Marketing Channel Choice and Marketing Efficiency Assessment in Agribusiness

In agribusiness, profitability critically depends on the choice of proper marketing channels. This article studies the factors influencing marketing channel choices of vegetable farmers. Vegetable farmers have generally 3 choices to sell their produce, which are formal and informal market participation vis-à-vis nonmarket participation. Ten independent variables are considered for the study and a multinomial logistic regression model is used for the analysis. The study finds 4 major variables that can influence farmers’ decision to shift from nonmarket participation to informal or formal market participation. The article further identifies 4 microlevel marketing channels and assesses their efficiency.     

On Measuring the Value of a Nonmarket Good Using Market Data

We use line integral theory to lay out in a more general theoretical framework the conditions under which it is possible to measure with market data the welfare effects of a change in a nonmarket good. We present in detail a numerical method of measuring the value of nonmarket goods using market data, under either weak neutrality or weak complementarity. Our numerical method is more flexible than the existing analytical method because it can be used with any well-behaved Marshallian demand function, and can be used even when the willig condition does not hold.     

Cooperatives, regulation and competition in Norwegian agriculture

This article analyses the efficiency of current market regulations and market structure in Norwegian agriculture. Based on their potential to coordinate farmers' supplies, large marketing cooperatives are assigned a market regulation role. However, market prices frequently tend to fall below target prices, spurring costly additional market regulations. This is not necessarily a result of inefficient coordination by the cooperative. Using a mixed market model, the study shows that over production may be explained by the competition between marketing cooperatives and investor-owned wholesalers (IOW), typically weakening the cooperatives' ability to coordinate market supply. This conclusion is robust over a variety of IOW contracts. However, to what extent competition is to blame, depends on the target price level and the contract structure of the IOW. Moreover, it is shown that current market interventions to remove excess supplies may induce further incentives to increase production.     

SOCIAL COSTS OF REGULATION OF PRIMARY INDUSTRY: AN APPLICATION TO ANIMAL WELFARE REGULATION OF THE VICTORIAN PIG INDUSTRY*

The effects of state government regulation of primary industry are modelled. An analytical framework is presented for estimating the costs of regulation in terms of changes in economic surplus. The model permits trade between regions of the total market. An illustrative application of the framework is applied to proposed animal welfare regulation of the Victorian pig industry. Some regulations that may provide large gains with regard to the welfare of farm animals involve only small social costs compared to the gross value of production of the industry. Conversely, other regulations that potentially confer only small gains in animal welfare impose large social costs. The distribution of these costs is important. In general, consumers lose, as do some producers. Other producers gain. In some cases, producers in aggregate gain from regulation. Major beneficiaries, such as advocates of animal welfare regulations, are likely to bear little of the cost of regulation.     

Farmers' Subjective Valuation of Subsistence Crops: The Case of Traditional Maize in Mexico

Shadow prices guide farmers' resource allocations, but for subsistence farmers who grow traditional crops they may bear little relationship with market prices. We theoretically derive shadow prices for a subsistence crop with nonmarket value, then estimate shadow prices of maize using data from a nationally representative survey of rural households in Mexico. Shadow prices are significantly higher than market prices for traditional but not improved maize varieties. They are particularly high in the indigenous areas of southern and southeastern Mexico, indicating large  de facto  incentives to maintain traditional varieties there.     

Non‐market valuation: usage and impacts in environmental policy and management in Australia

An extensive literature exists on environmental nonmarket valuation research. It appears that results from these studies should be useful inputs to decision‐making about environmental policy or management. Here, we investigate the extent to which this occurs in practice in Australian environmental management bodies. Nonmarket valuation experts were surveyed about their studies that they believed to have influenced policy. Then, decision‐makers in environmental bodies were interviewed about the level of influence nonmarket valuation has had on their decisions. We find that researchers' perceptions of the influence that nonmarket valuation has on decision‐making are overly optimistic. Interviews with decision‐makers suggest that nonmarket valuation is little used in decision‐making. Indeed, the majority of them are unfamiliar with nonmarket valuation techniques. Nevertheless, once the concept was explained to them, many decision‐makers believed it could benefit environmental policy. Researchers' perceptions of the reasons for low usage of nonmarket valuation are largely inaccurate. We suggest a range of strategies that economists can use to promote the use of nonmarket valuation in environmental policy and management decisions, including ways to improve communication and engagement with decision‐makers, and strategies to increase the capacity for decision‐makers to use nonmarket valuation results.     

The Environmental Impact of European Farming: How Legitimate Are Agri-Environmental Payments?

Offering agri-environmental payments to address the various positive and negative environmental nonmarket effects of European Union agriculture might be an efficient way of dealing with market imperfections. However, the complex interaction between farming practices and agri-environmental effects makes it difficult to assess what level of payments is justified under World Trade Organization's Green Box provisions. In reviewing the literature on positive and negative externalities of European farming on the environment, we find evidence to suggest that paying for agri-environmental improvements may be appropriate under the Green Box provisions, even if the payments have a positive production effect.     

