Measuring Production and Irrigation Efficiencies of Rice Farms: Evidence from the Punjab Province,Pakistan

We employ a non‐parametric approach, data envelopment analysis, to estimate the technical and irrigation efficiency of rice farms in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. We use a cross‐sectional dataset of 80 rice growers, including 45 tube‐well owners and 35 water buyers. Mean technical efficiency scores show that tube‐well owners and water buyers are operating at fairly high efficiency levels, indicating that access to technology is not a major constraint. However, irrigation inefficiency is pronounced, with water buyers being more inefficient than tube‐well owners. A bootstrap truncated regression is used to investigate the determinants of technical and irrigation efficiency. We suggest that groundwater management policies should be designed to address efficiency enhancing factors such as knowledge of crop water consumption requirement, better credit opportunities, outreach extension services and training programs.     

Environmental evaluation of agri-environment schemes using participatory approaches: Experiences of testing the Agri-Environmental Footprint Index

The Agri-Environment Footprint Index (AFI) has been developed as a generic methodology to assess changes in the overall environmental impacts from agriculture at the farm level and to assist in the evaluation of European agri-environmental schemes (AES). The methodology is based on multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and involves stakeholder participation to provide a locally customised evaluation based on weighted environmental indicators. The methodology was subjected to a feasibility assessment in a series of case studies across the EU. The AFI approach was able to measure significant differences in environmental status between farms that participated in an AES and non-participants. Wider environmental concerns, beyond the scheme objectives, were also considered in some case studies and the benefits for identification of unintentional (and often beneficial) impacts of AESs are presented. The participatory approach to AES evaluation proved efficient in different environments and administrative contexts. The approach proved to be appropriate for environmental evaluation of complex agri-environment systems and can complement any evaluation conducted under the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. The applicability of the AFI in routine monitoring of AES impacts and in providing feedback to improve policy design is discussed.     

Agricultural commodities pricing model applied to the Brazilian sugar market

This article suggests a pricing model for commodities used to produce biofuel. The model is based on the concept that the deterministic component of the Wiener process is not constant and depends on time and exogenous variables. The model, which incorporates theory of storage, the convenience yield and the seasonality of harvests, was applied in the Brazilian sugar market. After predictions were made with the Kalman filter, the model produced results that were statistically more accurate than those returned by the two‐factor model available in the literature.     

Economic Perspectives on Nutrition Policy Evaluation

Too much food energy intake (relative to expenditure) and unbalanced diets are implicated in a range of diseases that impose major burdens on healthcare systems and cause pain and suffering. Governments have responded by introducing a range of measures, mainly targeting information and education, largely to children. However, more interventionist measures have been advocated and, in the past year, various food taxes have been introduced in Denmark, Hungary and France. The Address discusses evaluation of policies, particularly in the light of alternative theories of diet choice (rational choice, systematically irrational, automatic). The public health approach uses quality adjusted life years but fails to distinguish between private and social benefits and takes no account of the drivers of food choice behaviour. The economic approach, based on informed choice, makes the distinction between private and social benefits (if not always explicitly) but struggles to evaluate policies that change utility functions and with behavioural assumptions other than traditional rationality. Alternative assumptions and approaches could put the cost of unhealthy eating anywhere between £10 billion and £100 billion per annum in the UK. Evidence suggests that information measures (to perform or persuade) do not much change diets, nor do they tackle the externality element of unhealthy eating. They may, however, help change long‐term social norms. More interventionist measures like taxes improve social welfare (according to the compensation principle) and reduce health inequalities but are regressive, like all sin taxes. Almost all interventions pass cost‐effectiveness tests.     

Women rule: potato markets,cellular phones and access to information in the Bolivian highlands

In highland Bolivia, potato markets are widespread and access to market information has entered the digital age. Information networks lubricated by ubiquitous cellular technologies are supplanting traditional means of information‐gathering. We explore the impacts of access to cellular phones on market selection, use of social networks to acquire information, and gendered responsibilities within the potato market chain near Cochabamba. The entire family participates in potato production and marketing, but responsibilities are differentiated by gender. Men take a leading role in potato production and women in marketing. Access to cellular phones affects decisions about where to market potatoes and improves the potato marketing process.     

Differentiating Indexation in Dutch Pension Funds

Funded social security programs are particularly vulnerable to economic and financial market shocks. As a consequence of the recent crisis, a large fraction of the Dutch pension funds had to submit restoration plans for the recovery of their buffers. Such plans will have to rely primarily on a mix of reduced benefit indexation and increased pension contributions. Hence, a discussion has emerged whether indexation should be differentiated across the various groups of participants in a pension fund. We investigate this issue numerically, developing an applied many-generation small open-economy OLG model with heterogeneous agents. The pension system consists of a first-pillar PAYG component and a second pillar with a pension fund. In our stochastic simulations, we hit the economy with a variety of unexpected demographic, economic and financial shocks. We compare uniform indexation of pension rights across all fund participants with alternatives such as status-contingent indexation in which pensions are protected against price inflation. While the aggregate welfare consequences are small, group-specific consequences are more substantial with the workers and future born losing and retirees benefitting from a shift away from uniform indexation. The exception is a scheme which links indexation directly to the fund’s asset performance. Under this scheme the retired benefit without other groups losing. The welfare effects are primarily the result of systematic welfare redistributions rather than of shifts in the benefits of risk sharing. Contribution rates always have to rise substantially from their initial levels to maintain the system’s sustainability. An increase in the retirement age that leaves existing pension rights untouched does little to avoid this rise with its adverse labour market consequences.