Economic impacts of developing a biofuel industry in Mozambique

ABSTRACT

Mozambique is one of the most promising African countries for producing biofuels and the national biofuel policy of 2009 identifies measures to incentivize biofuel production. Demand for biofuels in the Southern African Development Community is expected to increase over the next few years as 7 of its 15 member states have implemented or proposed the implementation of blending mandates by 2020. South Africa is one of these countries. Using a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, we estimate the impacts of expanding biofuel production in Mozambique under both commercial and smallholder-type farming models, including and excluding bagasse cogeneration.     

Economy-wide implications of biofuel production in Zambia

ABSTRACT

Potential biofuel demand in South Africa is estimated to increase to 1550 million litres by 2025 due to mandatory blending rates. Land and water constraints, however, limit the ability for domestic production. Zambia, due to its abundance in land, suitable climate, supportive set of bioenergy incentives and close geographical location to South Africa, has the potential to meet this increase in demand. Using a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium model, we estimate the macro- and socio-economic impacts of bioethanol production in Zambia from three potential crops: sugarcane, cassava and sweet sorghum. The results show that the development of a single product bioethanol industry has the potential to increase economic growth without negatively affecting overall food security. Further expansion of the industry to multiple products results in larger gains to growth and welfare.     

Biofuels technology development in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

The benefits of biofuels depend on the feedstock, conversion pathway and local context. This paper assesses biofuels technology readiness and developments to provide foresight to biofuels development in Southern Africa. Efficient conversion pathways, coupled with biomass from waste or high-yielding energy crops, will reduce both the costs of biofuels production, and the environmental impacts. Compared to petroleum fuels, the current commercial biofuels (ethanol, biogas and biodiesel) typically offer carbon emission reductions of 30–50% but are marginally more expensive. The extent of biofuels market penetration will therefore be influenced by mandates (blending targets) and subsidies (green premium). Advanced biofuels promise greater efficiencies and carbon emission reductions at reduced cost but will require further research and development to reach commercialisation. If developed appropriately, biofuels can reduce carbon emissions and improve energy security, while enabling sustainable agriculture and improved natural resources management.     

Impacts of Food and Energy Price Hikes and Proposed Coping Strategies

Based on sample survey data for the years 2006 and 2007, we find that inflation of food and energy prices in China is moving at a slower pace than in the international market; however, the livelihood of low income groups has been significantly impacted. Urban sample households in low income groups have been shifting from consumption of high value food to lower value substitutes; and all of the rural sample households are reducing their total consumption expenditure in real terms. The Engel＇ s coefficient of the rural household enlarged while their proportion of spending on clothing and energy declined. Farmers＇ households are moving toward more imbalanced diets, and the nutritional status of the poor is apparently deteriorating. The emergency-response measures that the government should implement include stopping subsidies to biofuel producers, who use foodstuffs as inputs, and providing food aid to the poor. The mid-term strategies should include anti-monopoly tactics, improving the market environment for the right competition, and eliminating price distortion. Midterm and long-term socioeconomic policy reform must be undertaken to adjust the social structure, to correct the mechanism of factor price formation, and to transform the pattern of economic growth.     

Foodcrop Demand in Indonesia: A Systems Approach

Aggregate agricultural commodity demand parameters are estimated, based on an application of the Deaton and Muellbauer Almost Ideal Demand System to a seventeen year Indonesian time-series data set of prices, expenditures and consumption availability. The statistical results are generally significant and correctly signed. The revealed demand relationships imply that the Indonesian food Staples are normal goods. Expenditure elasticities are higher for the higher value foodstuffs than for the lower value starchy staples. Furthermore, the demand for rice has become highly inelastic to both own and cross-price interventions. This implies that rice price interventions will require a high degree of fine-tuning in order to stabilise prices effectively, and that low urban rice prices cannot be regarded as an appropriate, or even second best policy instrument for improving nutritional status.

