nitrate Pollution in Agriculture: An Evolutionary Approach
Anastasios Xepapadeas et al; Constadina Passa
16. Efficiency and environmental regulation: a "complex
situation"
Andr?s J. Picazo-Tadeo; Diego Prior
17. Participatory Approach in Decision Making Processes for
Water Resources Management in the Mediterranean Basin
Carlo Giupponi; Jaroslav Mysiak; Jacopo Crimi
18. The Effect of Wal-Mart Supercenters on Grocery Prices in New
England
Richard J. Volpe III; Nathalie Lavoie
19. Parametric Decomposition of the Input-Oriented Malmquist
Productivity Index: With an Application to Greek Aquaculture
Christos Pantzios; Vangelis Tzouvelekas; Giannis Karagiannis
20. An Investigation of Voluntary Discovery and Disclosure of
Environmental Violations Using Laboratory Experiments
James J. Murphy; John K. Stranlund
21. Continuous versus Discrete Time Forest Management Models
with Carbon Sequestration Benefits
Duarte, Clara Costa; Sa, Maria A. Cunha e
22. Ecosystem Management in Models of Antagonistic Species
Coevolution
William Brock; Anastasios Xepapadeas
23. Heterogeneity and Common Pool Resources: Collective
Management of Forests in Himachal Pradesh, India
Sirisha C. Naidu
24. Collective (In)Action and Corruption: Access to Improved
Water and Sanitation
Nejat Anbarci; Monica Escaleras; Charles Register
25. Organizational Capability of Local Societies in Rural
Development: A Comparative Study of Microfinance
Organizations in Thailand and the Philippines
Shigetomi, Shinichi
26. The Regulation of Food Advertising and Obesity Prevention in
Europe: What Role for the European Union
Armandine Garde
27. Valuing Biodiversity from an Economic Perspective: AUnified
Economic, Ecological and Genetic Approach
William Brock; Anastasios Xepapadeas
28. Explaining Output Growth of Sheep Farms in Greece: A
Parametric Primal Approach
Giannis Karagiannis; Vangelis Tzouvelekas
29. Willingness to Pay for Amateur Sport and Recreation Programs
Bruce K. Johnson; John C. Whitehead; Daniel S. Mason;
Gordon J. Walker
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1. Agricultural Policies and Development of Myanmar's
Agricultural Sector: An Overview
Fujita, Koichi
Okamoto, Ikuko
This paper reviews the development of the agricultural sector in
Myanmar after the transition to an open economy in 1988 and
analyzes the nature as well as the performance of the
agricultural sector. The avoidance of social unrest and the
maintenance of control by the regime are identified as the two
key factors that have determined the nature of agricultural
policy after 1988. A major consequence of agricultural policy has
been a clear difference in development paths among the major
crops. Production of crops that had a potential for development
showed sluggish growth due to policy constraints, whereas there
has been a self-sustaining increase in the output of those crops
that have fallen outside the remit of agricultural policy.
Keywords: Agriculture, Transition, Myanmar, Agricultural policy,
Agricultural development
JEL: P20 Q11 Q17 Q18
Date: 2006-06
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper63&r=agr
2. Distributional effects of WTO agricultural reforms in rich
and poor countries
Hertel, Thomas W.
Keeney, Roman
Ivanic, Maros
Winters, L. Alan
Rich countries ' agricultural trade policies are the
battleground on which the future of the WTO ' s troubled Doha
Round will be determined. Subject to widespread criticism, they
nonetheless appear to be almost immune to serious reform, and one
of their most common defenses is that they protect poor farmers.
