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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: 2006-12-04
Papers: 9
This document is in the public domain, feel free to circulate it.
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In this issue we have:
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1. The redefinition of Europe's Less Favoured Areas
Dax, Thomas
2. Farmers? Suicides and Response of Public Policy: Evidence,
Diagnosis and Alternatives from Punjab
Gill, Anita; Singh, Lakhwinder
3. The on-going CAP-reform ? incentive for a shift towards
rural development activities?
Dax, Thomas
4. Economic Evidence of Willingness to Pay for the National
Animal Identification System in the US
Resende-Filho, Moises; Buhr, Brian
5. Managerial Strategies of the Cotton South
Saito, Tetsuya
6. DEFORESTATION, GROWTH AND AGGLOMERATION EFFECTS: EVIDENCE
FROM AGRICULTURE IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON
Danilo Camargo Igliori
7. Estimating Heterogeneous Capacity and Capacity Utilization in
a Multi-Species Fishery
Ronald G. Felthovan Author=Name: William C. Horrace; Kurt E.
Schnier
8. Decentralization and environment
Dalmazzone Silvana
9. A PRINCIPAL-AGENT MODEL FOR EVALUATING THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF
A BEEF TRACEABILITY SYSTEM: A CASE STUDY WITH INJECTION-SITE
LESIONS CONTROL IN FED CATTLE IN THE US
Mois?s de Andrade Resende Filho; Brian L. Buhr
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1. The redefinition of Europe's Less Favoured Areas
Dax, Thomas
The support scheme for farming in less-favoured areas,
established by the European Union in 1975, marked a major change
in the nature of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) by
introducing for the first time regional categories. It also
represented the initiation of direct annual payments to farmers,
an approach which was to expand greatly in the 1990s and
thereafter. Over a long period it had remained the only
significant structural measure of agricultural policy with a
territorial dimension. Only recent policy reforms changed this
situation: commodity market support was gradually decreased and,
on the other hand, the environmental implications of policy
measures were increasingly emphasised. Discussions on the
interrelations of the Less-Favoured Areas (LFA) scheme with Agri-
Environmental Measures (AEM) and other elements of the Rural
Development Programmes (RDP) have been intensified as the
political and financial weight of the programmes gained in
importance. This paper focuses on the objectives and relevance of
the LFA support scheme, its application in the EU and the main
elements of the debate for the redefinition of LFA support. From
the very beginning, LFA policy was conceived as a structural
policy aimed at the prevention of land abandonment, to preserve
the farming population in these areas and maintain cultural
landscapes. In this regard, the instrument was one of the first
measures to address environmentally beneficial farming systems,
and thus reveals high coincidence with High Nature Value (HNV)
farming systems. The three types of LFA, mountain areas, other
LFAs and areas affected by specific handicaps take account of the
range of geographical differences in the production difficulties
of EU agriculture. The increased focus on environmental aims
resulted in a discussion of the ?intermediate? areas, the
category of other LFAs. It has been proposed that the socio-
economic criterion in determining these areas should be dropped,
but the aim to maintain land management in marginal areas would
be kept. Meanwhile, the decision on the redefinition of the LFAs
has been postponed (to 2010). Nevertheless the issue will keep a
central role in policy discussions of the future Rural
Development Programmes.
Keywords: Less-Favoured Areas; Common Agricultural Policy; rural
development; mountain areas
JEL: R52 R58 Q18
Date: 2005-11-15
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:711&r=agr
2. Farmers? Suicides and Response of Public Policy: Evidence,
Diagnosis and Alternatives from Punjab
Gill, Anita
Singh, Lakhwinder
Slow transformation of a developing economy gradually shifts
surpluses and substantially reduces the importance of the
agricultural sector of the economy. This has been recognized as a
healthy characteristic of the capitalist economic development.
Crisis of this transformation emerges when the surpluses are
rapidly extracted but dependence of workforce remains on
agriculture sector. Organization of farm production on the lines
of capitalist farming reduces farmers to managers of production
and increases continuously unemployment of labour. The state led
green revolution in Punjab based on assured market and
remunerative prices of agricultural production in the early green
revolution period has considerably increased the income of the
farmers irrespective of farm size. Stagnation of the green
revolution technology, rise in the cost of living, lack of
alternative employment opportunities and near freeze in the
minimum support prices has generated a crisis of unprecedented
scale. Diversification attempts of the farmers for alternative
remunerative outcomes have further pushed them in deep crisis
because of market failure to provide right kind of prices both of
the produce and finance. Increased unemployment, mounting debt
burden and lack of success in diversification attempts led the
farmers to commit suicides in Punjab. Farmers? organizations,
political movements and state led resistance to the agrarian
crisis have not yet met with success. This paper makes an attempt
to examine the agrarian crisis of Punjab with fresh perspective
to search for an alternative strategy for resolving the crisis.
Keywords: Farmers? Suicides; Indebtedness; Public Policy;
Agrarian Crisis; Agriculture sector; Structural
Transformation; Indian Punjab.
JEL: O1 Q14 Q1
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:146&r=agr
3. The on-going CAP-reform ? incentive for a shift towards
rural development activities?
