The Impact of the International Coffee Agreement on Producing Countries

Simulations of a global coffee model incorporating a vintagecapital approach to production are run. Over the recent periodof operation of the International Coffee Agreement's exportquota system, the authors find that the quota system had a stabilizingeffect on world coffee prices. The quotas reduced real exportrevenues for most small exporting countries, but large producersgained. Most small countries gained, however, in terms of riskreduction. If a brief suspension of the quota occurs from timeto time, caused, for example, by adverse weather which resultsin a shortfall in world supply, the quota system works likea buffer stock scheme; on average, producing countries as awhole lose transfer benefits but gain risk benefits.     

Welfare implications of commodity price stabilization with partially flexible production,private storage and buffer-stock costs

Zusammenfassung Wohlfahrtsimplikationen einer Stabilisierung der Güterpreise bei partiell flexibler Produktion, privater Lagerhaltung und Kosten einer buffer-stock-Politik. - In diesem Aufsatz wird die traditionelle Literatur von Waugh-Oi-Massell zur Stabilisierung der Güterpreise auf ein Modell mit rationalen Erwartungen ausgedehnt, das eine partiell flexible Produktion, eine private Lagerhaltung zu Wettbewerbsbedingungen und die Kosten der Stabilisierungsbeh?rde für ihre buffer-stock-Politik umfa\t. Die Stabilisierung der Preise verbessert die Wohlfahrt jeder Gruppe, wenn die St?rungen im eigenen Bereich auftreten, vermindert aber die Wohlfahrt, wenn die St?rungen die Nachfrage oder das Angebot anderer Gruppen betreffen. Der private Sektor insgesamt gewinnt unzweideutig von der Preisstabilisierung, w?hrend die Stabilisierungsbeh?rden immer verlieren. Die Preisstabilisierung mag vielleicht die gesamte Gesellschaft (d.h. den privaten und den ?ffentlichen Sektor) einige Zeit besserstellen, im Endergebnis dürfte sie aber einen Verlust an potentieller sozialer Wohlfahrt verursachen.

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Résumé Des implications de bien-être d’une stabilisation de prix avec production partiellement flexible, stockage privé et co?ts de stock régulateur. - Cet article étend la littérature traditionnelle de Waugh-Oi-Massell sur la stabilisation de prix à un modèle d’expectative rationnelle qui inclut une production partiellement flexible, un stockage privé compétitif et des co?ts des autorités pour les opérations de stock régulateur. Une stabilisation de prix améliore le bien-être de chaque groupe, si les perturbances se passent dans leurs domains, mais elle réduit le bien-être si les perturbances affectuent la demande ou l’offre d’autres groupes. Le secteur privé en ensemble gagne sans aucun doute de la stabilité de prix pendant que les autorités de stabilisation perdent toujours. Une stabilisation de prix pourrait améliorer la situation de la société entière (c.-à.-d. les secteurs privés et publiques) pour quelque temps, mais éventuellement pourrait générer une perte de bien-être potentiel social.

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Resumen Implicaciones para el bienestar de la estabilización de precios de materias primas bajo productión parcialmente flexible, almacenamiento privado y costos de buffer stocks. - Este trabajo extiende el modelo traditional de Waugh-Oi-Massell de estabilización de precios de materias primas a uno de expectativas racionales con production parcialmente flexible, almacenamiento privado competitivo y costos de operaciones buffer stock. La estabilización de precios aumenta el bienestar de cada grupo con respecte a sus propias perturbaciones y reduce el bienestar con respecte a perturbaciones que inciden sobre la demanda o la oferta de otros grupos. El sector privado claramente gana con precios estables, mientras que las autoridades responsables de la estabilización siempre pierden. La estabilización podría mejorar el bienestar de la sociedad entera (o sea de los sectores privado y estatal) por un eierte tiempo, mas posiblemente daría lugar a una pérdida potencial de bienestar social.

     

A supply chain-transport supernetwork equilibrium model with the behaviour of freight carriers

This paper presents a supernetwork equilibrium model integrating supply chain networks with a transport network, namely, a supply chain-transport supernetwork equilibrium model. The model takes into account the behaviour of freight carriers and transport network users to endogenously determine the transport costs generated in the supply chain networks. The interaction between transport network and supply chain networks can also be examined. Results of the numerical tests reveal that the improvement of transport network could enhance the efficiency of supply chain networks. The paper makes contributions to modelling of supply chain networks as well as to that of transport networks.     

The Role of Nominal Anchor Currencies in Exchange Rate Arrangements

This paper studies the evolution of exchange rate arrangements of almost all countries in the world over the period 1970–1996. It examines both officially reported and empirically observed exchange rate arrangements. Several findings are obtained. First, the relative economic size of countries under fixed exchange rate regimes has not declined as dramatically as the measure based on reported arrangements would indicate. Second, the U.S. dollar has been the most dominant, global anchor currency because many developing economies, particularly those in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, have attempted to stabilize their exchange rates to the dollar. Third, the reserve currency composition is determined by the constructed measure of the net currency-area size in addition to the own-economic size of the reserve currency country. Fourth, as a result of the transition to the final stage of EMU, the euro is expected to emerge as the world's second most dominant anchor currency. While the Japanese yen will continue to play a less significant role as nominal anchor, its role in East Asia is expected to rise gradually.J. Japan. Int. Econ.December 1998,12(4), pp. 334–387. World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433 and Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan.Copyright 1998 Academic Press.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers F31, F33, F36.     

