The effects of climatic variation on rice production in Sri Lanka

We study the responsiveness of rice production to climatic variation using a recent pseudo-panel data set from Sri Lanka. Output per farm is modelled as a non-linear function of temperature and rainfall (and other standard controls) using fixed effects regressions. We find that both climatic variables have concave, non-monotonic effects upon production, and that output is close to maximized at current climatic values. This implies that variations in growing conditions are likely to have negative effects upon production. Random simulations are used to model these impacts under various climate change scenarios, and we find that increasing temperatures will adversely affect rice production much more than varying rainfall, although the effects of a small ceteris paribus rise in temperature are positive. As rice production is a key component in economic output for Sri Lanka and other developing countries, our results have implications for food policy and poverty management in the future.     

Impacts of climate change on food utilization in Nepal

Understanding how long-term climate patterns affect food security outcomes is crucial for crafting food policy in developing countries. In the case of Nepal, existing studies have focused overwhelmingly on food production and supply, but relatively little attention has been paid to understanding how extreme climate trends affect food utilization. This study fills that gap in the literature by examining the effects of temperature and rainfall trends from 1976 to 2005 on individual daily caloric intake and food diversity in Nepal. We use the copula method to jointly estimate the two potentially correlated food utilization outcomes. We find that climate risk negatively affects both outcomes. One percent increase (0.01 points) in climate risk index (index ranges from 0 to 1) leads to a decrease in weighted caloric intake by 8.1 calories (equivalent to 1.1% of average weighted caloric intake of 726 calories) and food diversity by 0.114 points (a reduction of 0.43% reduction of the mean score). We also find that factors such as ecological belts and social capital are strongly correlated with food security. Based on our findings, we recommend policies that attract private and public investments towards improving farmers' access to financial institutions, transportation networks, and risk-mitigation products and programs.     

Japanese spirit,Western economics: the continuing salience of economic nationalism in Japan

This paper outlines the contours of a new research agenda for the analysis of food price crises. By weaving together a detailed quantitative examination of changes in corporate profit shares with a qualitative appraisal of the restructuring in business control over the organisation of society and nature, the paper points to the rapid ascendance of a new power configuration in the global political economy of food: the Agro-Trader nexus. The agribusiness and grain trader firms that belong to the Agro-Trader nexus have not been mere ‘price takers’, instead they have actively contributed to the inflationary restructuring of the world food system by championing and facilitating the rapid expansion of the first-generation biofuels sector. As a key driver of agricultural commodity price rises, the biofuels boom has raised the Agro-Trader nexus's differential profits and it has at the same time deepened global hunger. These findings suggest that food price inflation is a mechanism of redistribution.     

Monetary,fiscal, and structural drivers of inflation in Ethiopia: new empirical evidence from time series analysis

This study empirically investigates the drivers of inflation in Ethiopia using monthly data over the period July 1998 to September 2020. It explores short-run and long-run effects of domestic and external determinants of inflation—including demand-side, supply-side, and structural factors—using the cointegration and vector error-correction methodology. Four measures of inflation are considered: cereals, food, nonfood, and all-items Consummer Price Index (CPI) inflation. A key contribution to the existing literature is the investigation of the role of the fiscal sector in modeling inflation, a topic that has been neglected in the existing studies on inflation in Ethiopia. The empirical results show that disequilibria in the monetary sector, grains sector, and food markets have long-run effects on inflation. In the short run, inflation is driven by structural factors (notably, cereal output gaps and imported inflation) as well as demand-side factors (notably, money growth and public sector borrowing). The results hold when analysis is limited to the high growth period from 2005 onward, following the end of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program in the country. The evidence provides valuable insights in the context of ongoing macroeconomic policy reforms in Ethiopia.     

A worldwide analysis of trend in crop yields and yield variability: Evidence from FAO data

The trend in crop yields and yield variability affects food security and impact agricultural and food policies. Recent studies in this area have either focused only on one country or performed global analysis on a handful of crops. We provide the first worldwide analysis of trend and variability for 8088 country-crop yield series taken from the FAO database, employing a robust estimator to cope with the adverse statistical effects of outliers. More than half of the series display a slowdown in yield growth due to a closing of the gap between realised and attainable yields as well as to agricultural policies promoting more sustainable agricultural practices. Around one fourth of the series show also an increase in yield variability as a consequence of climate change and changes in farm management practices. Yield variability is highest in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Middle East and North Africa, where food security may be threatened.     

