Demand for milk quantity and safety in urban China: evidence from Beijing and Harbin

Urban households account for most of the milk consumption in China, but their consumption is hampered by safety concerns. Using survey data collected in Beijing and Harbin in 2010, this paper simultaneously analyses urban households' milk consumption using a multiple linear model and their willingness‐to‐pay for milk safety using an ordered choice model. The results of this study show that as income increases, urban households consume more milk and are willing to pay a higher premium for milk safety. Modern food marketing channels play a positive role in stimulating milk consumption and building consumers' confidence in milk safety. The growth in the elderly population influences milk consumption positively, but their demand for milk safety is negatively affected by higher price. The combined analysis of households' demand for milk quantity and safety may be useful to the Chinese government in promoting the development of the domestic milk industry and to dairy firms in exploring the milk market in China.     

Off‐farm labor market decisions and agricultural shocks among rural households in Kenya

Using household level data from rural Kenya, this article explores whether and how farm households respond to unfavorable agricultural production environments, including any ex post adjustments in off‐farm labor supply in response to unexpected weather shocks. While controlling for a wide range of educational, demographic, and other locational factors, we examine how long‐term weather conditions and specific rainfall shocks influence a household's decision to engage in, and their earnings from, the off‐farm labor market. We find that rural households engage in off‐farm work as a long‐term strategy to deal with the effects of anticipated weather conditions on their farming operations. The analysis does not reveal major short‐term adjustments in off‐farm engagement as a result of specific, unexpected rainfall shocks; these households do however rely on remittance income and petty agricultural wage labor under these circumstances. Holding other factors constant, and conditional on participation, households in areas with a more productive local agriculture tend to earn more from off‐farm work especially in the informal/business sector than their counterparts in regions with a less productive agriculture. As expected, a vibrant local economy in the form of public investment increases the probability of off‐farm participation.     

Do Vietnamese upland farmers benefit from high world market prices for maize?

For rural households in the north of Vietnam, maize cropping is the main source of income. In the face of the world market price increases of the recent past, we analyze the regional marketing chain of this commodity qualitatively and econometrically investigating to what extent smallholder farmers in developing countries are affected by international price movements. Vietnamese maize markets are found to be well integrated. Recent price hikes have fully transmitted along the regional supply chain so that farmers profited. Nevertheless, adverse factors such as increasing input prices have neutralized these benefits resulting in a decline in real income of smallholders.     

On the rebound: estimating direct rebound effects for Australian households

Reducing dependence on fossil fuels by decreasing energy consumption is a common environmental policy. One mechanism used to achieve this is to encourage increased energy efficiency. However, improving efficiency may have an opposing effect and cause an increase in energy consumption if the intensity of use changes. This phenomenon is known as the rebound effect. We estimate direct rebound effects for energy use in Australia based on both aggregate residential energy use data and on household energy expenditure data. Our approach implements a new methodology developed by Hunt and Ryan (2014, Catching on the rebound: Why price elasticities are generally inappropriate measures of rebound effects. Surrey Energy Economics Discussion Paper Series SEEDS 148; 2015, Energy Economics 50, 273) that explicitly relates energy service use with energy source demand and directly incorporates measures of efficiency changes. The results indicate that the rebound effect is relatively high for energy use by Australian households. Due to the unique nature of our household data set, we can examine the influence of demographic and housing characteristics. We find that low‐income households and households with vulnerable members have the largest rebound effects. The relatively large rebound effects found here suggest that consumers gain from efficiency by improved energy services, and thus, policy targeting energy efficiency is not likely to be successful at reducing energy consumption.     

Measuring Farm and Market Level Economic Impacts of Improved Maize Production Technologies in Ethiopia: Evidence from Panel Data

While it is often recognised that agricultural technology adoption decisions are intertwined and best characterised by multivariate models, typical approaches to examining adoption and impacts of agricultural technology have focused on single technology adoption choice and ignored interdependence among technologies. We examine farm‐ and market‐level impacts of multiple technology adoption choices using comprehensive household survey data collected in 2010/11 and 2012/13 in Ethiopia. Economic surplus analysis combined with panel data switching endogenous regression models are used to compute the supply shift parameter (K‐shift parameter), while at the same time controlling for the endogeneity inherent in agricultural technology adoption among farmers. We find that our improved technology set choices have significant impacts on farm‐level maize yield and maize production costs, where the greatest effect appears to be generated when various technologies are combined. The change in maize yield and production costs results in an average 26.4% cost reduction per kilogram of maize output (the K‐shift parameter). This increases the producer and consumer surpluses by US$ 140 and US$ 105 million per annum, respectively. These changes in economic surplus help to reduce the number of poor people by an estimated 788 thousand per year. We conclude that deliberate extension efforts and other policies that encourage integration of technologies are important for maize technologies to yield their full potential at both farm and market levels.     

