Does Agricultural Growth in Poor Countries Harm Agricultural-Exporting Rich Countries?

The commonly held view that agricultural-exporting developed countries would lose from agricultural growth in less-developed countries (LDCs) is shown to be based on an incomplete argument. It considers only the effects on LDC agricultural supply, or at best only that and the first-round effects of increased farmer incomes on the demand for tradables. What also needs to be considered is the effect on the demand for nontradables and hence the second-round effects of increased spending by producers of nontradables. When all these effects are considered, the positive correlations obtained between agricultural output growth in LDCs and agricultural imports from developed countries is not surprising. It is then shown that selling or giving away agricultural research and management skills to developing countries can be beneficial to developed countries, including agricultural exporters: by setting out to do good, they may end up also doing well.     

AGRICULTURAL SELLING CARTELS: RELATIVE CO-OPERATOR AND NON-COOPERATOR GAINS*

An analytical framework is developed for assessing the relative gains accruing to co-operators and non co-operators in a cartel arrangement involving production quotas. Key parameters determining the relative gains are identified. The values of these parameters in the context of Australian agriculture could result in greater gains for non co-operators than for co-operators. Suggestions are offered on some types of information that should be sought in feasibility studies before cartels are established.     

The Impact of Generic Advertising on U.S. Household Cheese Purchases: A Censored Autocorrelated Regression Approach

The impacts of generic cheese advertising on U.S. household cheese purchases are examined via the use of a unique household panel. Modest gains in overall at-home cheese purchases from generic cheese advertising appear to be largely the result of strong gains in purchases of natural cheese rather than processed cheese. Results indicate that relatively larger gains in household cheese purchases from generic advertising may be realized by targeting infrequent purchasers to increase purchase frequencies, rather than by targeting households in general to increase their conditional purchase levels.     

Implications of agricultural trade liberalization for the developing countries

The developing countries as a group could expect to experience only small welfare gains if they chose not to actively participate in agricultural trade liberalization and relied solely on the benefits of partial liberalization in the OECD countries. Participation along the lines of the Dunkel package, with the developing countries reducing positive assistance by less than the developed countries, would yield gains of the order of US $20 billion. More comprehensive participation in trade liberalization involving reductions of both positive and negative protection would almost triple these welfare gains. While some developing countries do not gain from trade liberalization even with full participation, the number of such countries and the magnitude of their losses are greatly reduced.     

POTENTIAL GAINS FROM THE ENCLOSURE OF COMMON LAND: A COMMENT

A recemt attempt has been made in this journal by Colin Baxter and Anthony Battomley to demonstrate that in modern underdeveloped countries there are potential gains from the enclosure of common land. It was their hypothesis that the source of the gains in a static situation is a particular reallocation of the factors of production. The first purpose of this paper is to suggest that this hypothesis is incorrect. The second purpose is to re-examine the source of the gains from enclosure and to offer an alternative model which considers both the static and dynamic aspects of the economic disadvantage of communal land ownership and the economic effects of replacing it by private properly rights.     

An Income Capitalization Model for Land Value with Provisions for Ordinary Income and Long-term Capital Gains Taxation

This paper addresses the problem of growth, taxation, capital gains taxation and capital gains exemption on farmland bid prices. A maximum bid price model is developed that takes into consideration these factors. The results indicate that capital gains taxation decreases the bid price but this reduction is mitigated by the $500,000 capital gains exemption. The results also support the hypothesis that growth, taxation and discount rates do interact to affect the bid price.
Les auteurs examinent l'incidence de la croissance, de la fiscalité, de Fimposition des gains de capital et des exemptions pertinentes sur le prix aux enchères des terres agricoles. Ces facteurs ont servi à élaborer un modèle du prix maximum obtenu aux encheres. Les resultats montrent que I'imposition des gains de capital réduit le prix aux enchères, mais que la baisse est atténuée par l' exemption de 500 000 $. lis confirment également l' hypothèse que la croissance, la fiscalité et le taux d' escompte interagissent pour modifier les prix aux enchères.     