The authors ' findings reject this claim. The analysis uses
detailed data on farm incomes to show that major commodity
programs are highly regressive in the United States, and that the
only serious losses under trade reform are among large, wealthy
farmers in a few heavily protected subsectors. In contrast,
analysis using household data from 15 developing countries
indicates that reforming rich countries ' agricultural trade
policies would lift large numbers of developing country farm
households out of poverty. In the majority of cases these gains
are not outweighed by the poverty-increasing effects of higher
food prices among other households. Agricultural reforms that
appear feasible, even under an ambitious Doha Round, achieve only
a fraction of the benefits for developing countries that full
liberalization promises, but protect U.S. large farms from most
of the rigors of adjustment. Finally, the analysis indicates that
maximal trade-led poverty reductions occur when developing
countries participate more fully in agricultural trade
liberalization.
Keywords: Rural Poverty Reduction,Economic Theory & Research,
Population Policies,Pro-Poor Growth and Inequality
Date: 2006-11-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4060&r=agr
3. Endogenous Technology Adoption Under Production Risk: Theory
and Application to Irrigation Technology
Phoebe Koundouri (Department of Economics, University of
Reading, Reading, UK)
Celine Nauges (LEERNA-INRA, Universite des Sciences Sociales,
France)
Vangelis Tzouvelekas (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
The main objective of this paper is to present a theoretical
framework that conceptualizes technology adoption as a decision
process involving information acquisition by farmers who face
yield uncertainty and vary in their risk preferences. This is
done by integrating the microeconomic foundations used to analyze
production uncertainty at the farm level with the traditional
technological adoption models. First we follow the approach of
Antle (1987) based on higher-order moments of profit, which
enables flexible estimation of the stochastic technology without
ad hoc specification of risk preferences. Then individual risk
preferences are derived, which are then used to explain
farmer?s decision to adopt modern water saving technologies.
The proposed model is applied to a randomly selected sample of
265 farms located in Crete, Greece. Results show that risk
preferences affect the probability of adoption and provide
evidence that farmers invest in new technologies as a means of
hedging against input related production risk.
Keywords: risk attitudes, technology adoption, stochastic
agricultural production, momentsbased estimation
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0411&r=agr
4. Forests, biomass use, and poverty in Malawi
Bandyopadhyay, Sushenjit
Shyamsundar, Priya
Baccini, Alessandro
In this paper, the authors seek to answer three questions about
poverty and forests in Malawi: (1) What is the extent of biomass
available for meeting the energy needs of the poor in Malawi and
how is this distributed? (2) To what extent does fuelwood
scarcity affect the welfare of the poor? (3) How do households
cope with scarcity? In particular, do households spend more time
in fuelwood collection and less time in agriculture in response
to scarcity? The authors attempt to answer these questions using
household and remote-sensing data. They find that 80 percent of
rural poor households in Malawi are likely to benefit from an
increase in biomass per hectare in their community. Rural women
respond to biomass scarcity by increasing the time they spend on
fuelwood collection. But the actual decrease in consumption
expenditure and increase in time in fuelwood collection are small
and biomass scarcity is not associated with a reduction in
agricultural labor supply.
Keywords: Renewable Energy,Crops & Crop Management Systems,
Wildlife Resources,Climate Change,Ecosystems and
Natural Habitats
Date: 2006-11-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4068&r=agr
5. Evaluating the Impact of Public and Private Agricultural
Extension on Farms Performance: A Non-neutral Stochastic
Frontier Approach
Ariel Dinar (Rural Development Departent, World Bank, USA)
Giannis Karagiannis (Department of Economics, University of
Macedonia, Greece)
Vangelis Tzouvelekas (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0205&r=agr
6. Interaction Between Food Attributes in Markets: The Case of
Environmental Labeling
Gilles Grolleau (Centre d?Economie et Sociologie
appliqu?es ? l?Agriculture et aux Espaces Ruraux)
Julie A. Caswell (Department of Resource Economics,
University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Some consumers derive utility from using products produced with
specific processes, such as environmentally friendly practices.
Means of verifying these credence attributes, such as
certification, are necessary for the market to function
effectively. A substitute or complementary solution may exist
when consumers perceive a relationship between a process
attribute and other verifiable product attributes. We present a
model where the level of search and experience attributes
influences the likelihood of production of eco-friendly products.