Hedging in Presence of Crop Yield,Crop Revenue and Rainfall Insurance

Journal of Quantitative Economics - This paper analyses hedging using price risk management instruments in presence of crop yield, crop revenue and rainfall insurance for soybean farmers in Dewas...     

Climatic impacts across agricultural crop yield distributions: An application of quantile regression on rice crops in Andhra Pradesh,India

Climatic impact on agricultural production is a serious concern, as it is directly linked to food security and poverty. Whereas there are empirical studies that examine this issue with parametric approaches focusing on the “mean” level of variables, few studies have addressed climatic impacts in general settings. Given this paucity, we characterize the impacts on crop yield distributions with a non-parametric approach. We examine the case of rice yield in Andhra Pradesh, India, an important state producing rice as a main crop but reported to be vulnerable to climate change. Employing 34 years of data, we apply quantile regressions to untangle the climatic impacts across the quantiles of rice yield, finding three main results. First, substantial heterogeneity in the impacts of climatic variables can be found across the yield distribution. Second, the direction of the climatic impacts on rice yield highly depends on agro-climatic zones. Third, seasonal climatic impacts on rice yield are significant. More specifically, a monsoon-dependent crop is more sensitive to temperature and precipitation, whereas a winter crop remains largely resilient to changes in the levels of climate variables. These findings clarify the idiosyncratic climatic impacts on agriculture in India, and call for location- and season-specific adaptation policies.     

Hand pollination,mass spraying,and hybrid seedlings: Do these technologies affect the welfare of smallholder cocoa farmers in Ghana?

Adoption of cocoa production technologies has the potential to improve productivity and welfare of smallholder producers in low-income countries. While studies investigating synergies in agricultural technologies are growing, empirical evidence on the determinants and impacts of adopting multiple cocoa production technologies on smallholder farmers' welfare is scarce. Therefore, this study contributes by analyzing the determinants and effects of adoption of multiple cocoa production technologies on the welfare of smallholder farmers in Ghana. To achieve this, we used the multinomial endogenous switching regression and multivalued inverse probability regression adjustment models to a random sample of 2233 cocoa farmers from Ghana. The results show that various socioeconomic characteristics (e.g., farmer's age and experience), resource constraints (e.g., land ownership and credit access), market-related factors (e.g., distance to the market), and production shocks (e.g., rainfall) influence the adoption of multiple cocoa production technologies. Furthermore, the results reveal that adopting multiple production technologies significantly improves cocoa yields, gross income, per capita consumption expenditure, and reduces household food insecurity. Therefore, policies, such as financial support, need to be aimed at improving and strengthening smallholder cocoa producers' capacity to adopt synergistic conventional and non-conventional cocoa production technologies to maximize smallholder farmers' welfare.     

Oil windfall,public spending and price stability: modelling inflation in Chad

This article examines the determinants of inflation in Chad using quarterly data from 1983:Q1 to 2009:Q3. The analysis is based on a single-equation model, completed by a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model to capture inflation persistence. The results show that the main determinants of inflation in Chad are rainfall, foreign prices, exchange rate movements and particularly public spending, which soared following the onset of oil production in 2003. The effects of rainfall shocks and changes in foreign prices on inflation persist during six quarters. Changes in public spending and the nominal exchange rate affect inflation during three and four quarters, respectively.     

Cereal production,undernourishment, and food insecurity in South Asia

South Asia remains one of the major strongholds of hunger in the world, despite the fact that, following the Green Revolution, cereal production in the countries of this region tripled during the second half of the 20th century. This study examines the role played by this increase in cereal production in improving the region’s nutrition and food security situation. We study the association between the different aspects of food security and cereal production in South Asia that have prevailed over the past 25 years. We find a beneficial role of the production and yield of cereals in lowering the extent of undernourishment. A 1% increase in cereal production and yield is associated with up to 0.84% decrease in the prevalence of undernourishment. The impact is significant over a period of 3 years. The positive effect is particularly evident in the case of rice and maize production. An improvement is seen in the aspects of availability, stability, and utilization of food security but not in the aspect of access. These findings are robust to alternative specifications and techniques. The results explain, in part, the means by which South Asian nations have managed to stall relative increases in extreme hunger and food insecurity.     