The Role of Innovation in Farm Economic Sustainability: Generalised Propensity Score Evidence from Irish Dairy Farms

We assess the impact of innovation on Irish dairy farm economic sustainability by focusing on profitability, productivity of land and market orientation. A generalised propensity score method is applied to a representative sample of 342 Irish dairy farms. Our empirical findings reveal that innovation increases economic sustainability, but not in a linear way. More specifically, economic gains depend on the level of innovation. Small efforts to increase innovation can lead to economic gains of over €200 per hectare. The results also reveal that innovative farmers can achieve higher economic gains by further innovation. Overall, our findings support the current focus of the Irish extension system on fostering the uptake of innovative technologies and practices in order to achieve an economically sustainable expansion of the dairy sector.     

Upstream demand for water use by new tree plantations imposes externalities on downstream irrigated agriculture and wetlands*

Large‐scale tree plantations in high rainfall upstream areas can reduce fresh water inflows to river systems, thereby imposing external costs on downstream irrigation, stock and domestic water users and wetland interests. We take the novel approach of expressing all benefits and costs of establishing plantations in terms of $ per gigalitre (GL) of water removed annually from river flows, setting upstream demands on the same basis as downstream demands. For the Macquarie Valley, a New South Wales sub‐catchment of Australia’s Murray‐Darling Basin, we project changes in land and water use and changes in economic surpluses under two policy settings: without and with a policy requiring permanent water entitlements to be purchased from downstream parties, before plantation establishment. Without the policy, and given a high stumpage value for trees ($70/m³), upstream gains in economic surplus projected from expanding plantations are $639 million; balanced against $233 million in economic losses by downstream irrigators and stock and domestic water users for a net gain of $406 million, but 345 GL lower mean annual environmental flows. With the policy, smaller gains in upstream economic surplus from trees ($192 million), added to net downstream gains ($138 million) from sale of water, result in gains of $330 million with no reduction in environmental flows. Sustaining the 345 GL flow for a $76 million (406–330) reduction in gains to economic surplus may be seen to cost only $0.22 million/GL; but this is much lower than the market value of the first units of that water to agriculture and forestry.     

供应链视角的农业龙头企业食品安全行为期望效用影响因素研究——基于广东省3O家省级以上农业龙头企业的问卷调查

农业龙头企业是食品的重要供给者,处于整个食品供应链的核心环节,其食品安全行为的运行效率将直接影响到整个供应链中食品的安全性。本文以广东省30家省级以上农业龙头企业数据为基础,通过建立多元回归模型和采用逐步回归的方法,从供应链角度探索了企业食品安全行为期望效用的影响因素。研究结果表明：原材料控制强弱、认证水平、前期收益因素对食品安全行为的期望效用有显著正向影响;并且,前期收益变量在原材料控制强弱与期望效用、认证水平与期望效用的关系中都起着完全中介作用：可追踪制度的建立对前期收益有显著正向的影响。     

RELATIVE RATES OF RESOURCE RETURNS FOR ONTARIO COMMERCIAL FARMS - A FARM TO NONFARM COMPARISON, 1971–1974

This study examines the rates of return to resources in commercial agriculture in Ontario relative to the rates of return that similar resources could expect to earn in the nonfarm sector. Farm returns, which are defined to include net farm income plus capital gains to farm real estate, are measured for a selected group of Ontario farms over a four year period from 1971 to 1974. Two farm to nonfarm returns comparisons are made, based on comparable nonfarm earnings for farm resources calculated in terms of 1) a self-employment standard, and 2) a wage-earner-stockholder standard. Each comparison examines four return components for both farm and nonfarm returns: the labour return, the management return, the investment yield, and capital gains. Returns ratios are calculated, both including and excluding capital gains, to compare farm to nonfarm returns for each comparison. The overall returns comparisons indicate that rates of return to resources in commercial agriculture are generally quite close to comparable nonfarm rates of return, with capital gains constituting an important component of farm returns. At the same time the returns comparisons reveal a high degree of variability of rates of return among farms and over time. La présente étude compare les taux de rémunération des ressources des l'agriculture commerciale en Ontario et qu'engendreraient ces mêmes ressources dans un secteur d'activité non agricole. Les revenus agricoles, que Ton définit comme la somme du revenue net d'un exploitant et des gains provenant de ses placements immobiliers, ont étéévalués en Ontario pour un groupe d'exploitations pendant une période de quatre ans, 1971 à 1974. Deux normes de revenus non agricoles, à savoir l'entreprise privée et le salariéactionnaire, ont été retenues et compareées avec le revenu de l'exploitant agricole. Chaque norme comporte quatre éléments de rémunération: le travail, la gestion, le rendement de l'investissement et les gains en capitaux. Les rapports ont été calculés pour chaque norme de deux façons, avec ou sans les gains en capitaux, afin de comparer les revenus agricoles aux revenus non agricoles escomptés. La comparaison générate montre que dans l'ensemble le taux de revenu des ressources de l'agriculture commerciale se rapproche de ceux escomptés pour les activités non agricoles, et que les gains en capitaux constituent une bonne part des revenus de l'exploitant agricole. En outre, l'analyse révèle un degréélevé de variabilité des taux de revenu en fonction des divers exploitants et du facteur temps.     