Our results suggest that the market success of ecofriendly food
products requires a mix of environmental and other verifiable
attributes that together signal credibility.
Keywords: environmental labeling, food attributes, food
marketing, quality perception
JEL: L15 Q13 Q18
Date: 2005-04
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dre:wpaper:2005-5&r=agr
7. Market Power in Direct Marketing of Fresh Produce: Community
Supported Agriculture Farms
Daniel A. Lass (Department of Resource Economics, University
of Massachusetts Amherst)
Nathalie Lavoie (Department of Resource Economics,
University of Massachusetts Amherst)
T. Robert Fetter (Science Applications International
Corporation)
CSA farms establish a loyal customer base and, potentially,
market power. A new empirical industrial organization (NEIO)
approach and survey data from Northeast CSA farms are used to
determine whether CSA farms have market power and the extent to
which they exercise their market power. Results suggest CSA farms
exert about two percent of their potential monopoly power.
Keywords: Community Supported Agriculture; New Empirical
Industrial Organization; Market Power; Fresh Produce;
Organic Agriculture
JEL: D42 L12 Q13
Date: 2005-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dre:wpaper:2005-2&r=agr
8. Expansion of Asparagus Production and Exports in Peru
Shimizu, Tatsuya
Keywords: Agriculture, Exports, Asparagus, Peru, Vegetables
JEL: F13 L70 N56 Q13
Date: 2006-08
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper73&r=agr
9. Efficiency in Damage Control Inputs: A Stochastic Production
Frontier Approach
Giannis Karagiannis (Department of Economics, University of
Macedonia, Greece)
Efthymios Tsionas (Department of Economics, Athens
University of Economics and Business, Greece)
Vangelis Tzouvelekas (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
The present paper extents the existing literature providing a
theoretically consistent framework for measuring input-specific
technical efficiency in damage control inputs (i.e., pesticides)
within a stochastic production frontier model. The theoretical
framework for modeling damage control agents is based on Fox and
Weersink (1995) model specification that allows for increasing
returns on damage control inputs. The empirical model is applied
on a cross-section data set of 844 crop farms in Greece during
the 2003 period obtained from FADN database. The results suggest
that crop farms in Greece are using rather inefficiently
pesticides in their fields as their average technical efficiency
level was 73.9%. On the other hand, technical efficiency in
conventional factors of production was found to be lower on the
average, 70.8%. Finally, our results indicate that farms that are
technical efficient in the use of conventional inputs are also
technical efficient in the use of damage control agents.
Keywords: words: output damage function, pesticide-specific
technical efficiency, crop farms, Greece.
Date: 2005
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0507&r=agr
10. EXPLAINING OUTPUT GROWTH WITH A HETEROSCEDASTIC NON-NEUTRAL
PRODUCTION FRONTIER: THE CASE OF SHEEP FARMS IN GREECE
Giannis Karagiannis (Department of Economics, University of
Macedonia, Greece)
Vangelis Tzouvelekas (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
This paper extends the primal decomposition of TFP changes to
the case of non-neutral production frontiers. Output growth is
decomposed into input growth (size effect), changes in technical
efficiency, technical change, and the effect of returns to scale.
Within the proposed formulation, however, technical efficiency
changes are attributed not only to autonomous changes (i.e.,
passage of time) but also to changes in input use and in the not-
so-fixed farm characteristics. The empirical model is based on a
heteroscedastic non-neutral production frontier and an unbalanced
panel data set of sheep farms in Greece for the period 1989-92.
The technical efficiency change effect is found to be the main
source of TFP growth, followed by technical change and the scale
effect, which has caused a 0.35% output slowdown The not-so-fixed
farm characteristics have been the most important determinant of
technical efficiency changes, followed by changes in input use.