Market structure and the labour market in West German industries — A contribution towards interpreting the structure-performance relationship

Conclusion Concerning the interpretation of the positive association between seller concentration and profitability we suggest that concentration should primarily be considered as an indicator of monopoly power. This proposition is based on the finding of an inverse relationship between concentration and wages which, theoretically, can be traced back to monopoly. By the same standard of evaluation, vertical integration of successive stages of production within a single firm appears to yield efficiency gains on balance whereas in the case of cartels of the kind permitted in West Germany monopolizing and efficiency raising effects appear to just cancel.We gratefully acknowledge helpful comments by Leonard Weiss, upon presentation of a previous version of this paper at the EARIE (European Association for Research in Industrial Economics) conference 1979 in Paris, and by an anonymous referee.     

Variety,prices and food status in low-income households

The basic premise of this paper is that a household receives utility directly from the status of a food composite good which is created by combining a household's skill and creativity in preparing foods, other inputs, and the kinds and amounts of foods available. We proceed to investigate the factors influencing the demand for and prodcution of this composite good. The demand for food status in influenced most by the following characteristics: race, education, houshold size, homeownership, region of household residence and income. Direct price effects were minor. Estimates of a food status production function imply that the production of food status is not much a matter of the quantities of foods consumed but rather the types of food purchased (variety) and the creativity of the homemaker.     

Food and beverage television advertising exposure and youth consumption,body mass index and adiposity outcomes

This study examines the relationships between exposure to food and beverage product television advertisements and consumption and obesity outcomes among youth. Individual‐level data on fast food and soft drink consumption and body mass index (BMI) for young adolescents from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, kindergarten cohort, (1998–1999) and adiposity measures for children from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2003–2004) were combined with designated market area (DMA) Nielsen media advertising ratings data. To account for unobserved individual‐level and DMA‐level heterogeneity, various fixed‐ and random‐effects models were estimated. The results showed that exposure to soft drink and sugar‐sweetened beverage (SSB) advertisements is economically and statistically significantly associated with higher frequency of soft drink consumption among youth even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, with elasticity estimates ranging from 0.4 to 0.5. The association between fast food advertising exposure and fast food consumption disappeared once we controlled for unobservables. Exposure to cereal advertising was significantly associated with young adolescents' BMI percentile ranking, but exposures to fast food and soft drink advertisements were not. The results on adiposity outcomes revealed that children's exposure to cereal advertising was associated with both percent body fatness and percent trunk fatness; fast food advertising was significantly associated with percent trunk fatness and marginally significantly associated with percent body fatness; and exposure to SSB advertising was marginally significantly associated with percent body and trunk fatness. The study results suggest that continued monitoring of advertising is important and policy debates regarding the regulation of youth‐directed marketing are warranted.     

ECB monetary policy and commodity prices

We assess the impact of ECB monetary policy on global aggregate and sectoral commodity prices over 2001–2019. We employ an SVAR model and separately assess periods before and after the global financial crisis. Our key results indicate that contractionary monetary policy shocks have positive effects on commodity prices during both conventional and unconventional monetary policy periods, indicating the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy tools. The largest impact is documented on energy (fuel) and food commodities. Our results also suggest that the effect of ECB monetary policy on commodity prices transmits through the exchange rate channel, which influences European market demand.     

The economics of oil,biofuel and food commodities

We study the effects on the food price of introducing biofuels as a substitute for fossil fuel in the energy market. Energy is supplied by a price-leading oil cartel and a competitive fringe of farmers producing biofuel. Biofuel production shares a finite land resource with food production. A positive relationship results between energy and food prices. We establish that the equilibrium price of food will be growing as long as the oil stock is being depleted, and beyond if demand is growing. An analysis of the effects of the productivity of land use in either the food or the biofuel sectors is carried out. It is shown that, with a highly inelastic demand for food, an increase in the productivity of land in agriculture will decrease the price of food in the short-run, only to increase it in the long-run as the stock of fossil fuel is depleted.     