A high degree of Substitution between rice and secondary food crops, and amongst groups of secondary food crops, is identified. The significance of the cross-price elasticities for the secondary food crops suggests that single-market interventions will have non-trivial budget-mediated effects in other commodity markets. The management of a multi-commodity food policy requires that the spillover effects from commodity pricing policy must be taken into account in order to optimise the effects of price policy interventions.     

Inflation in developing Asia: pass‐through from global food and oil price shocks

The world economy experienced a sharp spike in food and oil prices during 2007 and 2008. In light of developing Asia's dependence on imported oil and food, we can expect higher global food and oil prices to result in higher domestic consumer prices in the region. However, the actual impact of the global commodity shocks on consumer price inflation in developing Asia depends on a number of other factors, including government policy measures. The objective of this paper is to examine empirically the extent of the pass‐through of global food and oil prices to domestic consumer prices in nine countries in the region. The main empirical result is that the magnitude of the pass‐through has been limited. Government policy measures, for example, subsidies and price controls, played a role in reducing or delaying the pass‐through of oil and food price increases to domestic prices.     

Constraints to biofuel feedstock production expansion in Zambia

ABSTRACT

World biofuel production has been increasing to improve energy security and mitigate global warming. Southern Africa’s bioenergy demand could increase with South Africa’s planned fuel blending mandates, triggering increased demand for feedstocks and agricultural land. Ensuring sustained production will require a full understanding of the constraints to production expansion, considering the tradeoffs that may be generated in rural areas, as has been observed for large-scale land acquisitions. We analyse the social and biophysical constraints to biofuel production expansion in Zambia. Previously social constraints have received limited attention even though they may prove more problematic. Results indicate that Zambia is at least moderately suitable for bioenergy investments with biophysically suitable areas largely coinciding with the socially suitable areas. However, existing gaps in compensatory procedures may inhibit large-scale projects’ access to development finance if not aligned with internationally acceptable practices, and generate negative outcomes if safeguards are not in place.     

United States Demand for Indonesian Plywood 1

Indonesia's exports of plywood are the largest in the world and a leading source of foreign exchange earnings. Although the industry's growth has been rapid, several studies indicate that it has been subsidised both directly and indirectly. What are the prospects for Indonesia to offset these subsidies by raising plywood prices as its share of key import markets grows? This paper sheds light on this question by analyzing econometrically the United States' imports of Indonesian plywood from July 1979 to December 1986, using a monthly import demand model. The results suggest that Indonesia's rapid expansion into the US plywood market has been due primarily to its low plywood prices, and that attempts to raise prices relative to those of competing export regions would result in significant reductions in market share.     

Changes in the living standards of the poor in Sri Lanka during a period of macroeconomic restructuring

Beginning in 1977, Sri Lanka moved away from its welfare-oriented economy characterized by extensive government intervention in controlling prices and expensive consumer subsidies toward a more market-oriented, outward-looking liberalized economy. Investment increased due largely to dramatic increases in the inflow of foreign capital combined with greater deficit financing. Unemployment declined and the rate of growth of GDP increased. The major increase in foreign assistance, coupled with deficit spending, enabled the government to undertake the ambitious infrastructure projects that stimulated demand. However, this policy change had deleterious consequences for the poor. Rapid inflation which resulted in a decline of real wages, coupled with dramatic decreases in the value of the food stamp scheme, brought about a decline in calorie consumption for lower expenditure groups. In addition, levels of malnutrition, as measured by acute wasting, were higher after the policy change.     

Food policy conflicts in Bangladesh

The objective of this paper is to show that the reality of a food policy aim of self-sufficiency is very complex and full of internal inconsistencies. In particular, the author stresses the conflicts of interest between the consumers and producers of foodgrains in Bangladesh, which create obstacles to the success of their recently devised development goals. He sets the scene by providing details of foodgrain production, food availability per capita and levels of malnutrition, and then introduces the policy conflicts in increasing food production. The author then discusses several attempts to resolve the conflict through price control, consumer subsidies, and direct aid to producers through encouraging the use of fertilizers and irrigation. This leads to the conclusion that government policy and outside aid must aim at both the production and the consumption of food in order for increased food supplies to reach those who need them most.     

