Marketing Orders, Grading Errors, and Price Discrimination

Some marketing orders allow an agricultural industry to regulate the flow of product to market. We examine a more common, but less controversial, aspect of marketing orders, the setting and enforcement of grades, and show that purposefully introducing error into the grading process reduces farmers' incentives to produce high-quality product, thus partially sustaining the adverse selection problem that would exist in the absence of grades. Because demand for high-quality product is generally inelastic relative to demand for low-quality product, grading error can increase industry profit. In principle, an industry can achieve through grading error the same allocation of product between high- and low-quality outlets as attainable through direct volume regulation.     

Pricing-to-Market: Price Discrimination or Product Differentiation?

We employ a vertical differentiation model to examine the potential bias in pricing-to-market results when using export unit values aggregating differentiated products. Our results show that: (i) false evidence of pricing-to-market is always found when using unit values, whether the law of one price holds or not; and (ii) the size of the bias increases with the level of product differentiation. Our simulation results support those conceptual findings. Thus, some of the positive pricing-to-market results in the literature could be an artifact of the product heterogeneity embodied in unit values rather than evidence of imperfect competition.     

中国与南美国家农产品贸易关系的实证研究——以巴西、阿根廷、智利为例

南美各国农业资源禀赋条件极其优越,大豆等资源密集型产品生产极具优势。本文以巴西、阿根廷、智利为代表的分析表明,中国与南美各国的农产品贸易具有产业内贸易程度低、贸易的产品集中度高、比较优势产品贸易增长潜力巨大的特点。虽然南美各国农产品对中国的出口规模巨大、增长迅猛,但由于与各国的贸易符合“两种资源、两个市场”战略,所以中国应采取加快FTA进程等措施来促进贸易发展,并实现增加贸易获益目标。     

Threshold Effects in Price Transmission: The Case of Brazilian Wheat, Maize, and Soya Prices

Recent studies into price transmission have recognized the important role played by transport and transaction costs. Threshold models are one approach to accommodate such costs. We develop a generalized Threshold Error Correction Model to test for the presence and form of threshold behavior in price transmission that is symmetric around equilibrium. We use monthly wheat, maize, and soya prices from the United States, Argentina, and Brazil to demonstrate this model. Classical estimation of these generalized models can present challenges but Bayesian techniques avoid many of these problems. Evidence for thresholds is found in three of the five commodity price pairs investigated.     

地价与房价关系的探讨—江苏省徐州市的实证研究

现有的地价与房价关系研究主要集中于宏观层面,而对房地产市场的区域差异性关注不够.基于2000 2010年徐州市市区的住宅用途地价与房价的相关数据,在理论分析的基础上应用波动分析、协整分析及误差修正模型等计最分析方法,分析了该市地价与房价之间的关系.结果表明:在较长时间尺度上,徐州市市区的地价与房价存在稳定的均衡关系;在较短时间尺度上两者也存在相互影响,但房价的变动对地价的影响更大.     

Price Dynamics in a Vertical Sector: The Case of Butter

We develop a reduced-form model of price transmission in a vertical sector, allowing for refined asymmetric, contemporaneous and lagged, own and cross-price effects under time-varying volatility. The model is used to investigate the wholesale-retail price dynamics in the U.S. butter market. The analysis documents the nature of nonlinear price dynamics in a vertical sector. It finds strong evidence of asymmetric retail price responses, both in the short term and the longer term, but only weak evidence of asymmetric wholesale price responses. Asymmetric retail responses play a major role in generating a skewed distribution of butter prices. The empirical results indicate the presence of imperfect competition at the retail level.     

Bilateral Import Protection,Free Trade Agreements,and Other Factors Influencing Trade Flows in Agriculture and Clothing

Many factors shape the global network of bilateral trade including fundamental forces of supply and demand factors and government policies. This study uses the generalised gravity framework to distinguish among the different drivers that either deter or aid partner trade in land‐intensive agriculture and labour‐intensive clothing. The dataset used in the analysis includes bilateral trade among 70 countries in 1995, 2000 and 2005. Collectively, the 70 countries account for 85% of the world’s trade in agriculture and 96% of its GDP. Empirical results lend support to the Heckscher–Ohlin explanation of trade, namely that relative factor endowments motivate cross‐border trade. Results also show that tariffs are not always binding and bilateral free‐trade agreements more often divert rather than create trade.     

Self-Sufficiency Versus Free Trade: The Case of Rice in Iran

The dilemma of free trade and self-sufficiency for the case of rice in Iran justifies continuous governmental intervention in this market. Among all policy instruments, import tariffs have been extensively used to achieve self-sufficiency; however, the results of this policy are quite controversial and remain as a main question for researchers and policymakers. Hence, this article examines the economic impacts of increasing import tariff policy applying a multimarket spatial price equilibrium model. The results suggest that pursuing the goal of self- sufficiency by restricting rice import would be detrimental. Social welfare as well as real and per capita income are adversely affected by increasing import tariffs both in nationwide and regional scale except for 1 region, which is characterized as the largest net exporter region in Iran. Also results show that adopting free trade policies and improving rice yield may be the well-advised strategy in the case of rice in Iran.     

