Книги

In Uganda, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, poverty is concentrated in rural areas. Because agriculture accounts for a large share of incomes for these households, policies and external shocks that affect agriculture, including shifts in world prices, changes in agricultural productivity, and reductions in marketing costs, may have significant effects on rural poverty. In this paper, we use a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the Ugandan economy, explicitly designed to capture regional variations in agricultural production and household incomes, to examine the implications of these policy changes and shocks.

Simulation results suggest that a doubling of area planted to coffee (the government.s target) would increase rural consumption by less than 2.0 percent, because of an estimated 10 percent decline in the world price of robusta coffee and an 11.3 percent real exchange rate appreciation of the Ugandan shilling. Smaller productivity increases in food crops may have greater potential to raise rural incomes, provided that markets perform well and producer incentives are maintained. A five percent increase in agricultural productivity raises consumption by 1.3 to 2.1 percent among rural households and lowers food prices by 3.4 to 3.8 percent relative to the CPI, thus benefiting households with high food consumption shares. Reducing agricultural marketing margins by 30 percent leads to increases of 2.3 to 4.1 percent in consumption of farm households, with the largest gains in regions where consumption out of own production is lower.

This paper brings time series techniques to bear on the relationships between the prices of the principal types of wheat traded internationally. In all, the relationships between eleven wheat prices (categorised by wheat quality, harvest date and port of despatch) are scrutinised to uncover the structure of the wheat market implicit in the behaviour its prices reveal. The statistical evidence supports the notion of a highly integrated market that is segmented according to wheat strength . the principal determinant of end-use. Three segments are identified: a market for "strong" (bread-making) wheat, another for "weak" (confectionary products- making) wheat and a third for medium strength wheat suitable for unleavened breads and noodles. Whilst informative, market integration - detected by cointegration among prices . is not altogether surprising, yet the presence of cointegration implies a causal structure, which is of more cogent interest. Among a number of complementary techniques, linkages are uncovered using an innovative concept of irreducible cointegration vectors (Davidson 1998, Barassi et al 2001) which provides new evidence on price linkages. Statistical evidence is robust and not test-dependent. Specifically, we find a dominant price leader in each sub-market. In terms of its pricing, the EU is found to play a passive role in the world market, confirming a widely held view.

Empirical evidence suggests that agricultural futures price movements have fat-tailed distributions and exhibit sudden and unexpected price jumps. There is also evidence that the volatility of futures prices contains a term structure depending on both calendar-time and time to maturity. This paper extends Bates (1991) jump-diffusion option pricing model by including both seasonal and maturity effects in volatility. An in-sample fit to market option prices on wheat futures shows that our model outperforms previous models considered in the literature. A numerical example illustrates the economic significance of our results for option valuation.

This paper discusses an approach to implement output quotas in the GTAP model which permits an endogenous adjustment of both the supplied quantity and the quota rent. Since the quota rent is interpreted as additional earnings of the factors used no change of the worldwide GTAP data base is required. Several modifications of the GTAP model and two exogenous coefficients are necessary. Considering uncertain values of one of the coefficients, systematic sensitivity analysis is applied. The abolishment of the raw milk quota in the European Union would lead to a remarkable decrease in raw milk prices in most member countries. The raw milk production increases in Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands while it declines in Greece and Portugal. In the other member countries the raw milk production changes slightly.

This paper is concerned with the impact of the BSE crisis in the UK and focuses on price transmission between retail and farm prices. From a theoretical perspective we show that market power has an effect on price transmission between retail and farm prices following a demand shock. The empirical results suggest that the impact of a food scare on farm prices to be more than double that of retail prices, the direction of this effect being consistent with the impact of oligopoly dominating the effect (if any) of oligopsony.

However, important in assessing the full impact of a food scare is the ability of consumers to switch into substitute products. This is also evident following the BSE crisis with the availability of substitutes contributing significantly to the overall impact on price adjustment.

The paper discusses the general need for institutional innovation in the Russian Federation. An attempt to establish a Market Information System for the agro-food sector in Tula Oblast is taken as an example illustrating specific implementation problems. From the experience gained in this case, the authors derive some recommendations for improving institutional change in the process of transition. Important issues here are the adoption of a more general approach towards human resource development, the scheduling of longer time horizons in support projects, and improved vertical and horizontal co-ordination within the institutional network.

Reductions in transport and transaction costs are expected to have a major effect on the functioning of food markets in developing countries. For many developing countries, this is a relevant issue as it may have important consequences for the food markets in urban and rural deficit areas. A partial equilibrium model is presented to analyze the effects of reduced costs on cereal price formation, inter-regional cereal trade, and farmers' and traders' storage strategies for the case of Burkina Faso. Our results show that the high expectations with regard to the direct effects of cost reductions on food prices and food availability require some nuance. First, the effects of even a huge reduction of transport costs only will be small. Secondly, an element which is often neglected is that constructing a road between two cities may have unintended negative consequences on the competitive position of farmers and traders in other regions. Finally, it is concluded that only if transport and transaction costs are reduced simultaneously, both consumers and farmers will benefit significantly.