提升纺织企业节能减排水平的财税政策研究——以浙江省为例

在实地调研基础上总结了影响浙江纺织企业节能减排的资源、环境、经济与社会因素,分析了浙江纺织企业节能减排的困境及其财税政策的不足,提出了促进浙江纺织企业节能减排的财政支出政策与税收政策的建议:在财政支出政策的选择上应注重综合运用政府直接投资、政府采购、财政补贴和转移支付等手段;在税收政策的选择上应综合运用税收优惠政策、差别性的环保税、产品税和消费税政策等。     

Interrelationships in maize markets in Southern Africa I: Structural effects of the farmer support programme

A dynamic linear programming matrix is assembled in order to model the Southern African summer grain industry. Supply, demand and production risk, including interactions with production substitutes, are considered. The model is used to evaluate the possible structural effects of the farmer support programme (FSP) taking into account the interrelationships in grain markets in Southern Africa. The effects are evaluated under different marketing policies with respect to changes in land use, prices and labour requirements. A macro view is taken.

An effective FSP will lead to structural changes in land use, prices of products and labour requirements. The effect of the FSP on production, prices and labour will not only vary according to the success in changing over from subsistence maize production to commercial farming in the developing areas, but is also dependent on marketing policies in general. The interrelationships in agriculture and the economy emphasise the need for an overall policy plan.     

Mises's dynamics of interventionism: Lessons from Indian agriculture

Despite trade liberalization, industrial delicensing, and deregulation in other sectors of the Indian economy since 1991, the agricultural sector is stifled by arbitrary, complex, and ever-increasing regulation in both input and product markets. This article resolves this puzzle of the Indian economy and, using Mises's theory of interventionism, explains the growth of regulation and subsidies in Indian agriculture. I argue that each intervention in agriculture created distortions in the market, necessitating the subsequent intervention in agricultural inputs and/or outputs. Land ceiling policies led to a large number of farmers with small and marginal landholdings. Attempts to increase agricultural productivity and income on small holdings led to interventions, and consequent distortions, in factor markets for seeds, fertilizer, electricity, water, credit, insurance, as well as in output markets in the form of minimum support prices. Indian agriculture policy serves as a cautionary tale of interventionism and needs systematic and comprehensive reforms.     

The role of off-farm employment in the rural energy consumption transition — A village-level analysis in Jiangxi Province, China

Energy consumption in rural areas in China is characterized by high consumption of fuelwood, straw and other biomass. Off-farm employment can play an important role in the transition towards more sustainable sources of energy by increasing rural household incomes and reducing the amount of labor available for biomass collection. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of off-farm employment on rural household energy consumption choices, and to disentangle the various causal relationships that play a role in this respect. To this end, a hybrid farm household/village computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is used that has been calibrated for a remote village in Northeast Jiangxi Province where fuelwood is the main source of energy. The model takes into account nonseparability of farm household production and consumption decisions as well as linkages within the village between households involved in off-farm employment and households with no members working off-farm. Contrary to previous research for a richer region in rural China, we find that fuelwood is not an inferior good. The positive impact of more food consumption on fuelwood collection more than compensates the higher leisure demand associated with higher incomes. Shifts in production activities and in prices on village factor markets caused by increased labour scarcity (the lost-labour effect of off-farm employment), on the other hand, cause a reduction in fuelwood collection and consumption. This lost-labour effect is much stronger for migration than for local off-farm employment, because the latter can more easily be combined with on-farm work and fuelwood collection. For local off-farm employment the income effect dominates the lost-labour effect, resulting in a positive overall impact of higher off-farm participation on fuelwood consumption. For migration, on the other hand, the income effect and the lost-labour effect are almost equal in size. Hence, the amount of fuelwood collected and consumed does not change much when households participate in migration. The final conclusion is therefore that increased off-farm employment opportunities do not promote the transition of rural energy use in the poorer regions of rural China.     