From organized to disorganized capitalism? Market versus nonmarket coordination in Spain's dairy chain

Conventional wisdom has it that the food economy has transitioned from organized to disorganized capitalism. An era of extensive state intervention between around 1930 and 1980 would have been followed by an era of deregulation and increasing coordination through markets after around 1980. This article uses the case of Spain's dairy chain to propose an alternative view. In the case under study, there certainly were elements of state‐coordinated capitalism between 1952 and 1986, as well as elements of deregulation and liberalization from 1986 onwards. However, the structure of economic coordination involved some combination of market and nonmarket mechanisms all the way through. The organized capitalism of the first period was not really so tightly organized, whereas much of its later “disorganization” was in fact a transition towards a different mode of “organization”: one in which the control of nonmarket coordination shifted from political to corporate hierarchies.     

论激励性林业管制

管制是政府为矫正市场失灵而对私人经济活动进行的某种限制或规定,但由于政府也是"经济人",管制也会失灵,放松管制已成为市场经济国家的普遍做法,市场化程度还很低的我国林业,放松管制的要求更为迫切,必须重新构建激励性林业管制模式,在分类管制基础上,采用行政指导、行政合同、行政奖励等办法,激发林业市场主体进行林业生产的积极性。     

Nonmarket valuation in developing countries: incorporating labour contributions in environmental benefits estimates

There are limitations associated with the application of nonmarket valuation techniques, including choice experiments, in subsistence economies. In part, this is due to the concern that using money as a mode of contribution may not capture the potential contribution of low‐income households. To address this limitation, respondents in this study were provided with the option of contributing towards the management of invasive plants in labour terms if they were unwilling to contribute in monetary terms. The results show that the existing practice of using dollar values to estimate willingness to contribute may disproportionately exclude the concerns of some groups within the community. The analysis also indicates that allowing respondents to express their willingness to contribute in labour increases their participation in environmental decision‐making processes and hence increases the estimated value of forest ecosystem services. This study contributes to the limited empirical literature on the development of nonmarket valuation surveys, particularly choice experiments, in low‐income countries in general and rural areas in particular.     

PORTUGAL ON THE BRINK OF EUROPE: THE CAP AND PORTUGUESE AGRICULTURE

Portuguese policy-makers assumed an active interest in agricultural sector development after the 1974 Revolution. However, the policy instruments used-output price supports, input subsidies, land market regulations, and agricultural credit programmes-have done little to facilitate technical or structural change in much of the sector. This pattern of development may have adverse medium-term impacts on agriculture, because for most commodities, accession to the CAP will substantially reduce farm profitability. If Portugal is to avoid sharp declines in income for a sector that is already relatively low in income terms, reform of factor market policies and investment in research and development are essential.     

Water-Based Recreational Benefits of Conservation Programs: The Case of Conservation Tillage on U.S. Cropland

Conservation programs are a significant part of farm legislation. The recent farm bill increases funding of conservation programs. One result will likely be the increased adoption of basic environmentally benign farming practices, such as conservation tillage. This would lead to improvements in surface water quality. In this paper, we examine the magnitude of the nonmarket use value benefits of these improvements. The findings indicate that moderate to widespread adoption of practices such as conservation tillage would result in significant nonmarket benefits.     

集体建设用地使用权流转可行性之法理分析

研究目的：研究集体建设用地使用权流转的可行性,为完善相关政策法规提出构想与建议。研究方法：文献研究法、比较研究法、实证研究法。研究结果：国家垄断建设用地使用权市场弊大于利,集体建设用地使用权直接入市则利大于弊。研究结论：应当实行国家严格控制下的集体建设用地使用权入市制度。     

Valuation on the Frontier: Calibrating Actual and Hypothetical Statements of Value

The lack of robust evidence showing that hypothetical behavior directly maps into real actions remains a major concern for proponents of stated preference nonmarket valuation techniques. This article explores a new statistical approach to link actual and hypothetical statements. Using willingness-to-pay field data on individual bids from sealed-bid auctions for a $350 baseball card, our results are quite promising. Estimating a stochastic frontier regression model that makes use of data that any contingent valuation survey would obtain, we derive a bid function that is not statistically different from the bid function obtained from subjects in an actual auction. If other data can be calibrated similarly, this method holds significant promise since an appropriate calibration scheme, ex ante or ex post , can be invaluable to the policy maker that desires more accurate estimates of use and nonuse values for nonmarket goods and services.     

