Efficiency in wine grape production: comparing long‐established and newly developed regions of South Africa

Efficiency, partly based on technology, is central to international competitiveness. This article applies a stochastic frontier inefficiency model to a panel of 77 wine grape farms in South Africa between 2005 and 2015 and allows the comparison of efficiency levels for the old established wine regions with those of newer entrants. Thus, we investigate whether experience plus first choice of location matters more than the follower's advantage of newer technology. In all regions, a greater share of permanent labor and increased supervision raised efficiency, while more inorganic fertilizer and less irrigation has the opposite effect. Innovations in trellising had insignificant effects (except in the old regions) but not replacing old vines reduced efficiency. However, a higher proportion of red varietals also lowered efficiency in the old regions due to a fall in the price of red wine as these farmers continued to concentrate on quality reds. The new regions compensated for falling prices by increasing crop size with irrigation and fertilizer and extending the area planted, but with less concern for quality. This appears to be more successful in efficiency terms, but as international demand for quality wine increases it may be a poor long‐term strategy.     

How Labourers Fare in Fresh Fruit Export Industries: Lemon Production in Northern Argentina

Horticultural export industries have been acclaimed as promoting employment and growth. Critics, however, contend that most of the jobs created are low wage jobs. This article examines whether field labourers fared better than previously in a well positioned, producer-driven, innovative horticultural export industry. Our findings indicate that workers initially fared badly and we identify the strategies used to cap wages. Real wages and seasonal incomes increased significantly from 2002, but only after producers were pressured by government and the union regained political power. Contrary to expectation, escalating consumer demands for high-quality healthy fruit and responsible agronomic practices contributed to producers' response to the union's demands. We argue that the monitoring technologies and practices required by buyers allowed large producers to gain greater information about the role of field labourers in the production process and the transaction costs associated with unreliable, poorly trained occasional harvesters. Nevertheless, even after real wages rose, only few harvesting families managed to escape poverty at the height of the season.     

Does the Decoupling Reform Affect Agricultural Employment in Sweden? Evidence from an Exogenous Change

This study uses aggregated municipality data, for the years 2001–2009, to explore whether direct payments to farmers affect agricultural employment in Swedish municipalities. The decoupling reform in 2005 included a new grassland support payment accompanied by management obligations that had unexpectedly high redistributive consequences as it greatly increased common agricultural policy payments to municipalities with large areas of grassland. In some municipalities, total payments more than doubled. Thus, since the reform seems exogenous to the behaviour of farmers and the regional economy, the reform can be used to identify a subsidy effect. We find that a permanent increase in agricultural employment can be attributed to the new grassland support. Our results indicate that the grassland support generates an additional job at a cost of SEK 250,000, relative to the average agricultural wage of SEK 333,000. However, the subsidy effect is largely keeping jobs in agriculture, i.e. the grassland support may be slowing down the process of structural change in grassland regions.     

THE EFFECT OF MINIMUM WAGES ON UK AGRICULTURE

Since the abolition of the Wages Councils in September 1993, agriculture is the only sector in the UK economy covered by any form of minimum wage legislation. However, the recent denunciation of an ILO convention covering minimum wages in agriculture has paved the way for the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Boards. This paper investigates the impact of the system of minimum wages on the level and structure of earnings and employment in agriculture. On wages, our main conclusion is that the minimum wages set by the Agricultural Wages Boards are important determinants of the average level and distribution of earnings in UK agriculture. On employment, our main conclusion is that there is no evidence that minimum wages have reduced the level of employment in agriculture. If anything, our estimates imply a weak positive, though statistically insignificant, impact of minimum wages on employment. This seems to be true when we disaggregate by sex and skill.     

Earnings Mobility of Rural versus Urban Workers in Canada

The policy choice to enhance household income for poor, working families depends on the dynamics of individual earnings and their direct, albeit imperfect, link to household income levels. This paper assesses the factors affecting the dynamics of low pay for rural versus nonrural individuals in Canada. Approximately one-quarter of the rural workers sampled in Statistics Canada's SLID data receive a wage less than two-thirds of the median wage for the period and the percentage is increasing over time. In contrast, an average of 17% of workers in urban areas receives wages below this threshold. The low pay in rural areas is also "longer lasting," either because the probability of an upward wage move is less, because the probability of moving out of the labor force is less, or because the probability of moving down from high pay is greater. Thus, direct mechanisms such as a minimum wage are likely to be more effective in rural areas. The higher probability of a move downward (either to low pay or out of the labor force) may be associated with greater seasonal work in rural areas. Hence, policy to address rural low pay may need to take seasonality into account more than in urban labor markets.     