Policy and trade issues for a future regional biofuels market in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the domestic political and legislative context surround biofuels initiatives to highlight what opportunities exist for establishing a biofuels trade network between South Africa (as an anchor market) and its neighbours, specifically in Zambia and Mozambique. By analysing global developments in major biofuel importers, reasons for policy inertia in South Africa, and recent experiences with biofuels investments, we suggest that the likelihood for a regional biofuels market developing is slender without addressing land-related challenges in producer countries and revising South Africa’s domestic legislation.     

Factor reallocation and structural transformation implications of grain subsidies in China

Since agriculture has contributed significantly to China’s economic growth miracle, it is important to understand the contributions and determinants of agriculture related to different agricultural policies in structural transformation in China. However, as one of the most important agricultural policies in China, the effects of the grain subsidy policy on factor reallocation, economic growth, as well as agricultural and non-agricultural production have not been investigated systematically and comprehensively. The absence of using an economy-wide model to estimate the impacts of the grain subsidy policy in China leaves a vacuum in the policy-advising space. This research develops a dynamic single-country, multi-regional computable general equilibrium model of the Chinese economy to evaluate the historical impacts of the grain subsidy policy. Our results reveal that grain subsidies impede the efficiency of factor reallocation and economic structural transformation in China. However, grain subsidies promote grain production growth and temporarily reduce rural-urban income disparity. In order to achieve the long-term sustainable increase in rural income and to mitigate the rural-urban income gap, China needs to further develop its labor-intensive industries (e.g., services) to accommodate the large number of rural labor transfers. Moreover, the large-scale agricultural production and technology improvement in agriculture are the effective measures to ensure food security in China.     

MARKET RESPONSES TO CLIMATE STRESS: RICE IN JAVA IN THE 1930S

Do markets in less-developed countries abate consequences of climate stress? Using changes in regional rice prices across the 19 regions in Java, Indonesia, during 1935–40, this paper will assess how rice markets responded to variations in rainfall, which is an important factor in rice production. It finds that rice markets were highly integrated across Java. The El Niño-induced episodes of lower than usual rainfall in 1935 and 1940 did not have a negative effect on levels and variations in regional rice prices, nor did they have adverse consequences for the supply of rice. Adaptive responses of firms specialising in the trade of rice are argued to have mitigated regional deficiencies in food production caused by climate stress.     

Energy conservation — what price a local initiative?

With the collapse of oil prices, shortages and long term increases in energy prices seem far away, and conservation is the last thing on our minds. Thus, national energy supply monopolies encourage the use rather than conservation of energy, whilst the alleged prospect of a long-term increase in electricity demand is used to justify investment in nuclear power. This article examines how decentralisation and a greater local involvement in national energy policy could overcome this contradiction. It also finds that the conservation strategies developed, after the oil crisis of the 1970's, in several other countries have, surprisingly, no British equivalent.     

优化我国政策性生猪保险制度的研究

2007年以来,为鼓励生猪生产、稳定猪肉价格,我国积极推进政策性生猪保险制度,并不断完善政策性生猪保险的补贴政策,各地形成了各具特色的政策性生猪保险的经营模式,取得了令人瞩目的成绩。文章认为,政策性生猪保险运行中在政策定位、参保意识和经营绩效等方面也暴露出一系列问题。文章最后提出了优化我国政策性生猪保险的对策建议,即强化宣传工作、完善保险产品、逐步推行强制保险制度、提高保险公司运营水平和强化各部门联动机制等。     

Resource utilisation Efficiency: A South African Provincial Evaluation

The objective of this paper is to analyse the utilisation of production capacity and total under‐utilisation in order to identify weak‐performing industries across the nine South African provinces. Detecting inefficiencies within the different provinces will help to identify where sound managerial or government intervention is required, which can contribute to the future success of the New Growth Path Framework and the Strategic Integrated Projects. Using a multistage data envelopment analysis model at the subnational level, several categories of production factors are explored: intermediate demand, labour, capital, as well as taxes and subsidies. The results emphasise South Africa's weak infrastructure and the failure to effectively promote stability in managing factor inputs. The results further illustrate that industry scale efficiency for water and electricity are poorest across all provinces, highlighting the current water and energy supply concerns in South Africa and problem areas associated with the National Development Program.