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0409&r=agr
11. Transformation of the Rice Marketing System and Myanmar's
Transition to a Market Economy
Okamoto, Ikuko
Creating a rice marketing system has been one of the central
policy issues in Myanmar's move to a market economy since the end
of the 1980s. Two liberalizations of rice marketing were
implemented in 1987 and 2003. This paper examines the essential
aspects of the liberalizations and the subsequent transformation
of Myanmar's rice marketing sector. It attempts to bring into
clearer focus the rationale of the government's rice marketing
reforms which is to maintain a stable supply of rice at a low
price to consumers. Under this rationale, however, the state rice
marketing sector continued to lose efficiency while the private
sector was allowed to develop on condition that it did not
jeopardize the rationale of stable supply at low price. The paper
concludes that the prospect for the future development of the
private rice marketing sector is dim since a change in the rice
market's rationale is unlikely. Private rice exporting is
unlikely to be permitted, while the domestic market is
approaching the saturation point. Thus, there is little momentum
for the private rice sector to undertake any substantial
expansion of investment.
Keywords: Myanmar, Rice, Marketing system, Liberalization,
Marketing, Transition to market economy
JEL: P39 Q13 Q18
Date: 2006-10
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper43&r=agr
12. Information Acquisition and Adoption of Organic Farming
Practices: Evidence from Farm Operations in Crete, Greece
Margarita Genius (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
Christos Pantzios
Vangelis Tzouvelekas (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
The objective of the paper is to model the degree of organic
farming adoption as well as the importance of technical
information acquisition in the adoption decision process. In
doing so, a trivariate ordered probit model is specified and
implemented in the case of organic farming adoption in Crete,
Greece. The results suggest that the decisions of information
acquisition and adoption are indeed correlated and different
farming information sources play a complementary role. Policies
required to encourage organic farming adoption should be
primarily structural while the provision of technical information
is more crucial than conversion subsidies if total organic
adoption is to be pursued.
Keywords: Technology adoption, information acquisition, organic
farming, Crete, Greece
JEL: Q16 O31 D21 C35
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0305&r=agr
13. MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS AND EFFICIENCY--GROUNDWATER IRRIGATION
IN NORTH INDIA
A.Banerji (Delhi School of Economics)
Gauri Khanna (Graduate Institute of International Studies,
Geneva)
J.V. Meenakshi (Delhi School of Economics, and International
Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C.)
This paper analyzes the institutions and markets that govern
groundwater allocation in the sugarcane belt of Uttar Pradesh,
India, using primary, plot-level data from a village which shares
the typical features of this region. Electricity powers tubewell
pumps, and its erratic supply translates into randomness in
irrigation volumes. The paper finds that plots are water-rationed,
owing to inadequate supply of power. A simple model shows that a
combination of such rationing and the village-level mechanism of
water sales can lead to great misallocation of water across plots,
and result in large crop losses for plots that irrigate using
purchased water. We infer the existence of a social contract that
mitigates these potential losses in the study area to a
remarkable extent; in its absence, average yields are estimated
to be 18% lower. The finding that the water allocation is close
to efficient (given the power supply) marks a sharp contrast with
much of the existing literature. Notwithstanding the social
contract, the random and inadequate supply of power, and
therefore water, is inefficient. The dysfunctional power supply
is part of a larger system of poor incentives to produce reliable
and adequate power. In simulations we find that such reliability
can improve yields by up to 10 %, and pay for a system of
electricity pricing that gives incentives to the power supplier
to actually provide adequate power. However, even at reasonably
high power prices, irrigation volumes are large enough to
continue to seriously deplete the water table. The problem is
that traditional rights of water use do not take into account the
shadow price of the groundwater. We provide a rough first
analysis to suggest that a 15% markup on the economic unit cost
of providing electricity would make for intertemporally efficient
water use.
Keywords: Water markets, water tables, water production function,
water pricing.
JEL: L1 Q1 Q2
Date: 2006-11
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:152&r=agr
14. Trade Policy Lobbying in the European Union: Who Captures
Whom?