On the Opportunity Cost of Crop Diversification

Distance functions are increasingly being augmented, with environmental goods treated as conventional outputs. A common approach to evaluate the opportunity cost of providing an environmental good is the exploitation of the distance function's dual relationship to the value function. This implies that the opportunity cost is assumed to be non‐negative. This approach also requires a convex technology set. Focusing on crop diversification for a balanced sample of 44 cereal farms in the East of England for the years 2007–2013, this paper develops a novel opportunity cost measure that does not depend on these strong assumptions. We find that the opportunity cost of crop diversification is negative for most farms.     

Impact of the 2014 Suspension Agreement on sugar between the United States and Mexico

In December 2014, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to a suspension agreement that set a $22.25/cwt import price floor on U.S. sugar imports from Mexico. A partial equilibrium trade model was developed to estimate the economic impact the agreement would have had if it had been in effect from 2008 to 2014. In years when the price floor would have been binding, on average, U.S. producers would have gained $138 million and Mexican producers would have lost $218 million. However, total Mexican welfare would have actually increased by $11.5 million. Furthermore, the average price floor that would have maximized total Mexican welfare over that period is $22.76/cwt. Also, under certain supply and demand elasticity conditions, the average price floor that would have maximized joint U.S. and Mexican producer welfare over that period is $21.91/cwt. The latter two estimates are both close to the actual price floor agreed to in the 2014 Suspension Agreement.     

Spatial determinants of productivity growth on agri‐food Spanish firms: a comparison between cooperatives and investor‐owned firms

This study analyses the effect of the spatial factor, location, and interaction effects among peer companies, on the productivity growth of agri‐food companies in Spain. With this aim, we build a productivity growth index and apply a multiequational Seemingly Unrelated Regression on a sample of 344 Spanish cooperatives and investor‐owned firms for the period 2010–2012. Our findings show that agri‐food firms are influenced by spatial factors finding interesting differences between cooperatives and investor‐owned firms. With regard to the geographical location, cooperatives in the western of Spain show higher productivity growth rates, whereas investor‐owned firms in the northeast of Spain present better results. The interaction effect among closer peer companies is also a relevant factor to determine the productivity growth in agri‐food companies. This factor is more relevant for cooperatives than for investor‐owned firms.     

Peer effects in the diffusion of water‐saving agricultural technologies

We investigate the role of peer effects in the diffusion of an important water‐saving irrigation technology: low energy precise application (LEPA). Using detailed irrigation behavior data for growers in the High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas covering 1990–2014, we find clear evidence of peer influence in adoption of LEPA, net of environmental factors. Specifically, an additional neighboring LEPA installation within 1 km increases the probability of adoption by about 0.3 percentage points, on average, and this effect diminishes with distance. Our empirical estimates indicate that in the absence of peer effects, LEPA adoption would have been about 10% lower (1,000–1,600 fewer installations) per year. In addition, we find that growers install LEPA in response to higher energy prices.     

基于面源污染约束的油菜生产效率时空变化及成因分析

[目的]分析面源污染约束条件下我国油菜生产效率的动态变化、省际差异及其影响因素,提出提升途径。[方法]采用基于非期望产出的非径向、非角度的数据包络分析模型测算面源污染约束下的油菜生产效率,根据投入冗余、期望产出不足或非期望产出冗余等,分析效率损失成因。[结果]我国油菜生产效率总体上呈现"N型"年际变化特征,其中黄淮区、江浙、重庆、青海和甘肃的油菜生产效率均值高于0.9,云贵和内蒙古的油菜生产效率则低于0.8。全国和长江流域省际差异表现为先扩大后缩小趋势,西北区省际差异最大,黄淮区省际差异最小。总氮和总磷排放量过高是长江流域乃至全国油菜生产效率损失的主要原因。近3年总氮可缩减比例均值大于30%的地区从大到小依次为湖南、内蒙古、贵州、云南和江西,总磷可缩减比例均值大于30%的地区依次为云南、贵州、四川和内蒙古。此外,湖北用工投入冗余、内蒙古化肥投入冗余和单产不足也是其油菜生产效率损失的重要原因。[结论]长江流域需重点削减氮磷径流损失,黄淮区应重点控制氮磷淋溶损失,西北区应重点治理氮磷侵蚀流失。