Dax, Thomas
The paper is based on the findings of a 2 year, EU-wide project
on the territorial impacts of the CAP (ESPON project 2.1.3). It
particularly focuses on the territorial impact of the different
components of CAP and assesses the changes towards rural
development policy. The results presented are derived from
statistical analysis of the database augmented by findings from
an EU-wide review of literature and a series of case studies on
the implementation experiences of the main rural development
measures across the EU. It is shown that pillar 2 support is
still strongly centred on agricultural measures and actors and
far from reaching its potential for enhancing a more generally
applied rural development strategy. The discussion of the paper
will focus on the differing national priorities, and the uneven
allocation of RDR funds, partly due to difficulties of co-
financing in poorer regions. Importantly, analysis of the impact
of the Mid Term Review proposals on farm incomes suggests that
the latest reforms of the CAP do not improve substantially the
consistency between the CAP, and cohesion. In particular, the
proposed application of the CAP-reform in different member states
shall be discussed and assessed whether the changes in the
framework of rural development contribute to achieve a more
balanced performance across EU countries and regions.
Keywords: Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); CAP-reform; rural
development; territorial cohesion
JEL: R58 Q18 Q0
Date: 2005-08
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:750&r=agr
4. Economic Evidence of Willingness to Pay for the National
Animal Identification System in the US
Resende-Filho, Moises
Buhr, Brian
This article investigates the willingness to pay for the
National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in the US. We assume
that with the NAIS in place, consumers? risk perception about
BSE or mad cow, zoonosis and residues in meat would be mitigated.
Therefore, food safety indices for beef, pork and poultry summing
the number of references to meat safety found in the top fifty
English language news articles in circulation in the US have been
constructed. These indices were incorporated in generalized
almost ideal demand systems to estimate the effect of those food
safety scares on the demand for meat in the US. We found that
food safety impacts upon the final demand for meat in the US are
small and do not show lagged effects. Using the preferred model,
we constructed three scenarios on the basis of hypothesized
impacts of the NAIS on consumers' food safety concerns about meat.
We use the differences between the predicted total revenue for
beef, pork and poultry across scenarios as gross measures of the
NAIS? economic value to the meat sector. Our conclusion is that
if the defense of the NAIS is based on its effect on the demand
side of the market for meats it is expected that the US Federal
government will need to pay for a great part of the costs with
the NAIS; otherwise the NAIS is likely to be economically
unfeasible in the US.
Keywords: National Animal Identification System; Meat Safety;
System of Demand Equations
JEL: Q18 Q13 Q11
Date: 2006-09-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:468&r=agr
5. Managerial Strategies of the Cotton South
Saito, Tetsuya
Relative efficiencies of antebellum slave farms are suggested by
many empirical studies. This paper considers a theoretical aspect
of those results using a repeated principal-agent problem. Within
its theoretical analysis, with relevance to profitability of
slave farms, it will be shown that when inter-temporal
punishments are necessary and when they can perform efficiently
in production. Applying those theoretical results, some empirical
studies on relative profitability and relative efficiencies are
discussed. In the empirical study, relative efficiencies of each
farm scale?free farms, task farms, and gang farms?are
estimated region by region by a stochastic profit frontier model.
Keywords: Relative efficiency of antebellum slave farms;
repeated principal-agent problem; profit maximizing
contracts; stick and carrot on plantations
JEL: N51 C73 J41 C72
Date: 2005-05
Date: 2006-08
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:181&r=agr
6. DEFORESTATION, GROWTH AND AGGLOMERATION EFFECTS: EVIDENCE
FROM AGRICULTURE IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON
Danilo Camargo Igliori
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2006:102&r=agr
7. Estimating Heterogeneous Capacity and Capacity Utilization in
a Multi-Species Fishery
Ronald G. Felthovan Author=Name: William C. Horrace (Center
for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University,
Syracuse, NY 13244-1020)
Kurt E. Schnier
We use a stochastic production frontier model to investigate the
presence of heterogeneous production and its impact on fleet
capacity and capacity utilization in a multi-species fishery.
Furthermore, we propose a new fleet capacity estimate that
incorporates complete information on the stochastic differences
between each vessel-specific technical efficiency distribution.
Results indicate that ignoring heterogeneity in production
technologies within a multi-species fishery, as well as the
complete distribution of a vessel's technical efficiency socre,
may yield erroneous fleet-wide production profiles and estimates
of capacity. Furthermore, our new estimate of capacity enables
out-of-sample production predictions predicated on either
homogeneity or heterogeneity modeling which may be utuilized to
facilitate policy.
Keywords: fishery capacity, heterogeneous production, latent
class modeling
JEL: C23 D24 N50
Date: 2006-11
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:max:cprwps:86&r=agr
8. Decentralization and environment
Dalmazzone Silvana (University of Turin)
A part of the literature on fiscal federalism aver the years has
dealt with environmental policy as a particular case of the
supply of public goods. The centrai issue is the identification
of criteria on how to allocate powers and functions aver
environmental management at different levels of govemment. The
main stream of literature focuses on the conditions needed to
establish whether pollution standards and regulatory programs
should be set and designed by centraI or rather by local
governments. This paper provides a review of the debate and
explores a few potential limits of the prevailing line of enquiry.
Date: 2006-02
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:200602&r=agr
9. A PRINCIPAL-AGENT MODEL FOR EVALUATING THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF
A BEEF TRACEABILITY SYSTEM: A CASE STUDY WITH INJECTION-SITE
LESIONS CONTROL IN FED CATTLE IN THE US
Mois?s de Andrade Resende Filho
Brian L. Buhr
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2006:127&r=agr
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