Woll, Cornelia
Keywords: lobbying; interest representation; European Commission;
political economy; trade policy; international trade;
protectionism; liberalization; agriculture policy;
telecommunication policy
Date: 2006-10-11
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:mpifgx:p0071&r=agr
15. Design of Public Voluntary Environmental Programs for
Nitrate Pollution in Agriculture: An Evolutionary Approach
Anastasios Xepapadeas et al (Department of Economics,
University of Crete, Greece)
Constadina Passa (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
The joint evolution of participation and compliance of farmers
in a public VA, along with the evolution of the pollution stock
is examined. Replica- tor dynamics, modeling participation and
compliance, are combined with pollution stock dynamics. Fast-slow
selection dynamics are used to capture the fact that distinct
decisions to participate in and comply with the public VA evolve
in di?erent time scales. Conditions for evolutionary equilibria
and evolutionary stable strategies regarding participation and
compliance are derived. Depending on the structure of the
legislation and auditing probability, polymorphic equilibria
indicating partial participation and par- tial compliance or
monomorphic equilibria of full (or non) compliance could be the
outcome of the evolutionary processes. Multiple equilibria and
irre- versibilities are possible, while convergence to
evolutionary equilibria could be monotonic or oscillating. Full
participation and compliance can be at- tained if the regulator
is pre-committed to certain legislation and inspection
probabilities, or by appropriate choices of the legislatively set
emission level and the non-compliance ?ne. Budget constraints
associated with monitoring costs seem to produce polymorphic
equilibria.
Keywords: Voluntary agreements, participation, compliance,
evolution-
JEL: Q2 L5
Date: 2005
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0512&r=agr
16. Efficiency and environmental regulation: a "complex
situation"
Andr?s J. Picazo-Tadeo (Departamento de Econom?a Aplicada
II, Universitat de Valencia)
Diego Prior (Department of Business Economics, Universitat
Autonoma de Barcelona)
Production of desirable outputs is often accompanied by
undesirable by-products that have damaging effects on the
environment, and whose disposal is frequently regulated by public
authorities. In this paper, we compute directional technology
distance functions under particular assumptions concerning
disposability of bads in order to test for the existence of what
we call ?complex situations?, where the biggest producer is
not the greatest polluter. Furthermore, we show that how in such
situations, environmental regulation could achieve an effective
reduction in the aggregate level of bad outputs without reducing
the production of good outputs. Finally, we illustrate our
methodology with an empirical application to a sample of Spanish
tile ceramic producers.
Keywords: environmental regulation, efficiency, disposability of
bads
JEL: C61 D21 L68
Date: 2005-04
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bbe:wpaper:200502&r=agr
17. Participatory Approach in Decision Making Processes for
Water Resources Management in the Mediterranean Basin
Carlo Giupponi (Universit? degli Studi di Milano and
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei)
Jaroslav Mysiak (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei)
Jacopo Crimi (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei)
This paper deals with the comparative analysis of different
policy options for water resources management in three south-
eastern Mediterranean countries. The applied methodology follows
a participatory approach throughout its implementation and is
supported by the use of three different software packages dealing
with water allocation budget, water quality simulation, and Multi
Criteria Analysis, respectively. The paper briefly describes the
general objectives of the SMART project and then presents the
three local case studies, the valuation objectives and the
applied methodology - developed as a general replicable framework
suitable for implementation in other decision-making processes.
All the steps needed for a correct implementation are therefore
described. Following the conceptualisation of the problem, the
choice of the appropriate indicators as well as the calculation
of their weighting and value functions are detailed. The paper
concludes with the results of the Multi Criteria and the related
Sensitivity Analyses performed, showing how the different policy
responses under consideration can be assessed and furthermore
compared through case studies thanks to their relative
performances. The adopted methodology was found to be an
effective operational approach for bridging scientific modelling
and policy making by integrating the model outputs in a
conceptual framework that can be understood and utilised by non
experts, thus showing concrete potential for participatory
decision making.