Tariff-Rate Quota Liberalization: The Case of World Price Uncertainty and Supply Management

This paper examines the options for liberalizing tariff-rate quotas when a marketing board controls domestic production and international prices are stochastic. Lowering over-quota tariff and increasing import quota volumes are not equivalent. The trade-offs between the two types of trade reforms are examined through numerical simulations for the Canadian chicken industry. Introducing world price variability results in a distribution of welfare impacts for the different groups in the industry. Consumers and processors gain more with tariff liberalization than with increased import quotas. The difference in producer surplus between liberalization regimes is truncated so that producers only see down-side risk under the tariff liberalization regime.
Le présent article a examiné les options concernant la libéralisation des contingents tarifaires lorsqu'un office de commercialisation encadre la production nationale et que les prix internationaux sont stochastiques. Diminuer le taux de droit hors contingent et augmenter les volumes de contingent d'importation ne sont pas des options équivalentes. Nous avons examiné les deux types de réforme commerciale en effectuant des simulations numériques pour le secteur du poulet au Canada. Incorporer la variabilité du prix mondial provoque une distribution de répercussions sur le bien-être des divers groupes du secteur. Les consommateurs et les transformateurs gagnent davantage en appliquant une libéralisation des droits hors contingent qu'en appliquant une augmentation des contingents d'importation. La différence quant au surplus des producteurs entre les régimes de libéralisation est tronquée de sorte que les producteurs ne voient que le risque de perte sous un régime de libéralisation tarifaire.     

论我国粮食价格保护制度的建设

所谓粮食价格保护 ,即为了稳定粮食市场 ,从价格方面对粮食的收购进行保护。其目的是为了降低由于生产和供给的波动所带来的粮食价格的波动 ,同时保障农民收入的稳定。世界上许多国家特别是一些市场经济国家 ,都先后建立起了粮食价格保护制度。一、粮食价格保护的主要依据　　粮食市场的波动性是实行粮食价格保护的主要依据。我国从 1978年开始对粮食流通体制进行改革 ,先后经历了“统购统销”、“合同定购”、“保价放量”等阶段 ,市场化取向日趋明显 ,市场机制在粮食生产资源配置和粮食价格形成中的作用不断加强 ,同时也使粮食价格大幅波…     

生态—经济竞合下低效建设用地再开发空间重构——以湛江市中心城区为例

研究目的:基于生态位,量化低效建设用地上的物质与生态空间的竞合关系,用以均衡再开发时地块内部"社会经济功能用地"和"生态功能用地"的结构和格局,从规划用途管制的视角,重构低效建设用地的物质和生态空间。研究方法:"绝对面—相对面"辨识体系、生态位测度、线性规划等模型的应用等。研究结果:(1)靠近生态"扩张源"及城市边缘的低效建设用地,应优先再开发为生态功能用地以形成局部生态屏障;(2)均衡后,从中心至边缘,低效建设用地内部用地功能的布局形式,主要呈现从"开发主导"过渡为"生态主导";(3)依据生态—经济竞合的结果实施再开发,可合理拓宽局部的生态空间,并缩减早期物质空间过渡占据的社会经济功能用地。研究结论:通过研究生态—经济的竞合关系,来调整土地资源的流向,有利于实现局部低效建设用地内部物质和生态空间的"重生"与"共生"。     

Innovation and Trade with Endogenous Market Failure: The Case of Genetically Modified Products

A partial-equilibrium, two-country model is developed to analyze implications from the introduction of genetically modified (GM) products. In the model, innovators hold proprietary rights, farmers are (competitive) adopters, some consumers deem GM food to be inferior in quality to traditional food, and the mere introduction of GM crops affects the costs of non-GM food (because of costly identity preservation). Among the results derived, it is shown that, although GM innovations have the potential to improve efficiency, some groups can be made worse off. Indeed, it is even possible that the costs induced by GM innovations outweigh the efficiency gains.     

Futures Markets and Spot Price Volatility: A Case Study

Futures markets, where they exist, can play a crucial role in determining the storage decision in the underlying spot (physical) market. The futures market acts as a conduit for market information and is a gatherer of agents' expectations about the future prospects for the spot market. As such, it is able to provide both price insurance and price discovery roles, the latter of which generates information for spot market traders and allows them to make rational storage decisions. If this were to be the case, then the efficiency of storage is improved which can potentially lead to a reduction in the volatility of spot prices over the marketing season. The existing literature is ambiguous as to whether futures markets can help spot markets price more efficiently. This paper seeks to examine whether this is the case in the British maincrop potato market by evaluating the volatility of spot prices over the period 1969–96 in a “before-after” analysis of the impact of the introduction of futures trading in 1980. The results suggest that the introduction of the futures market has led to a reduction in price volatility, despite some problems in the operation of the futures market itself.     

Price Discrimination and Pricing to Market Behavior of Canadian Canola Exporters

The role of exchange rate fluctuation on the pricing behavior of Canadian canola exporters to Japan, Mexico, and the U.S. is examined using a model identifying noncompetitive and exchange rate related pricing behavior. Price discrimination was identified for Canadian canola exports to the three destinations over the period of 1993–99. Results also suggest that Pricing to Market strategies were employed for Japanese imports. Canadian canola exporters used local currency price stabilization to dampen the effects of relative price changes in the Japanese currency, perhaps linked to the large size of Japanese imports relative to Mexico and the U.S.     

Basis Pricing, Futures-Cash Price Transmission and Appropriate Hedge Ratios: The Case of the Soybean Market in Ontario

The academic literature on the determination of risk-minimizing hedge ratios has apparently ignored the potential impact that the pricing strategies adopted by the grain elevators may have on the futures-cash price transmission, and therefore on the determination of the correct hedge ratio. This paper addresses this problem from a theoretical perspective, and then develops a model that is applied to the soybean market in Chatham, Ontario.
La littérature académique concernant la détermination des ratios de couverture à terme minimisant le risque a apparemment ignoré l'impact potential des stratégies des faiseurs de prix sur un marché sur la relation entre les prix spot et les prix à terme. II est possible que de ce fait ces stratégies influencent également la détermination du vrai ratio de couverture. Ce papier traite ce problème d'un point de vue théorique, puis vérifie ces résultats en les appliquant au cas du marché du soja à Chatham, Ontario.