Productivity and Structural Heterogeneity in the Brazilian Manufacturing Sector: Trends and Determinants

Structural heterogeneity (SH)—i.e. the existence of marked asymmetries in labour productivity among firms, along with low-productivity firms forming a large share of total employment—plays an important role in development theory. But only recently has the availability of micro data made the rigorous measuring of SH possible. This paper makes compatible different databases on manufacturing production, innovation and micro-social data for Brazil—PIA, RAIS, Secex and PINTEC—for 2000–2008 in order to measure SH and analyse its determinants. First, productivity groups are formed out of the universe of Brazilian manufacturing firms using a k-mean cluster methodology. Second, the variables affecting the productivity group to which each firm belongs are tested using an ordered probit model. The results indicate that increasing returns (captured by the firm's market share, the number of employees in innovative activities, workers' years of schooling and the accumulation of workers' experience), the technological intensity of the industry, learning by exporting and public support to R&D have driven productivity growth and reproduced SH through time, as predicted by development and evolutionary theories.     

Food Aid and Food Security: A Cautionary Note

A simple model is presented to examine the effects of instability in global food aid supplies on foreign exchange expenditures and food availability in recipient countries. When global food prices rise, food aid recipients are doubly affected through decreased availability of food aid, and through higher costs of additional commercial imports needed to make up the shortfall. Empirical estimates of key parameters of the model suggest that countries with a high dependence on food aid may place their food security at risk.
Suit un modèle simple qui permet d'analyser les conséquences de l'instabilité des approvi-sionnements destinés à l'aide alimentaire sur les dépenses en devises étrangères et l'offre d'aliments dans les pays bénéficiaires. Lorsque le prix mondial des aliments augmente, les bénéficiaires de l'aide alimentaire subissent le contrecoup à la fois d'une aide alimentaire réduite et du coût plus éléve des produits importés pour répondre à la pénurie. Une estimation empirique des principaux parametrés du modele suggére que les pays qui dépendent fortement de l'aide alimentaire compromettent leur sécurité alimentaire.     

The Persistence of Profitability among Firms in the Food Economy

The persistence of industry, firm-specific, and corporate-parent effects on firm profitability in the food economy are calculated and further analyzed within its four major sectors: food processing, wholesale grocery, retail supermarket, and restaurant. Profits are more persistent within an industry than within a corporation. The retail supermarket sector has had stable profits as has individual retail supermarket firms relative to the other three sectors.     

Supermarket Promotions and Food Prices: A Note

Using a sample comprising nearly 250,000 weekly prices from the largest seven UK supermarket chains, this note investigates two pricing practices that have attracted public interest: the tendency for promotions to ‘disguise’ rises in non‐sale prices and the inflation of prices prior to sales which ‘exaggerate’ the discount. Analysing price dynamics before and after periods of promotional discounting results show post‐sale prices are typically lower than pre‐sale prices, contrary to the disguise hypothesis. We do, however, find evidence of exaggeration of the discount, which may potentially explain why prices fall after discounts, although the evidence is not sufficiently widespread for this to be the sole cause. Results parallel the competition authority's view of supermarket promotions and point to the useful contribution that retail price microdata might play in keeping prices in check in countries where highly concentrated retail sectors raise similar concerns.     

Economic Incentives for Firms to Implement Enhanced Food Safety Controls: Case of the Canadian Red Meat and Poultry Processing Sector

This study assesses quantitatively the economic incentives for firms to adopt food safety controls and the potential impact of a number of firm- and market-specific characteristics on this behavior, focusing on the red meat and poultry processing sector in Canada. The results suggest that market-based (private) incentives have a greater impact on the food safety responsiveness of firms in this sector than government regulatory actions. This creates challenges for regulators in defining policy instruments that promote greater levels of food safety control in food processing sectors rather than constraining firms from taking initiatives that exceed regulatory requirements.     