Sulawesi's Cocoa Boom: Lessons of Smallholder Dynamism and a Hands-Off Policy

The rapid expansion of cocoa production on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi over the last decade surprised the world, not least because it came mainly from smallholders This paper examines government policies that have affected the subsector, and identifies issues it faces. The study concludes that the following factors contributed to the expansion, the availability of suitable land; low production costs; a highly competitive marketing system (a result of the government s policy of limited intervention), relatively good transport infrastructure, favourable macroeconomic policies, and smallholder entrepreneurship. It is particularly important that Indonesia s government left cocoa marketing and distribution free of many of the interventions applied to other commodities. Because of the competitive marketing system, the farmgate price of cocoa in Indonesia is very high relative to the export price Issues that must be addressed if cocoa is to develop further include product quality, the ‘adding-up’ problem, pest control and VAT.     

The Evolution of Rice Price Policies over Four Decades: Thailand,Indonesia and the Philippines

Using time series data over the past four decades, the 1960s to 1990s, this paper examines rice pricing policies in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. It analyses the determinants of the paths along which these policies have moved. While it confirms the findings of previous analyses, that price stabilization has been a major policy achievement, it also reveals that stabilization was not necessarily sustained over the entire survey period. It finds that politico-economic factors—such as entry into the GATT, increase in per capita GDP and achievement of rice self-sufficiency—have been among the determinants of rice pricing policy, but the ways in which these factors have affected policy vary among these countries. Such variation, which previous cross-country studies have not analysed, is a reflection of variations in the roles of rice and in the attitudes of policy-makers in these economies. In its conclusion, this study draws policy implications for each country, taking into account differences in the impact.     

Non-self-averaging of a two-person game with only positive spillover: a new formulation of Avatamsaka’s dilemma

In this game [Aruka in Avatamsaka game structure and experiment on the web. In: Aruka Y (ed) Evolutionary controversies in economics. Springer, Tokyo, pp 115–132, 2001], selfishness may not be determined even if an agent selfishly adopts the strategy of defection. Individual selfishness can only be realized if the other agent cooperates, therefore gain from defection can never be assured by defection alone. The sanction by defection as a reaction of the rival agent cannot necessarily reduce the selfishness of the rival. In this game, explicit direct reciprocity cannot be guaranteed. Now we introduce different spillovers or payoff matrices, so that each agent may then be faced with a different payoff matrix. A ball in the urn is interpreted as the number of cooperators, and the urn as a payoff matrix. We apply Ewens’ sampling formula to our urn process in this game theoretic environment. In this case, there is a similar result as in the classic case, because there is “self-averaging” for the variances of the number who cooperate. Applying Pitman’s sampling formula to the urn process, the invariance of the random partition vectors under the properties of exchangeability and size-biased permutation does not hold in general. Pitman’s sampling formula depends on the two-parameter Poisson–Dirichlet distribution whose special case is just Ewens’ formula. In the Ewens setting, only one probability α of a new entry matters. On the other hand, there is an additional probability θ of an unknown entry, as will be argued in the Pitman formula. More concretely, we will investigate the effects of different payoff sizes from playing a series of different games for newly emerging agents. As Aoki and Yoshikawa (Non-self-averaging in macroeconomic models: a criticism of modern micro-founded macroeconomics, Economics Discussion Papers 2007-49. . November 26, 2007) and Aoki (J Econ Interact Coord 3:1–3, 2008) dealt with a product innovation and a process innovation, they criticized Lucas’ representative method and the idea that players face micro shocks drawn from the same unchanged probability distribution. In the light of Aoki and Yoshikawa (Non-self-averaging in macroeconomic models: a criticism of modern micro-founded macroeconomics, Economics Discussion Papers 2007-49. . November 26, 2007), we show the same argument in our Avatamsaka game with different payoffs. In this setting, innovations occurring in urns may be regarded as increases of the number of cooperators in urns whose payoffs are different.     

Cost-effectiveness of rivaroxaban versus warfarin for stroke prevention in non-valvular atrial fibrillation in the Japanese healthcare setting

Abstract

Aims: This article aimed to examine the cost-effectiveness of rivaroxaban in comparison to warfarin for stroke prevention in Japanese patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF), from a public healthcare payer’s perspective.

Materials and methods: Baseline event risks were obtained from the J-ROCKET AF trial and the treatment effect data were taken from a network meta-analysis. The other model inputs were extracted from the literature and official Japanese sources. The outcomes included the number of ischaemic strokes, myocardial infarctions, systemic embolisms and bleedings avoided, life-years, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), incremental costs and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). The scenario analysis considered treatment effect data from the same network meta-analysis.

Results: In comparison with warfarin, rivaroxaban was estimated to avoid 0.284 ischaemic strokes per patient, to increase the number of QALYs by 0.535 per patient and to decrease the total costs by ¥118,892 (€1,011.11) per patient (1 JPY = 0.00850638 EUR; XE.com, 7 October 2019). Consequently, rivaroxaban treatment was found to be dominant compared to warfarin. In the scenario analysis, the ICER of rivaroxaban versus warfarin was ¥2,873,499 (€24,446.42) per QALY.

Limitations: The various sources of data used resulted in the heterogeneity of the cost-effectiveness analysis results. Although, rivaroxaban was cost-effective in the majority of cases.

Conclusion: Rivaroxaban is cost-effective against warfarin for stroke prevention in Japanese patients with NVAF, giving the payer WTP of 5,000,000 JPY.