Demand for Seasonal Wage Labour in Agriculture: What Does Family Farming Hide?

This article draws on the agricultural household literature to understand the dynamics of wage labour on farms in a context of family farming. The recent evolution towards an increased use of seasonal wage labour motivates the original distinction of three types of labour: family labour, permanent‐wage labour and seasonal‐wage labour. Considering the two wage labour types and hiring cost for seasonal workers, our empirical results based on 2000 French data on fruit and vegetable farms suggest that the choice between hiring permanent or seasonal wage labour is not only determined by the seasonality of the activity. Indeed, the characteristics of the local labour market also affect the trade‐off between permanent and seasonal wage labour. This result provides insights on the substitutability of the two labour types, especially when the local labour market is tight. Moreover, the substitution of seasonal‐wage labour for permanent‐wage labour can occur in the agricultural sector as a mean of increasing flexibility as well as reducing costs and commitments. Finally, family labour is found to substitute for wage labour and more specifically for seasonal‐wage labour.     

AGRICULTURAL LABOUR IN AN EXPANDING ECONOMY

The low position of agricultural workers in the wages scale is examined in the context of National Plan objectives to increase opportunities for the labour force. The results of a survey of lubour use on 55 Yorkshire farms over the past five years are presented. The regular hired labour force on these farms has been cut by a quarter, and some farms still report surplus labour. Data on the farm workers employed and those which have left the farms is given. The characteristics of the ‘ideal farm worker’ as seen by the farmers are investigated and conclusions regarding the likely success of a wages structure in agriculture are drawn. The implications of a rise in the minimum agricultural wage to £14 a week are discussed in the light of the survey results.     

农村劳动力转移就业稳定性对土地流转的影响效应研究基于迁移异质性视角

目的 基于2017年在广东、河南、湖北、山西、云南5省所做的农户调查数据, 从迁移异质性角度, 考察了劳动力转移就业稳定性对农户土地流转的影响差异。方法 文章使用IV-Probit和IV-Tobit模型, 解决劳动力转移就业行为内生性的问题, 实现模型参数结果的无偏估计。结果 在广延边际上, 劳动力季节性非稳定转移就业对农户转入、转出土地均没有显著影响, 而常年稳定转移就业仅对农户转出土地有显著正影响, 家庭每新增1个常年在外务工者, 会使农户土地转出倾向增加9.5%;在集约边际上, 虽然稳定和非稳定的转移就业方式都降低了农地需求, 但只有常年稳定转移就业显著促进了农地供给的增加, 家庭每新增1个常年在外务工者, 会使农户土地转出数量增加8.1%。结论 促进农村转移劳动力向城市的稳定迁移和就业, 尤其是让非稳定转移就业者实现在城市的长期、稳定就业, 是解决现阶段农村土地流转市场供给不足的有效出路。     

The evolution of foreign wine demand in China

We estimate source‐differentiated wine demand in China using the absolute price version of the Rotterdam demand system. Within the last decade, China has gone from obscurity to an important participant in global wine trade. The continual growth of Chinese wine imports suggests that a one‐time structural shift approach may not fully capture how consumption patterns or demand preferences have changed over time. Thus, a rolling or moving regression procedure is used to account for continual adjustments in import demand patterns and to evaluate overall parameter instability. Our results confirm that Chinese consumers hold French wine in high regard and that French wine demand has consistently increased over the last decade, more than any other exporting source. Consumers in China have gone from allocating about 1/3 to over 1/2 of every dollar to French wine and the expenditure elasticity for French wine mostly increased while the market was expanding. Although Australian wine has a very solid standing in the Chinese market, results suggest that its market share will likely remain unchanged. Marginal budget share and expenditure elasticity estimates indicate that Australia will continue to account for about 20 per cent of the foreign wine market in China.     