Keywords: Scientific Advice, Policy-Making, Participatory
Modelling, Decision Support
JEL: Q01 Q25 Q28 Q5
Date: 2006-08
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2006.101&r=agr
18. The Effect of Wal-Mart Supercenters on Grocery Prices in New
England
Richard J. Volpe III (Department of Agricultural and
Resource Economics, University of California at Davis)
Nathalie Lavoie (Department of Resource Economics,
University of Massachusetts Amherst)
This study examines the competitive price effect of Wal-Mart
Supercenters on national brand and private label grocery prices
in New England. For this purpose, we use primary price data
collected on a basket of identical products from six Supercenters
in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island as well as a
sample of conventional supermarkets. Taking into account
demographics, store characteristics, and market conditions, we
estimate the average prices charged by (1) Supercenters, (2)
supermarkets competing directly with Supercenters, and by (3)
supermarkets geographically distant from Supercenters. By
comparing prices at competing stores and at distant stores, we
show that the effect of Wal-Mart Supercenters is to decrease
prices by 6 to 7 percent for national brand goods and 3 to 7
percent for private label goods. Price decreases are most
significant in the dry grocery and dairy departments. Moreover,
Wal-Mart sets prices significantly lower than its competitors in
the food industry.
Keywords: Wal-Mart; Supermarket Competition; Grocery Prices;
National Brands, Private Labels
JEL: D21 D43 L11 L13 L81
Date: 2006-10
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dre:wpaper:2006-8&r=agr
19. Parametric Decomposition of the Input-Oriented Malmquist
Productivity Index: With an Application to Greek Aquaculture
Christos Pantzios
Vangelis Tzouvelekas (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
Giannis Karagiannis (Department of Economics, University of
Macedonia, Greece)
Using a stochastic frontier approach and a tranlog input
distance function, this paper implements the input-oriented
Malmquist productivity index to a sample of Greek aquaculture
farms. It is decomposed into the effects of technical efficiency
change, scale efficiency change, input-mix and, technical change,
which is further attributed to neutral, output- and input-induced
shifts of the frontier. Implementable expressions for the
aforementioned components are obtained using a discrete changes-
approach that is consistent with the usual discrete-form data.
Empirical findings indicate that the productivity of the farms in
the sample increased during the period 1995-99 at a moderate rate
of about two percent, and it was shaped up primarily by the input
mix-effect and technical change.
Keywords: Malmquist productivity index; stochastic input
distance function; Greek aquaculture farms
Date: 2005
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0518&r=agr
20. An Investigation of Voluntary Discovery and Disclosure of
Environmental Violations Using Laboratory Experiments
James J. Murphy (Department of Resource Economics,
University of Massachusetts Amherst)
John K. Stranlund (Department of Resource Economics,
University of Massachusetts Amherst)
This paper uses laboratory experiments to test individual
responses to policies that seek to encourage firms to voluntarily
discover and disclose violations of environmental standards. We
find that while it is possible to motivate a significant number
of voluntary disclosures without adversely affecting
environmental quality, this result is sensitive to both the fine
for disclosed violations and the assumption that firms know their
compliance status without cost. When firms have to expend
resources to determine their compliance status, motivating a
significant number of violation disclosures yields worse
environmental quality. Finally, relative to conventional
enforcement, disclosure polices will result in more violations
being sanctioned, but fewer of these sanctions are for violations
that are uncovered by the government.
Keywords: enforcement, compliance, environmental standards, self-
reporting, self-auditing voluntary disclosure
JEL: C91 L51 Q58
Date: 2005-09
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dre:wpaper:2005-7&r=agr
21. Continuous versus Discrete Time Forest Management Models
with Carbon Sequestration Benefits
Duarte, Clara Costa
Sa, Maria A. Cunha e
Forest literature uses both continous and discrete time models
to study forest management problems, and when carbon
sequestration benefits are considered, the results obtained in
both approaches are not always equivalent. This issue is relevant
from a policy point of view if credits are to be allocated to
forest owners within the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.