Analyzing Foreign Direct Investment Decisions by Food and everage Firms: An Empirical Model of Transaction Theory

Global trends in agricultural marketing include increased trade in processed foods, less intra-industry trade, slower growth in trade of bulk commodities, and intensified adoption of processing and biological technologies. These trends temporally lead to increased investments by firms in intangible assets and tighter vertical controls. As a result of these trends, in the context of international trade governance, there is invigorated interest in the causal factors related to the boundaries of firms.
Using transaction economic theory and an empirical model, this research analyzes the determinants of international trade strategy in the food and beverage industry. The quantitative analysis involves a nested logit model of a sample of domestic and multinational firms in SIC 20. The nested logit employed is based on a two-level nest of sequential dichotomous choice decisions regarding exporting and foreign direct investment (FDI). The first sequential decision is the boundary choice between remaining domestic or engaging in international trade of some form. The second sequential decision involves exporting or FDI. Model regressors include the size of the firm, level of product differentiation, intangible assets, research and development expenditures, long-term debt, capital intensity, the country of origin and business structure.     

The Determinants of Firm Profitability Differences in EU Food Processing

This paper decomposes the variance in EU food industry return‐on‐assets into year, country, industry and firm effects using a hierarchical linear model (HLM). The HLM approach accounts for some of the methodological drawbacks of conventional approaches of variance decomposition such as anova and components of variance and additionally allows the estimation of the impact of covariates within each effect level. The results for selected EU countries show that firm effects are far more important than industry structure in determining food industry profitability. In particular, firm size and industry concentration are drivers of profitability while firm risk and age as well as industry growth have a negative influence.     

A Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Treatment of the Ban on UK Beef Exports: A Note

Hubbard and Philippidis Journal of Agricultural Economics (2001) Vol. 52, pp. 87–95] employ the standard Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyse the impact of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)‐induced ban on exports of UK beef. This note extends that study in four ways: (i) the dynamic GTAP model is employed to characterise long‐run savings–investment behaviour more correctly; (ii) the effect of the foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) outbreak of 2001 is included; (iii) an allowance is made for different levels of recovery in consumer confidence; and (iv) the impact analysis is now compared through time with a ‘no‐ban’ baseline. Long‐run comparisons after removal of the ban suggest that its legacy may continue for some time. However, because of the remedial safeguards and assurances offered in the wake of the BSE and FMD crises, there is a possibility that exports and outputs increase. Nevertheless, the economy‐wide impacts are negligible in both the short and the long run.     

Competition Policy and Food Sector in the European Union

The article reviews the enforcement of the EU competition policy in the food sector in order to evaluate its actual ability to promote a fair and efficient food supply. Competition policy is scrutinized stemming from the different perspectives offered by 3 antitrust schools, namely, the Harvard, the Chicago, and the post-Chicago Schools. The main finding of the article is that with reforms carried out in the 1990s, EU competition policy has followed the shift that occurred in the United States since the late 1970s from the traditionalist Harvard School to the Chicago and post-Chicago Schools of antitrust. The general effect of this shift has been a significant drop in antitrust enforcement and merger control activity. As a consequence, currently competition policy is not able to tackle the wide range of social and economic problems associated with the overwhelming power of large agrofood corporations.     

Structural Change and Policy Reform in the UK Dairy Sector

Estimation of a cost function for a representative sample of UK dairy producers allows future re‐structuring of the industry to be simulated using a model which incorporates producers' differential costs and milk prices. Consideration is also given to reductions in producer prices and to the introduction of an A/B quota system. The results indicate that, despite the history of quota trading in the UK, there is considerable scope for further restructuring in the industry to take advantage of differential incentives between producers. It is also projected that UK milk supply would increase if quota restrictions were removed.     