Selfishness,altruism, and inequality aversion toward consumers and farmers

One hypothesis explaining the persistence of farm programs in the United States is the public's altruism toward farmers. We utilize economic experiments to identify the motivations of selfishness, altruism, and inequality aversion toward anonymous members of the general population and toward different types of farmers. We find that people are generally less selfish and more altruistic toward small farmers than other members of the population. We also find that (i) people are more averse to inequality in a market‐like setting as compared to a nonmarket setting, (ii) there is significant heterogeneity across people in terms of other‐regarding preferences, and (iii) experimental choices accurately predict preferences for “real‐world” income re‐distribution policies that entail giving up one's own money to benefit farmers, but fail to predict preferences for policies that redistribute others’ incomes.     

The role of retail market power and state regulations in the heterogeneity of farm‐retail price transmission of private label and branded products

Given the leading role of private label brands in the fluid milk market, it is of special interest to focus on possible differences in farm‐retail price transmission between private label and branded milk as well as the causes of heterogeneity. This article examines the heterogeneous effects of private label and branded products on price transmission in the fluid milk market using a panel threshold asymmetric error correction model. Results indicate that upward retail‐price adjustment is faster than the downward price adjustment for both private label and branded milk. The speed of adjustment of private label products is significantly faster than branded products in three different price regimes. We further investigate the reasons of heterogeneity in farm‐retail price transmission of private label milk. We find that both retailer market power and state pricing regulations contribute to the heterogeneity in asymmetric price transmission. Higher retailer market power causes retail prices of private label milk to rise faster and to fall slower. The existence of a state pricing regulation slows down the adjustment speed of retail prices of private labels back to the long‐run equilibrium, regardless of whether the retail price is low or high.     

Managing groundwater in a mining region: an opportunity to compare best‐worst and referendum data

In nonmarket valuation, practitioners must choose a format for the valuation questions. A common approach in discrete choice experiments is the ‘pick‐one’ format, often with two alternative policy proposals and a status quo from which the respondent selects. Other proposed formats, include best‐worst elicitation, where respondents are asked to indicate their most and least favoured alternative from a set. Although best‐worst formats can offer efficiency in data collection, they can also lead to responses that are difficult to reconcile with neoclassical welfare estimation. The current article explores methodological issues surrounding the use of pick‐one versus best‐worst data for nonmarket valuation, focusing on framing and status quo effects that may occur within three‐alternative discrete choice experiments. We illustrate these issues using a case study of surplus groundwater use from Western Australian mining. Results identify concerns that may render best‐worst data unsuitable for welfare estimation, including a prevalence of serial choices in which the status quo is universally chosen as the worst alternative, rendering part of the choice process deterministic. Asymmetry of preferences and serial choices can be obscured when models are estimated using ‘naively’ pooled best‐worst data. Results suggest that caution is warranted when using best‐worst data for valuation, even when pooled results appear satisfactory.     

哥伦比亚矿产资源及矿业管理概况

哥伦比亚拥有丰富的煤炭、石油、铀矿和绿宝石等矿藏资源,但勘查、开发、利用程度较低,找矿潜力巨大。当前哥伦比亚经济处于可持续发展阶段,实行政府监管的市场经济,法律法规较为健全,因实行矿山特许合同制度等矿业管理政策,投资机会较多,权益有保障,是我国企业＂走出去＂较为理想地区之一。     

Pushing subjects beyond rationality with more alternatives in experimental auctions

The use of experimental economics in valuation of market and nonmarket goods has grown over the past few years. The ability of experimental auctions (EUs) to reveal consumer preferences and their malleability has been praised in previous literature. Because of the high cost of conducting EUs, researchers usually present multiple products to participants, determining how many products to present has no clear guideline. The results of this study show that subjects do not value products the same way across different number of options offered to them. The main indicator is the increasing variance in responses for a benchmark product when more products are available. With an econometric specification allowing for heteroscedasticity as a function of the number of product offerings, the results indicate that the number of goods available for bidding is not to be taken as a trivial task in experimental design for value elicitation.     

Necessarily or Sufficiently Trade-Impeding for Africa?1 The Agri-food Safety Regulations

The dearth of empirical studies on Africa’s food export effects of the food safety regulations in the European Union has really affected evidence-based policies that could stimulate compliance. This study investigates whether the technical regulations necessarily or sufficiently constitute trade-impediment for Africa. This study adopts an augmented Helpman, Melitz and Rubenstein two-step selection model for all the applicable food safety regulations in this market. Three commodities are selected; Banana, Grape and Tomato at the HS-6-digit level covering the period from 1995 to 2016. Owing to the heterogeneity in exporters’ capacity and exporting performance as well as their size structure, this study finds that the food safety regulations are necessarily trade-impeding for the grapes and tomatoes but not for banana at the decision to export stage. However, at the intensity of the commodities’ exporting, the measures become sufficiently trade-enhancing due to quality standards upgrading, compliance and certification of exports.