Agribusiness,Peasant Agriculture and Labour Markets: Ecuador in Comparative Perspective

The consolidation of capitalist agriculture in countries such as Ecuador has led to a recent revaluation of territories (central highlands) where cheap labour has facilitated agribusiness development linked to the world market. This process generates growth in the numbers of rural wage workers and the creation of a labour market that, in relation to others in several Latin American countries, has certain particularities: permanent jobs, gender balance, an absence of intermediaries and low levels of precariousness. Small‐scale peasant producers are marginalized in this context and play functional roles within the current dynamics of agribusiness firms. The organizational weakness of rural wage earners and the pursuit of clientelist relationships by firms do not allow rural workers and local communities to devise economic and social strategies that might improve their position in this ‘field of forces’ in the territory.     

Poverty decline, agricultural wages, and nonfarm employment in rural India: 1983–2004

We analyze five rounds of National Sample Survey data covering 1983, 1987/1988, 1993/1994, 1999/2000, and 2004/2005 to explore the relationship between rural diversification and poverty. Poverty in rural India has declined at a modest rate during this time period. We provide region-level estimates that illustrate considerable geographic heterogeneity in this progress. Poverty estimates correlate well with region-level NSS data on changes in agricultural wage rates. Agricultural labor remains the preserve of the uneducated and also to a large extent of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. We show that while agricultural labor grew as a share of total economic activity over the first four rounds, it had fallen back to the levels observed at the beginning of our survey period by 2004. This all-India trajectory also masks widely varying trends across states. During this period, the rural nonfarm sector has grown modestly, mainly between the last two survey rounds. Regular nonfarm employment remains largely associated with education levels and social status that are rare among the poor. However, casual labor and self-employment in the nonfarm sector reveals greater involvement by disadvantaged groups in 2004 than in the preceding rounds. The implication of this for poverty is not immediately clear—the poor may be pushed into low-return casual nonfarm activities due to lack of opportunities in the agricultural sector rather than being pulled by high returns offered by the nonfarm sector. Econometric estimates reveal that expansion of the nonfarm sector is associated with falling poverty via two routes: a direct impact on poverty that is likely due to a pro-poor marginal incidence of nonfarm employment expansion; and an indirect impact attributable to the positive effect of nonfarm employment growth on agricultural wages. The analysis also confirms the important contribution to rural poverty reduction from agricultural productivity, availability of land, and consumption levels in proximate urban areas.     

Employment Dynamics and Linkages in the Rural Economy: Insights from Senegal

Evidence on rural wage employment is thin and lacks nuance for different employment sources, insights on dynamic effects, and an understanding of the channels of effects. We assess conceptually and empirically the direct and indirect welfare effects of entry and continuation in different types of wage employment in rural Senegal. Using panel data, fixed effects and first-difference estimation, we show substantial positive welfare and linkage effects. We find that participation in wage employment increases per capita income by 143%, and reduces poverty, poverty gap and food insecurity by, respectively, 63%, 89% and 48%. While the direct effect on income is larger for non-agricultural and contractual wage employment, the indirect income effects through self-employment are more pronounced for agricultural and casual wage employment. Our results imply that job creation is important for rural development, that wage employment in agriculture can lead to considerable growth multiplier effects, and that synergies exist between large-scale and small-scale agriculture.     

The Labour Process in Rural Haryana (India): A Field-Report from Two Villages

Forms of labour hiring and the extent of unemployment are analysed using primary data collected from two villages in Haryana (India) during 2002–3. Data from these villages show that wage labourers, particularly women, faced extremely high levels of unemployment. Employment in agriculture was limited and new forms of labour hiring contracts had emerged under conditions of high unemployment. Earnings of manual workers were very low and gender disparities in wages very high. In one of the villages, a high concentration of landholdings and a decline in labour use facilitated the use of long-term workers. Labour relations were characterized by significant degrees of unfreedom, although the extent and nature of unfreedom varied considerably between casual and long-term workers, and between the two villages. In particular, long-term siri workers worked under conditions that were akin to bondage. It is argued that a very high degree of unemployment, combined with unequal caste and land relations and dependence on employers for credit, contributed to sustenance of unfree labour relations in rural Haryana.     

How Firms Construct Price Changes: Evidence from Restaurant Responses to Increased Minimum Wages

We use price data underlying the Consumer Price Index to assess how restaurants, whose prices are generally quite sticky, respond to minimum wage increases. Aggregate prices rise, quickly, by amounts reflecting the increase in costs, and they rise more among fast food outlets and in low-wage locations. But restaurants do not construct price increases by raising all their prices by amounts reflecting the increase in wages. Instead, they raise only some prices, but by larger amounts. Prices at cluster points are less likely to be changed, and prices that were recently increased (decreased) are less (more) likely to be raised.     

