Productivity and Welfare

Technical change is generally characterized by a rate and biases, both evaluated for given producer prices. This paper examines the potential discrepancy between this rate and the corresponding rate of consumer welfare change as measured by Allais distributable surplus. We postulate a general equilibrium context with various market failures (taxes, quotas, imperfect competition, and “poorly priced” commodities), and use comparative statics to express the rate of welfare change in terms of the rate and biases of the technical change. An elementary simulation model of a taxed economy suggests that the rate of welfare change may differ from the rate of technical change by as much as 50% under plausible circumstances.     

Deployment of Restaurants Websites’ Marketing Features: The Case of Spanish Michelin-Starred Restaurants

ABSTRACT

Websites have become a fundamental marketing tool for tourism businesses and have a special importance for highly rated restaurants. The aim of this article is to propose and apply a model to evaluate the deployment and adoption of website marketing features of restaurants from a specific category. The model is based on the application of an extended model of Internet commerce adoption (eMICA) technique for technical depth, combined with content analysis for breadth. This study analyzes the website features and capabilities for Spanish restaurants in the 2015 Michelin Red Guide. A total of 102 restaurants were analyzed. The results of the website evaluation model suggest that, despite the importance of the restaurant sector in the economy and in the tourism industry, the websites of high-quality restaurants require improvements to adapt to customers’ demands. Results further found that these websites are not tourist-orientated and are established at different stages of development.     

Is there a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth in South America?

This article estimates agricultural productivity growth in 10 South American countries in 1969–2009 with the objective of investigating if the slowdown being measured in other countries is present in the region. Results show that productivity growth accounts for half of the three‐fold increase in agricultural output during this period and that performance is sensitive to R&D investments in the sector. The slowdown found for the 1990s to 2000s in the U.S. and some European economies does not seem to be present yet in South America. The region's total factor productivity (TFP) growth rate increased steadily from 1.07% during the 1970s to 2.29% during the 2000s. Given lags in adoption and the adaptive nature of innovations in these economies, we have yet to see the potential effects in South American agriculture of decreases in R&D in advanced economies.     

THE SPANISH EXTERNAL SECTOR: A POLICY OF TRADE OPENNESS

This paper describes the process of trade liberalisation experienced by the Spanish economy between 1960 and 2000. The path towards liberalisation involved progressive reductions of quantitative restrictions, which were replaced by border taxes. Over the period external openness grew, although along an irregular path.     

Climate Variability in the Origin Countries as a “Push” Factor on Tourist Arrivals in the Philippines

The objective of this paper is to test the impact of climate variability in origin countries as a “push factor” on tourist arrivals, specifically in the Philippines, and to select a suitable proxy to measure climate variability. This paper uses the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) constructed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Climate variability is strongly linked to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and this link is used by meteorologists to forecast changes in weather globally. SOI is a widely used indicator of the ENSO and its best known extremes are the El Niño (warm phase) and La Niña (cold phase) effects. The study proves to some extent that there is a significant increase in US tourist arrivals in the Philippines when La Niña-like weather conditions prevail in the USA. More importantly, the SOI proved to be a good measure of climate variability.     

Institutions and agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Agricultural productivity in 41 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 1960 to 1999 is examined by estimating a semi-nonparametric Fourier production frontier. Over the four decades the estimated rate of productivity change was 0.83% per year, although the average rate from 1985 to 1999 was a strong 1.90% per year. Former UK colonies exhibited significantly higher productivity gains than others, while Liberia and countries that had been colonies of Portugal or Belgium exhibited net reductions in productivity. We measure a significant reduction in productivity during political conflicts and wars, and a significant increase in productivity among those countries with higher levels of political rights and civil liberties.     

Public inputs and dynamic producer behavior: endogenous growth in U.S. agriculture

This paper is an attempt to understand the impact of public R&D and public infrastructure on the performance of the U.S. agricultural sector during the last part of the twentieth century. A neoclassical Solow growth model is not sufficient for this understanding given the sustained growth performance of the sector. We base our analysis on a well-known endogenous growth model, the ‘AK model’ where non-convexities are introduced through non-rival inputs. Based on these models and within the dynamic models that rationalize private and public decision making, we have identified three testable hypotheses regarding the aggregate agricultural production technology. They are: (1) increasing returns to scale over all inputs; (2) positive effect of additional units of public inputs on the long-run demand for private capital; and (3) negative impact of public inputs on cost. They are tested using two estimation procedures on two data sets for U.S. agriculture. One, covering the period 1948–1994, developed by USDA, the other, covering the period 1926–1990, from Thirtle et al. Maximum likelihood estimates do not conform to the regularity and behavioral properties of the economic model rendering them unusable for testing these hypotheses. Bayesian estimates, although not totally satisfactory, do not reject the hypotheses after prior imposition of some of the regularity conditions. This supports the notion of an important role for public inputs on the rapid and sustained growth of the sector. We calculate that, on average, one additional dollar spent on public R&D stock reduces private cost by $6.5, implying a return on these public expenses of 190%.

Rates of return to public agricultural research in 48 US states

The internal rate of return to public investment in agricultural R&D is estimated for each of the continental US states. Theoretically, our contribution provides a way of obtaining the returns to a local public good using Rothbart’s concept of virtual prices. Empirically, a stochastic cost function that includes own knowledge capital stock as well as spillover capital stock variables is estimated. Stochastic spatial dependency among states generated by knowledge spillovers is used to define the ‘appropriate’ jurisdictions. We estimate an average own-state rate of 17% and a social rate of 29% that compare well to the 9 and 12% average returns of the S&P500 and NASDAQ composite indexes during the same period.