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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: 2007-01-28
Papers: 6
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. Forest cover change in space and time : combining the von
Thunen and forest transition theories
Angelsen, Arild
2. Rural Organization, Territorial Development and
Sustainability Environmental in the Caribbean of Costa Rica:
The Case of Tortuguero Conservation Area (in Spanish)
Mora-Alfaro, Jorge; Rom?n-Vega, Isabel
3. Value chain analysis and market power in the commodity
processing with application to the cocoa and coffee sectors
Christopher L. Gilbert
4. The Long-Run Impact of Corn-Based Ethanol on the Grain,
Oilseed, and Livestock Sectors: A Preliminary Assessment
Bruce A. Babcock
5. Captive Supplies and Cash Market Prices for Fed Cattle: A
Dynamic Rational Expectations Model of Delivery Timing
Schroeter, John R.
6. Do Food Stamps Cause Obesity? Evidence from Immigrant
Experience
Neeraj Kaushal
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1. Forest cover change in space and time : combining the von
Thunen and forest transition theories
Angelsen, Arild
This paper presents a framework for analyzing tropical
deforestation and reforestation using the von Thunen model as its
starting point: land is allocated to the use which yields the
highest rent, and the rents of various land uses are determined
by location. Forest cover change therefore becomes a question of
changes in rent of forest versus non-forest use. While this is a
simple and powerful starting point, more intriguing issues arise
when this is applied to analyze real cases. An initial shift in
the rent of one particular land use generates feedbacks which
affect the rent of all land uses. For example, a new technology
in extensive agriculture should make this land use more
profitable and lead to more forest clearing, but general
equilibrium effects (changes in prices and local wages) can
modify or even reverse this conclusion. Another issue is how a
policy change or a shift in broader market, technological, and
institutional forces will affect various land use rents. The
paper deals with three such areas: technological progress in
agriculture, land tenure regimes, and community forest management.
The second part of the paper links the von Thunen framework to
the forest transition theory. The forest transition theory
describes a sequence over time where a forested region goes
through a period of deforestation before the forest cover
eventually stabilizes and starts to increase. This sequence can
be seen as a systematic pattern of change in the agricultural and
forest land rents over time. Increasing agricultural rent leads
to high rates of deforestation. The slow-down of deforestation
and eventual reforestation is due to lower agricultural rents (
the economic development path) and higher forest rent (the forest
scarcity path). Various forces leading to these changes are
discussed and supported by empirical evidence from different
tropical regions.
Keywords: Environmental Economics & Policies,Forestry,Common
Property Resource Development,Economic Theory &
Research,Markets and Market Access
Date: 2007-02-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4117&r=agr
2. Rural Organization, Territorial Development and
Sustainability Environmental in the Caribbean of Costa Rica:
The Case of Tortuguero Conservation Area (in Spanish)
Mora-Alfaro, Jorge
Rom?n-Vega, Isabel
The rural areas of Costa Rica suffered significant
transformations as a consequence of two phenomenon: In one hand,
the long tendency to economical, political and cultural global
integration living by the most diverse nations in the
contemporary time. In the other hand, the reorientation of the
growth economy model and the institutional reform introduced
since the 80 decade in this country. In this document are
presented the main discoveries obtained with the evaluating study
about the impact of these economic and political changes in
Tortuguero Conservation Area (ACTo), focused in the rural
organizations development. The main tendencies follow up by the
productive, environmental, institutional and social processes,
occurred in this rural territory, allow to perceive the context
conditions in which the local rural organizations development
happened and the opportunities and challenges that they confront
in the present time.
Keywords: Rural development; territorial approach;
sustainability; agriculture and environment;
conservation areas; institutional change
JEL: Q52 Q58 Q56
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:1521&r=agr
3. Value chain analysis and market power in the commodity
processing with application to the cocoa and coffee sectors
Christopher L. Gilbert
Value chain analysis extends traditional supply chain analysis
by locating values to each stage of the chain. This can result in
a ?cake division? fallacy in which value at one stage is seen
as being at the expense of value at another. Over the past three
decades, the coffee and cocoa industries have witnessed dramatic
falls in the producer (i.e. farmer) share in rental price. Both
industries are highly concentrated at the processing stage.
Nevertheless, developments in the producer and retail markets are
largely unconnected and there is no evidence the falls in the
producer share are the result of exercise of monopoly-monopsony
power. The explanation of declining producer shares is more
straightforward ? processing, marketing and distribution costs,
incurred in consuming countries have tended to increase over time
while production costs at the origin have declined.
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpde:0605&r=agr
4. The Long-Run Impact of Corn-Based Ethanol on the Grain,
Oilseed, and Livestock Sectors: A Preliminary Assessment
Bruce A. Babcock (Center for Agricultural and Rural
Development (CARD)) (Midwest Agribusiness Trade Research
and Information Center (MATRIC))
Presented at the Iowa Pork Congress, Des Moines, Iowa, January 25
Date: 2007-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ias:cpaper:07-tr48&r=agr
5. Captive Supplies and Cash Market Prices for Fed Cattle: A
Dynamic Rational Expectations Model of Delivery Timing
Schroeter, John R.
Several empirical analyses of data from fed cattle markets have
found a negative correlation between a region's weekly delivery
volume of captive supply cattle and contemporaneous price in the
local cash market. This negative correlation has been cited as
evidence of a causal relationship between the two variables; a
relationship in which buyers (beef packing plants) use captive
supply procurement as an instrument to depress prices paid to
cash market sellers (feeders). This paper investigates
circumstances under which this empirical regularity might emerge
as a benign artifact of buyer and seller behavior in a fed cattle
market in which both sides are price takers. One feature of these
markets is that sellers of both marketing agreement (the
predominant captive supply procurement method) cattle and spot
market cattle have some flexibility in scheduling delivery in
order to take advantage of expected price changes. The effect
that this type of inter-temporal arbitrage has on the dynamics of
price and captive supply is investigated using simulation methods
applied to a rational expectations model of delivery timing
incentives.
Keywords: cattle market, captive supply, extended path algorithm
JEL: D4 Q1
Date: 2007-01-18
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12710&r=agr
6. Do Food Stamps Cause Obesity? Evidence from Immigrant
Experience
Neeraj Kaushal
I use changes in immigrant eligibility for food stamps under the
1996 federal law and heterogeneous state responses to set up a
natural experiment research design to study the effect of food
stamps on Body Mass Index (BMI) of adults in immigrant families.
I find that in the post-1996 period food stamps use by foreign-
born unmarried mothers with a high school or lower education was
10 percentage points higher in states with substitute programs
than in states that implemented the federal ban. However, this
increase in FSP participation was not associated with any
statistically significant difference in BMI. I find that FSP
participation was associated a statistically insignificant 0.3
percent increase in BMI among low-educated unmarried mothers.
JEL: H0 I0 I3 I31
Date: 2007-01
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12849&r=agr
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