Aid-for-trade facilitation

‘Aid for Trade’ is an ongoing and high-profile discussion associated with the Doha negotiations of the World Trade Organization. It also relates to questions of how best to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Questions remain, however, about whether foreign aid spent on trade facilitation increases trade flows of developing countries. Does it work differently from aid in general? Using detailed data on aid flows from the OECD, the analysis here estimates the relationship between specific types of aid and trade flows, both globally and of the aid recipients. The findings indicate that aid spent on promoting trade is positively associated with global trade. For most types of such aid-for-trade facilitation, it is relatively more strongly associated with recipient exports than their imports. In contrast ‘other’ types of aid are more strongly associated with recipient imports. Based on elasticities estimated over 16 years of trade and aid data for 40 donor countries and about 170 country trading pairs, our results suggest that a 1% increase in aid-for-trade facilitation (of about US220 million in 2008) correlates to about US 220 million in 2008) correlates to about US 290 million of additional exports from the aid receiving countries.     

INNOVATION AND COMPETITION IN GENERATION AND RETAIL POWER MARKETS

There has been considerable merger activity in EU energy markets in recent years. It could be argued that competition authorities should be required to take into account potential innovation effects of mergers. In the UK, regulators are now trying to achieve multiple objectives within the current framework. There is a danger that if markets are expected to deliver mutually incompatible objectives they will be unable to achieve any of them.     

Publikationen deutschsprachiger Forscher in?Top-Journals (3. Quartal 2010)

Aktuelle Publikationen

Publikationen deutschsprachiger Forscher in Top-Journals (3. Quartal 2010)     

The role of rural producer organizations for agricultural service provision in fragile states

This article assesses the extent of external linkages and the provision of agricultural services by rural producer organizations in a post‐conflict setting. Using new survey data collected by the International Food Policy Research Institute in three provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this study finds that various internal and external factors affect the capacity of organizations to interact with external organizations. External linkages, ability to collect financial support from their members, management capacity, and formal governance structures all contribute to explaining relative performance in agricultural service delivery. We also find that exogenous events affect the relative performance of rural producer organizations. Our results suggest that closeness to conflict reduces the capacity of producer organizations to provide agricultural services.     

Employee isolation and support for change in the public sector: a study of the internal audit profession

ABSTRACT

We investigate the preferences of public sector internal auditors for changes in their work practices. Informed by the literature, we posit that feelings of trust in the workplace and/or frustrations arising from perceived organizational ‘isolation’—a dimension of work alienation—motivate support and acceptance of change. We also argue that professional bodies directly and indirectly influence these relationships. These conjectures are tested using structural equation modelling and a survey of Canadian public sector internal auditors. The findings provide valuable insights into the process of adaptation and transformation in public sector settings across countries, jurisdictions, and accountability functions.     

Impacts of Vessel Capacity Reduction Programmes on Efficiency in Fisheries: the Case of Australia’s Multispecies Northern Prawn Fishery

Capacity reduction programmes, in the form of buybacks or decommissioning, have had relatively widespread application in fisheries in the US, Europe and Australia. A common criticism of such programmes is that they remove the least efficient vessels first, resulting in an increase in average efficiency of the remaining fleet, which tends to increase the effective fishing power of the remaining fleet. In this paper, the effects of a buyback programme on average technical efficiency in Australia’s Northern Prawn Fishery are examined using a multi‐output production function approach with an explicit inefficiency model. As expected, the results indicate that average efficiency of the remaining vessels was generally greater than that of the removed vessels. Further, there was some evidence of an increase in average scale efficiency in the fleet as the remaining vessels were closer, on average, to the optimal scale. Key factors affecting technical efficiency included company structure and the number of vessels fishing. In regard to fleet size, our model suggests positive externalities associated with more boats fishing at any point in time (due to information sharing and reduced search costs), but also negative externalities due to crowding, with the latter effect dominating the former. Hence, the buyback resulted in a net increase in the individual efficiency of the remaining vessels due to reduced crowding, as well as raising average efficiency through removal of less efficient vessels.     

A general model of customer-class pricing

A theory of utility customer-class pricing is developed, and a firm's pricing incentives under various objectives are derived. Rate of return regulation is shown to motivate non-optimal prices in an output counterpart to the Averch-Johnson effect.     

夏威夷农产品礼物篮的消费者偏好分析——对于广州购买者的问卷研究

文章使用广州的调研数据,采用联合分析方法研究了消费者对于高价值、夏威夷生产的食品礼物篮的偏好.我们计算了相对重要性指标衡量消费者对礼物篮属性的评价.研究得到了三点结论:(1)食品和容器应为"夏威夷制造",从而使得消费者愿意支付高的价格;(2)企业消费者一般不愿意为礼物篮支付高的价格;(3)个人消费者愿意支付高价格的奎阿相思木礼物篮.这说明一个新兴的高消费阶层在中国出现.     

Scale Effects and Mark-ups in the US Food and Fibre Industries: Capital Investment and Import Penetration Impacts

Capital investment patterns and import penetration are often alleged to influence firms' costs and prices, and thus economic performance. We examine the impacts of these factors on measures of scale economies, input demand/composition, and market power in the US food and fibre industries. Flexible variable cost functions incorporating quasi-fixity of three categories of private (internal) capital and two external technological and trade (import) factors represent the cost structures of the two industries. Pricing equations, based on inverse demand functions including import prices, represent output decisions. Cost and demand elasticities constructed from this model indicate reduced manufacturing costs from technical and trade, scale and capital effects. This increased cost efficiency arises largely from materials savings in the textiles industry and reduced labour use in the food industry. Mark-up behaviour is exhibited for most of the sample period in the textiles industry, and neither industry appears heavily affected by import prices.     

George Bain and a ‘Mechanistic Formula’: the Purposes and Politics of £3.60

This response to George Bain’s most recent defence of the Low Pay Commission’s first report and recommendations argues the case for a higher minimum wage tied to average earnings which seriously tackles the poverty and discrimination suffered by many employees