This note explores the impact of different carbon sequestration
accounting methods on both settings. It studies the specific
conditions for optimal rotation period and the value of a
marginal unit of bare land on a one stand model and compare them
with the long run optimal stationary steady state of a forest
vintage model.
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp497&r=agr
22. Ecosystem Management in Models of Antagonistic Species
Coevolution
William Brock (University of Wisconsin, Department of
Economics, USA)
Anastasios Xepapadeas (Department of Economics, University
of Crete, Greece)
Date: 2004-12-26
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0503&r=agr
23. Heterogeneity and Common Pool Resources: Collective
Management of Forests in Himachal Pradesh, India
Sirisha C. Naidu (Wright State University)
In the past two decades, theoretical and empirical evidence
suggests that communities of resource users are capable of
overcoming social dilemmas, and are capable of creating and
sustaining institutions designed to prevent degradation of common
pool natural resources. However, there is incomplete
understanding of what motivates this group-level behavior and why
some communities are better adept at solving collective action
problems than others. This paper specifically explores the role
of group heterogeneity in collective action among forest
communities in the northwestern Himalayas. Heterogeneity can have
important social and ecological consequences and understanding
both its nature and effects can help in neutralizing the negative
and enhancing the positive. Based on data from 54 forest
communities in Himachal Pradesh, India, this paper finds that
heterogeneity has at least three dimensions: wealth, identity and
interest, and each may significantly affect collective actions
related to natural resource management. However, their effects
are far from simple and linear.
Keywords: common pool resources, group outcomes, heterogeneity,
forests
JEL: D63 D71 H41 Q23 Q57
Date: 2005-11
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dre:wpaper:2005-8&r=agr
24. Collective (In)Action and Corruption: Access to Improved
Water and Sanitation
Nejat Anbarci (Department of Economics, Florida
International University)
Monica Escaleras (Department of Economics, Florida Atlantic
University)
Charles Register (Department of Economics, Florida Atlantic
University)
A country?s levels of collective action in the provision of
socially desirable goods and services are primarily determined by
its level of development, important natural attributes, and its
unique institutional characteristics. In general, one can expect
that, given a particular set of natural attributes and
institutions, the greater a county?s per capita GDP, the more
extensive will be its commitment to the provision of goods and
services that require collective action. The primary contention
of this paper is that one of the most important aspects of
institutions that affect socially desirable collective action is
the extent of public sector corruption. More specifically, we
first develop a theoretical model which explicitly shows the
relations between per capita GDP, corruption, and collective
action in the form of the provision of improved drinking water
and appropriate sanitation facilities. We test our model by
analyzing a sample of 77 countries, annually, between 1982 and
2001, for a total sample of 1,519 observations. Relying on a two-
way fixed effects estimation strategy, we find that corruption
does in fact lead to lower levels of both access to improved
drinking water and appropriate sanitation than a given
country?s level of per capita GDP and other institutions alone
would predict.
Keywords: Collective Action, corruption, institutional variables
JEL: D31 H41 P16
Date: 2006-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fal:wpaper:06003&r=agr
25. Organizational Capability of Local Societies in Rural
Development: A Comparative Study of Microfinance
Organizations in Thailand and the Philippines
Shigetomi, Shinichi
The importance of organizing local people for development work
is widely recognized. Both governmental and non-governmental
agencies have implemented various projects that have needed and
encouraged collective action by people. Often, however, such
projects malfunction after the outside agencies retreat from the
project site, suggesting that making organizations is not the
same as making a system of making organizations. The latter is
essential to make rural organizations self-reliant and
sustainable. This paper assumes that such a system exists in
local societies and focuses on the capacity of local societies
for creating and managing organizations for development. It
reveals that (1) such capability differs according to the
locality, (2) the difference depends on the structure of the
organizations that coordinate people's social relations, and (3)
the local administrative bodies define, at least partly, the
organizational capability of local societies. We compare two
rural societies, one in Thailand and the other in the Philippines,
which show clear contrasts in both the form of microfinance
organizations and the way of making these organizations.
