Is more competition conducive to the macroeconomic performance in the euro area?

One of the main goals of the European Union, laid down, inter alia, in the Lisbon Strategy and in the “Europe 2020” Strategy, is to raise employment. One important means of supporting the creation of new jobs is to increase competition. In this paper, it is shown that on average the mark-up, i.e. the deviation of prices from marginal cost in the euro area still exceeds the levels observed in the UK and in the US. After completion of the Single Market Programme in 1993, the mark-up has declined in the euro area and even more in the UK. Nevertheless, there is a strong cross-country variation between Member States, with a particularly high mark-up ratio found for Italy. Panel estimations show that total factor productivity growth, labour productivity growth and the labour market performance in the euro area could be improved by reducing the mark-up. This could be achieved by a proper institutional design. More competition could indeed improve the macroeconomic performance.     

To Drop or Add: Market Timing and Supermarket Decisions on Irradiated Ground Beef

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the sequential nature of supermarkets' decisions regarding irradiated ground beef using data collected from two separate supermarket surveys. We identify four mutually exclusive groups of supermarkets: those that adopted irradiated ground beef early and subsequently either continued or ceased offering the product–Early Adopters or Droppers, and those that at first chose not to adopt and subsequently either added or continued not offering the product–Adders or Never Adopters. We find that one set of store-level factors plays an important role in separating Early Adopters from Droppers, while a separate set of factors is important in separating Adders from Never Adopters.     

Simulating the Impacts of Contract Supplies in a Spot Market–Contract Market Equilibrium Setting

This article embeds a principal–agent model within a market equilibrium model of contract and cash markets to analyze the impact of contracting on the spot market for hogs. The equilibrium model incorporates both quality differentiation in the contract market and an endogenously determined cash market price. For three types of contracting scenarios, market equilibrium conditions are derived, and results are presented for a numerical example. Contrary to some empirical results, our model shows that the increased supply of hogs under typical formula-price contracts can increase or decrease the cash market price, depending on the relative size of overall contract supplies.     

Examining U.S. Food Retailers’ Decisions to Procure Local and Organic Produce From Farmer Direct-to-Retail Supply Chains

U.S. food retailing is a competitive sector that has undergone rapid changes. The U.S. market for organic products has expanded rapidly over the last decade, while local foods have become a more visible marketing strategy. Studies focusing on the marketing of these products by retailers are sparse and generally qualitative. This article is the first quantitative examination of the connection between the local and organic retailing. A sample selection model is used with data from a 2008 national survey of organic retailers to study supplier interactions and company characteristics that influence a retailer’s decision to procure local organic produce directly from farmers, and the rate at which they procure these products. The results show that the number of years a store has sold organic products and the size of the company, as well as aspects prioritized in choosing suppliers and past problems interacting with local suppliers, affect the outcomes.     

Does biotechnology have a role in the promotion of underutilised crops?

Rapidly developing biotechnology applications aimed at improving major crops receive large investments and could, in theory, play a role in the promotion of underutilised plant species in the tropics and subtropics, in order to address current and emerging challenges for agriculture. The application of such methods is, however, sometimes controversial, and the frequently considerable costs involved must be weighed against the limited resources available to develop underutilised species, as well as against the many alternative methods available for promotion. Through database searches, we take an evidence-based approach to assess whether there are clear examples where biotechnology has been used practically to enhance the cultivation of underutilised plants at a field level. We conclude that tissue culture and micropropagation techniques have proven useful, but for other applications benefits are generally unclear at present, although ongoing work suggests genomic and genetic modification approaches may in future be significant for a subset of underutilised species. Successful outcomes, however, appear to be limited by a lack of integrated thinking during the use of biotechnology methods. We review the particular limitations and risks associated with applying biotechnology to underutilised crops, including the negative consequences of technology centralisation. In addition, the specific actions needed to ensure that smallholder farmers in low-income countries better benefit during the use of biotechnology on underutilised species, by placing a stronger emphasis on partnerships and by proper monitoring of benefits along value chains, are described.     

Prognose der Kraftstoffpreisentwicklung und ihrer Auswirkungen auf die Nachfrage nach Bahntransportleistungen in Österreich

Due to increasing crude oil consumption, especially of the fast growing Asian economies, decreasing production rates of several oil fields and increasing exploration costs, the oil price reached a new all time high in July 2008. The present world wide economic crisis caused a sharp decrease of the oil prices, nevertheless, prices will rise again with economic recovery. In this paper, long term projections of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and future contracts notations are employed to estimate oil price development until the year 2020. We estimate the price transmission of crude oil prices to Austrian retail diesel and gasoline prices and combine the estimation results with long term projections of the crude oil price. These projections are used to analyze the effect of rising oil prices on Austrian railway demand. The effect of increasing mineral oil taxes with the aim of an increasing internalisation of the external costs of road traffic on railway demand is discussed.     

Testing for Intermediate Outputs in Dynamic DEA Models: Accounting for Soil Capital in Rotational Crop Production and Productivity Measures

Inagricultural production, a stylized fact known as the rotationeffect says crop rotations generate higher yields or productivitythan identical crops grown in isolated monocultures. This paperdevelops a dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model of cropproduction that accounts for the rotation effect. The model isapplied to data from an experimental farm in Pennsylvania toinvestigate the role soil capital plays in observed productivitygrowth and the rotation effect.