Co-creating Value in the Dyadic Relationships of Small and Large Firms in the Agri-food Sector

Given the increasing interest in the process of how value is co-created through interaction in business relationships, this paper examines the areas of collaboration, value co-creation practices and the respective co-created value in the dyadic relationships. Multiple case studies design involving in-depth interviews were undertaken with small and medium-sized suppliers (SMEs) of organic food in South West England with the dyadic relationship being the unit of analysis. The findings suggest that SME suppliers and their larger customers collaborate in many areas including: innovation, corporate social responsibility, planning and interactive learning. The collaboration led to co-creation of monetary and non-monetary values. This research advances the extant literature on value co-creation in business relationships by examining this complex phenomenon in the context of small and large firms’ dyads in the organic food sector. It is novel in identifying the linkage of the co-created value to the respective value co-creation practices and collaborative areas.     

Enhancing Access to the Global Food Manufacturing Value Chain: The Role of a Food Safety Technical Regulation in Ghana

Demonstrating compliance with food safety requirements of the global food economy is a prerequisite for access. This article presents an overview of the governance within global value chains and their impact on the prospects of developing countries accessing and participating in the global food manufacturing value chain. Based on fieldwork undertaken in Ghana, the article investigates the issues that hinder compliance of the Ghanaian food manufacturing sector with the basic requirements of food safety and investigates the potential role of a technical regulation in enhancing compliance, and therefore participation, in the global food manufacturing economy.     

Finance Constraints and Firm Transition in the Informal Sector: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing

This paper focuses on the role of finance constraints in determining the lack of transition of firms in India from very small family firms, which are the predominant type of firms in the informal sector, into larger informal firms that employ non-family labour. Using a rich firm-level data-set drawn from nationally representative surveys of the Indian informal manufacturing sector, this paper tests for the role played by finance constraints in firm transition in the informal sector at the firm and district level. There is evidence that the difficulty that firms face in accessing external finance acts as a significant constraint to small firm growth in the informal sector. Looking at data from India's districts, it is found that the financial development in a given district increases the likelihood that firms in the district will make the transition from household enterprises into non-household enterprises.     

Strategic Planning and Financial Performance in the Food Processing Sector

Research on the impact of formal strategic planning on firm performance has yielded mixed results. In this study, approximately 200 executives in five food processing industries were surveyed to examine the relationship between formal strategic planning and financial performance. A multiple indicator measure of strategic planning was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. Results of the strategic planning–performance model indicate that use of strategic planning tools has a positive impact on financial performance as measured by the 3-year average pretax return on assets.     

中国食品工业产业集聚影响因素分析

本研究通过统计方法衡量和分析我国食品工业在空间上的变化情况，运用经济理论寻找影响我国食品产业集聚的主要因素，建立计量经济模型，并利用食品行业Panel数据对上述因素进行实证检验。研究发现，1993-2003年，我国食品工业、食品加工业、食品制造业、饮料制造业和烟草加工业均存在空间集聚趋势；基期水平、要素投入、行业规模效应、产业关联、空间外溢性、交通运输和地方保护主义对地区食品工业发展和产业集聚有着显著影响。     

The Geography of Foreign Direct Investment in Poland's Food Industry

In this paper a gravity model is developed to analyse cumulative FDI inflows into Poland's food industry during the 1990s. The FDI data is related to characteristics of 28 countries of investor‐origin. The results confirmed earlier studies with respect to important links between FDI, trade, and labour costs, as well as the general appropriateness of the basic gravity model formulation. Geographical distance was found to be a significant determinant of FDI in staple food industries, but not in high value‐added, branded confectionery, beverage, and tobacco production, suggesting that different industry‐branches might be globalised to a differing extent.     

Foreign Direct Investment and the Performance of European Agribusiness Firms

This article analyses the relationship between foreign direct investment and the performance of European agribusiness firms. Motivated by the role of heterogeneous firms in new trade theory and using a firm‐level dataset, statistical analyses identify key differences between firms investing in foreign economies and those that do not. A binary choice model quantifies the relationship between firm characteristics and the decision to engage in foreign investment. Size and – less strongly – productivity are greater for multinationals relative to domestic firms. Furthermore, European multinationals are characterised by a larger debt to equity ratio and show lower labour and input costs.