新一轮多哈贸易自由化对中国农业的影响

多哈贸易自由化对中国农业的影响一直存在很大争论。与以往的研究不同,本文应用一般均衡模型GTAP与局部均衡模型CAPSIM对接的方法测算新一轮多哈贸易自由化对中国农业的影响。研究显示,贸易自由化总体上对中国经济有正面的影响,只不过影响幅度很小,但农业部门会在多哈自由化中享受相对较大的贸易优势;从分产品的贸易和生产来看,粮食作物、果蔬等产品有正的影响,而对畜产品和食糖会有负的影响;虽然贸易自由化对中国农民收入来说只有很小的正面影响,但这种影响在不同收入组之间差别很大,其中高收入组农民要比低收入组农民受益更多,贸易自由化在一定程度上会使农民的贫富差距拉大。     

Trade Preferences for Developing Countries: An Analysis of Canada's Trade with the Caribbean Basin

This paper analyzes the potential impact of Canada's newest trade preference agreement with the Caribbean Basin. The analysis shows that overall static trade expansion gains are limited to £536,000 per year and are confined to a narrow range of commodities. Greatest potential is found to exist in fresh vegetables, cocoa and chocolate products and sauces. The analysis also shows that more than 87% of the gains from trade expansion will redound to the benefit of Jamaican entrepreneurs.     

Is late really better than never? The farmer welfare effects of pineapple adoption in Ghana

Export agriculture offers potentially high returns to smallholder farmers in developing countries, but also carries substantial market risk. In this article we examine the intertemporal welfare impact of the timing of a farmer's entry into the export pineapple market in southern Ghana. We examine whether farmers who never cultivated pineapple are better or worse off than farmers who decided to adopt pineapple earlier or later relative to their peers and experienced a significant adverse market shock several years prior to our endline survey. We use a two‐stage least squares model to estimate the causal effect of duration of pineapple farming on farmer welfare. Consistent with economic theory, we find that earlier adoption of the new crop brings greater welfare gains than does later uptake. But we find that the gains to later uptake of pineapple—just before the market shock—are small in magnitude, just 0.1 standard deviations of a comprehensive asset index, indicating that the gains to adoption may be precarious and depend on the context, in particular on the severity of prospective market shocks.     

The Migration of Young Adults from Non-Metropolitan Counties

This article examines young adult migration from non-metropolitan counties to either different non-metropolitan counties or to metropolitan areas. The results show that expected gains in initial earnings provide young entrants to the labor force with a marked incentive to migrate from their non-metropolitan counties of origin. Initial earnings gains stem, in part, from higher returns to schooling in both metropolitan areas and other non-metropolitan counties. The propensity to migrate is also sensitive to the costs of migration, which, in turn, are correlated with paternal education and the local presence of extended family.     