教育和户籍歧视对城镇工和农民工工资差异的影响

本文提出基于自然实验的工资差异分解方法用于分析个体特征差异、进入市场前教育歧视和市场后户籍歧视对城镇劳动力市场中城镇工和农民工之间工资差异的影响。研究结果表明,城镇工工资率是农民工工资率的1.79倍,两类劳动力工资差异的69.77%、14.01%和12.99%分别是由个体特征差异、农民工进入市场前受到的教育歧视和进入市场后受到的户籍歧视导致的。因此,政府在设计和实施公平的就业制度和工资分配制度的同时,大力促进城乡教育事业的均衡发展,将有助于缩小城镇工和农民工之间的工资差异。     

兼职大学生劳动报酬是否适用劳动法“最低工资标准”

大学生从事兼职工作已经成为高校的普遍现象,但随之而来的兼职大学生的劳动报酬权益受到企业侵害的现象也不断发生。从兼职大学生劳动报酬及相关法律制度的现状总结出制度不足之处,兼职大学生与一般劳动者的区别、最低工资标准设立的意义、适用最低工资标准对兼职大学生与一般劳动者的弊端影响三个方面展开分析,得出兼职大学生不应适用最低工资标准制度的结论。借鉴国外相关经验,提出了,确定在我国应认可兼职大学生的劳动者主体资格,同时应为兼职大学生设定特别的工资标准,以维护其获得合理劳动报酬的权力的建议。     

解决农民工工资问题的思考与对策

指出农民工工资问题表现在收入水平低，克扣和拖欠工资问题仍很严重等4个方面；造成农民工工资偏低和拖欠主要有我国劳动力总体上供过于求等原因；提出了切实加强“劳动法”等法律宣传，加大执法力度，进一步完善最低工资制度等建议。     

Wages,Prices and Agriculture: How Can Indian Agriculture Cope with Rising Wages?

Rapid economic growth in India has resulted in rapidly rising rural wages. Using the framework of variable profit functions and household level data, we study econometrically the wage impacts on crop agriculture. Rising wages are associated with decreasing crop output, other things being equal. Crop prices would need to increase by 80% in the short run to offset the effect of an agricultural wage increase, or by 140% in the short run to offset rural non‐farm wage increases as well. However, because non‐land farm assets respond positively to the non‐farm wage, in the medium term this increase is reduced to 74%. During the period of 1999/00‐2007/08, growth in non‐land farm assets, the labour force, education and technology has easily compensated for the wage increase, and probably also for the accelerating wage growth. Focusing on growing these shifter variables is a much better policy option than raising prices that would come at the expense of consumers or taxpayers.     

Liberalization and labour: The fate of retrenched workers in the cotton textile industry in India

Abstract

In 1991 the Indian government began to tread seriously the path of liberalization. It started to open up the economy, discuss the privatization of the public sector, invite foreign investment and reform the labour market. Liberalization has proved to be highly controversial. While there has been considerable debate about the consequences for labour, there have been few empirical studies of the effects so far. This paper intends to address this lacuna by focusing on the case of retrenched workers in the cotton textile industry. Our argument is fourfold. First, it cannot be assumed that the informal sector can readily absorb a sudden localized surge in unemployment. Second, even where retrenched workers have found employment in the informal sector, their conditions of employment in terms of wages, working hours, health and safety and representation are likely to be worse. Third, the National Renewal Fund has not been effective as a social safety‐net for retrenched workers nor as a mechanism for regenerating industry. Finally, it cannot be assumed that the trade unions will be able to negotiate a satisfactory deal for redundant workers. These points are explored through an investigation into retrenched workers in the cotton textile mills of Ahmedabad, Gujarat state.     

The effect of minimum wages on employment in emerging economies: a survey and meta-analysis

Using both qualitative and quantitative (meta-analysis) methods, this paper reviews the growing evidence on the impact of minimum wages on employment in 14 major emerging economies (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey). Overall, minimum wages are found to have only a minimal impact on employment, and there is evidence of reporting bias towards statistically significant negative results. More vulnerable groups (e.g. youth and the low-skilled) are marginally more negatively affected, and there is some indication that higher minimum wages lead to more informal employment.