MORE ON WELFARE GAINS TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES FROM LIBERALIZING WORLD FOOD TRADE

The common presumption that food-importing developing countries would be harmed by a liberalization of world food trade is questioned in this paper. Both theory and new empirical modelling evidence suggest the possibility of the opposite conclusion. Even if just advanced industrial countries were to liberalize their food trade, the present empirical analysis (using a model of world food markets) suggests that economic welfare and net foreign exchange earnings from food trade could improve for the vast majority of developing countries. The extent to which that gain would be greater if developing countries also were to liberalize their policies affecting food markets is shown as well. The analysis helps to reconcile differences between previous results using partial-equilibrium models and those derived from computable general equilibrium models.     

PRODUCER COOPERATIVES,INPUT PRICING AND LAND ALLOCATION

This paper considers input pricing rules for a producer cooperative which supplies its members with two inputs: a publicly provided private input (water), and a local public input (road services). An Israeli Moshav which allocates land equally among producers is a good example. The cooperative uses a two-part pricing rule: a product-dependent uniform fee (head tax) and a user charge per unit of the private input. Discrimination of head tax among the producer groups is shown to dominate that of user charge in the short run. However, land reallocation among producers can result in a Pareto-superior pricing rule and the Henry George theorem emerges in the long run. Thus, allowing land leasing while maintaining equal rights to land increases producer welfare.     

The Local Economic Impacts of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in Saskatchewan

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan seeks to improve wildlife habitat and increase waterfowl numbers through voluntary transactions with farmers to modify their land management practices. The impact of modified land use practices on the incomes of participating farmers and the regional economy are estimated. The compensation offered under the Plan for modification of land use is determined to adequately offset any loss in participants' income. Income losses to the community due to reduced farm input sales were more than offset by the increase in NAWMP direct expenditures (excluding compensation payments). Distributional effects and externalities must be recognized and monitored to ensure success of the program     

Determinants of export performance

Comparative advantage, government incentives and entrepreneurial dynamics as determinants of a country’s export performance are discussed in this article. The author’s particular attention is focussed on the present situation and future perspectives of the less developed countries.     

Problems now and in the past

In some places, voices are raised today which assert that development aid is not worth the noise that is being made about it, because the industrialised countries went through exactly the same phase of development by their own, unaided efforts and still had arrived where they are now. Any development aid, so it is said, will only paralyse the determination of LDCs to aid themselves. The author discusses this assertion in the following article.     

进言中国企业:如何攻略美国市场

我们正看到一种趋势初露端倪.这种趋势将很快成为下个10年里中国商业战略的"主流".更多的有战略头脑的中国公司开始在全世界展开直接的兼并业务,尤其是在美国.     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne ZusammenfassungÜbersetzt von Gerhard Tintner, WienÜbersetzt von Ragnar Nurkse, z. Zt. Wienaus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Dr. Hans Fried, WienÜbersetzt von Paul Brüll, Wien.Aus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Dr. Hans Fried.     

Child care voucher and labour market behaviour: experimental evidence from Finland

This article provides experimental estimates of the impact of a voucher for private care on labour force participation and use of private and public child care within the Nordic system of universal provision of public care. In a market that was providing high-quality, low-cost public child care, a voucher is nevertheless found to have a significant, positive effect for the use of private child care with zero effects on either use of public care or labour force participation. The use of private increased by five percentage points in the whole country and by five to seven percentage points in areas that suffer from excess demand for child care as a result of the introduction of the private child care voucher.