Keywords: Local organization, Rural society, Rural development,
Microfinance, Local administration, Thailand,
Philippines
JEL: O18 O53 Q00 Z13
Date: 2006-02
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper47&r=agr
26. The Regulation of Food Advertising and Obesity Prevention in
Europe: What Role for the European Union
Armandine Garde
Since 1998, the World Health Organisation has recognised obesity
as a problem of epidemic proportions. As none of the EU Member
States is spared, the European Commission has recently published
a Green Paper aimed at gathering evidence on how it could develop
an obesity prevention strategy at European level. It is therefore
the right moment to reflect on the principles which should guide
EU policy in this field. This paper concentrates on one
particular aspect of obesity prevention, namely the role that the
European Union can play to curb the epidemic by regulating how
food is marketed to consumers. That is not to say that the
regulation of food advertising will, on its own, solve this
public health issue. Obesity being by definition a multifactorial
disease, the concerted action of all stakeholders is crucial to
the successful outcome of the strategy which the Commission will
choose to adopt
Keywords: law; European law; competences; harmonisation
Date: 2006-05-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:euilaw:p0051&r=agr
27. Valuing Biodiversity from an Economic Perspective: AUnified
Economic, Ecological and Genetic Approach
William Brock (University of Wisconsin, Department of
Economics, USA)
Anastasios Xepapadeas (Department of Economics, University
of Crete, Greece)
We develop a conceptual framework for valuing biodiversity from
an economic perspective. We consider biodiversity important
because of a number of characteristics or services that it
provides or enhances. We argue for a dynamic economic welfare
measure of biodiversity that complements the existing literature
on benefit-cost approaches and genetic distance/phylogenic tree
approaches, which to date have been more static. Using a unified
model of optimal economic management of an ecosystem under
ecological and genetic constraints, we identify gains realized by
management policies leading to a more diverse system, using the
Bellman state valuation function of the problem. We show that a
more diverse system could attain a higher value even though the
genetic distance of the species in the more diverse system could
be almost zero. We relate this endogenous measure of the
biodiversity value to ecologically/biologically oriented
biodiversity metrics (species richness, Shannon or Simpson
indices).
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0301&r=agr
28. Explaining Output Growth of Sheep Farms in Greece: A
Parametric Primal Approach
Giannis Karagiannis (Department of Economics, University of
Macedonia, Greece)
Vangelis Tzouvelekas (Department of Economics, University of
Crete, Greece)
This paper provides a parametric decomposition of output growth
of sheep farms in Greece using an integrated primal approach, in
which output growth is attributed to input growth (size effect),
changes in technical efficiency, technical change, and the scale
effect. The empirical results indicate that the scale effect,
which has not been taken into account by previous studies, has a
significant role in explaining output growth and TFP changes. It
was found that during the period 1989-92 it caused a 0.61% output
slowdown and it was the second main source of TFP changes after
technical progress. Consequently, there would have been
significant biases in TFP measurement by not accounting for the
scale effect.
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0306&r=agr
29. Willingness to Pay for Amateur Sport and Recreation Programs
Bruce K. Johnson
John C. Whitehead
Daniel S. Mason
Gordon J. Walker
A Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) survey in Alberta, Canada
allows estimation of the household willingness to pay (WTP) for
enhancements in the province?s extensive sport and recreation
programs. The estimated annual WTP of $18.33 per household for
small enhancements in the programs far exceeds the estimated
willingness to pay of households in the United States to avoid
the loss of major league sports teams, as determined in previous
CVM studies. Those opposed to gambling, which helps to fund the
Alberta programs, are more likely to favor using income taxes to
finance expansions.
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:06-14&r=agr
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