Disentangling the Poverty Effects of Sectoral Output,Prices, and Policies in India

This paper attempts to disentangle the poverty effects of key policy variables that directly affect the poor (namely the government‐led channel of development spending and financing) in both agricultural and non‐agricultural sectors after accounting for the effect of respective sectoral per capita income and prices, using data from India over five decades. The paper emphasizes the sectoral composition of income and prices as mechanisms influencing the level of poverty and establishes empirically that it is the rise in non‐agricultural per capita income that reduces rural poverty via the channel of internal migration, after having controlled for the variation in key components of fiscal spending and monetary/financial policy via the availability of credit. Uneven sectoral growth pattern explains why urban poverty becomes a spill‐over of persistent rural poverty when the agricultural sector shrinks. While checking for robustness, there is evidence that the rise in non‐agricultural income alone may not reduce rural poverty, when measured in terms of rural infant mortality rate as a non‐income indicator of well‐being.     

The economics of oil,biofuel and food commodities

We study the effects on the food price of introducing biofuels as a substitute for fossil fuel in the energy market. Energy is supplied by a price-leading oil cartel and a competitive fringe of farmers producing biofuel. Biofuel production shares a finite land resource with food production. A positive relationship results between energy and food prices. We establish that the equilibrium price of food will be growing as long as the oil stock is being depleted, and beyond if demand is growing. An analysis of the effects of the productivity of land use in either the food or the biofuel sectors is carried out. It is shown that, with a highly inelastic demand for food, an increase in the productivity of land in agriculture will decrease the price of food in the short-run, only to increase it in the long-run as the stock of fossil fuel is depleted.     

Can China Feed its People into the Next Millennium? Projections for China's grain supply and demand to 2010

Econometric models of grain supply and demand which incorporate the effects of policy interventions and institutional changes are used as the basis for projecting grain balances in China to 2010. The paper outlines key assumptions about future changes in grain policies and other important explanatory variables in the models. On the supply side, projections are made for grain sown area, grain yield and total grain output. Future grain demand is disaggregated into four categories, human food, animal feed, industrial uses and seed grain, each incorporating high, medium and low demand growth scenarios. A grain balance sheet is constructed for 2010 which shows a ‘most probable’ import requirement of about 32 million tones—a 10 million tones increase over the actual 1995 level. Thus, net grain imports will increase substantially but China is unlikely to become an importer on a massive scale.     

VACCINE HESITANCY,PASSPORTS, AND THE DEMAND FOR VACCINATION

Vaccine hesitancy is modeled as an endogenous decision within a behavioral epidemiological model with endogenous agent activity. It is shown that policy interventions that directly target costs associated with vaccine adoption may counter vaccine hesitancy whereas those that manipulate the utility of unvaccinated agents will either lead to the same or lower rates of vaccine adoption. This latter effect arises with vaccine passports whose effects are mitigated in equilibrium by reductions in viral/disease prevalence that themselves reduce the demand for vaccination.     

Effects of government spending shocks in China,Japan, and Korea

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effects of government spending shocks on various key macro variables in China, Korea, and Japan using structural VAR models. The main empirical findings are as follows. Government spending multipliers of all three countries are far larger than 1 in recent years. The effectiveness of fiscal expansion has not changed markedly in China but substantially increased in Korea (after the Asian financial crisis) and Japan (during zero lower bound period). Increases in the effectiveness of fiscal expansion are associated with changes in the monetary and exchange rate policy regimes and institutions of these countries. Among the three countries, the government spending multiplier is relatively large in China but relatively small in Japan in recent years. Although the effects on exchange rate and trade balance vary across countries and sample periods, real exchange rate tends to depreciate, whereas trade balance tends to improve under flexible exchange rate regimes. Some empirical findings are consistent with standard theory, but others are not.

Abbreviations: NK: New Keynesian VAR: Vector Autoregressive ZLB: Zero Lower Bound