Evaluating Agricultural Productivity and Policy in Russia

Russia's transition to a market economy in the early 1990s shocked its agricultural sector, creating the potential for profit and gains from specialisation and productivity improvements. However, subsequent regional agricultural development has been highly uneven, and the sources of the sector's productivity improvement remain unclear. Drawing on a newly-assembled Russian regional farm production and policy dataset, we evaluate agricultural total factor productivity growth from 1994 to 2013, decomposing that growth into technical progress and efficiency gains, for the nation as a whole and for the major agricultural districts of the South and Central. We then test how investments in road and rail infrastructure and human capital have influenced those gains. The South substantially outperformed the Central district and the nation at large with respect to all three performance indicators. However, contrary to the literature, we find that these particular state policies provided no substantial growth advantages, there or elsewhere. Rather, the dominant force behind Russia's agricultural growth has been informal technical change.     

Sequential Adoption of Site-Specific Technologies and Its Implications for Nitrogen Productivity: A Double Selectivity Model

This paper analyzes the sequential decision to adopt two site-specific technologies, soil testing and variable rate technology, and the impact of adoption on nitrogen productivity. The results indicate that while farm location was a key variable influencing adoption of soil testing, farm size, human capital, and innovativeness of farmers had a significant impact on adoption of variable rate technology in four Midwestern states. A double selectivity model applied to correct for sample selection bias shows that adoption leads to significant gains in nitrogen productivity for farms with below average soil quality but statistically insignificant gains for farms with above average soil quality.     

Developing Countries and the Gains from Regionalism: Links between Trade and Farm Policy Reforms in Mexico

We use a multi–country computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with agricultural policy details to simulate the effects of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We find that Mexico gains from NAFTA only when it also removes domestic distortions in agriculture. In that case, agriculture can generate allocative efficiency gains large enough to offset the terms of trade losses that arise because Mexico has higher initial tariffs than its NAFTA partners. When an RTA forces a developing country to reform its domestic distortions that are linked to trade restrictions, it becomes a building block toward multilateralism.     

首轮退耕补贴到期对农户退耕地利用意愿影响研究——基于农户主观福利的中介检验

[目的]考察退耕补贴到期对农户退耕地利用意愿的影响以及主观福利的中介效应,为巩固退耕还林成果、推动退耕还林高质量发展提供决策参考。[方法]文章基于河北省473户参与首轮退耕的农户数据,构建类别变量中介模型,实证检验退耕补贴到期对农户退耕地利用意愿的影响,并进一步探究主观福利是否在退耕补贴到期影响农户退耕地利用意愿的关系中具有中介效应。[结果]（1）退耕补贴到期会增强农户对退耕地的复耕、换树种和流转意愿,降低农户的管护意愿;（2）退耕补贴到期会造成农户主观福利的下降;（3）主观福利在退耕补贴到期与农户退耕地管护、复耕和换树种意愿的关系中具有中介效应。[结论]政府应及时出台退耕还林后续相关政策,提升农户主观福利水平,并加强退耕地流转机制建设,从而保障退耕还林成果的可持续性,实现退耕还林的高质量发展。     

US TENDANCES DE LA PRODUCTIVITE TOTALE DANS L'AGRICULTURE: CANADA, ONTARIO, QUEBEC, 1926–64

This paper measures and analyses the changes in total productivity of Canadian, Ontario and Quebec agriculture for the period 1926 to 1964. The rate of growth in productivity from 1945 to 1964 has been about the same for Canadian and Ontario agriculture while that of Quebec has been higher than either by one per cent a year. Total productivity gains correspond to decreases in the average costs of production at the farm level. Quebec's farmers have therefore improved their relative position as competitors. These productivity gains have important and far reaching implications not only for fanners and the agricultural industry but also for the provinces and the entire Canadian economy.     

Pareto-Improving Water Management over Space and Time: The Honolulu Case

We model welfare gains from efficient allocation of groundwater over space and time relative to the status quo policy of financial cost recovery. In order to promote political feasibility, an intertemporal compensation plan is devised that renders the reform Pareto-improving. Gainers from the reform finance the compensation in proportion to their benefits through a block-pricing scheme. For the Honolulu case, only 7% of the $441 million in gains to winners is needed to compensate losers from the reform. Future winners from the reform also repay the deficit created by the compensation package, much as state and local governments finance capital improvements.