SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Jackson, Lee Ann.

This paper analyses the impact of quality based labelling on product prices, factor allocation and the resulting effects on producers within the context of an international trading system. A general equilibrium model, calibrated to 1998 data, describes United States and European Union labelling regimes for genetically modified agricultural products. The results indicate that the labelling choice of trade partners have large distributive impacts within national economies, as well as across countries and highlight the importance of using general equilibrium framework to understand the system wide impacts of labelling policies that differentiate products based upon quality characteristics. These results are essential for policy makers seeking to understand...

WHO DETERMINES FARM PROGRAMS? AGRIBUSINESS AND THE MAKING OF FARM POLICY

Palavras-chave: Labelling; International trade; Political economy; General equilibrium; Biotechnology.; International Relations/Trade; Marketing; Political Economy.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/57897

Alston, Julian M.; Carter, Colin A.; Wohlgenant, Michael K..

Political-economic analyses of the causes and consequences of agricultural commodity policies typically emphasize farmer and consumer (taxpayer) interests and underplay the role of agribusiness. A more complete understanding of agricultural policy requires paying attention to the important role of agribusiness interests. Policies that benefit farmers (e.g., price supports, supply controls, deficiency payments) may either enhance or reduce agribusiness profits. The type of policy instrument preferred by agribusiness varies among commodities, depending on the technology of the marketing processes beyond the farm gate and the elasticity of final demand. This paper emphasizes the idea that instruments of farm policy are chosen in response to pressures from...

RELEVANCE OF POLICY ANALYSIS: NEEDS FOR DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION AND PACKAGING

Palavras-chave: Farm programs; Farm policy; Agribusiness; Political economy; Agricultural and Food Policy.

Ano: 1989

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51252

The Long Trace of Inequality: Evidence from Cundinamarca, Colombia

Skees, Jerry R..

This article challenges the traditional model of the economist as a humble technocrat who simply provides analysis given the preferences of policy decision-makers. Since decision-makers rarely reveal their preferences, it is important that the would-be policy research/analyst know the political economy and be willing to identify potential performance goals for society. Researchers who are willing to incur the transaction cost associated with becoming involved in useful policy research must learn to work within the imperfect policy process. Policy research that considers the importance of implementation and that acknowledges the institutions and the history will have the highest chance of being useful to policy-makers.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Implementation; Institutions; Policy research; Political economy; Agricultural and Food Policy.

Ano: 1994

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/15440

Galan, Juan Sebastian.

This paper uses historic data from Cundinamarca, Colombia to empirically assess the impact of land inequality persistence, inherited from the colonial rule, on economic development in the long run. Based on the Engerman & Sokoloff hypothesis and the use of GIS, I use plausible exogenous variation in land endowments to design an instrumental variable strategy. In contrast to recent studies, I find that more unequal municipalities in the XIX and XX century are associated with better growth, human capital and public goods provision measures today. Political economy channels instead of agricultural productivity gains can explain these results. In municipalities where land was historically more concentrated, powerful landowners were more successful in...

Political Economy of Distortions to Agricultural Incentives: Introduction and Summary

Palavras-chave: Land inequality; Growth; Public goods; Political economy; Land Economics/Use; O13; D31; N36.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/107398

Anderson, Kym.

During the 1960s and 1970s most developing countries imposed anti-agricultural policies, while many high-income countries restricted agricultural imports and subsidized their farmers. Both sets of policies inhibited economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing countries, while doing little to assist small farmers in high-income countries. Since the 1980s, however, many developing countries began to reduce the anti-agricultural bias of sectoral policies, and from the early 1990s the European Union began to move away from price supports to more-direct forms of farm income payments. This paper summarizes a forthcoming book that seeks to explain this evolving pattern of distortions to incentives conceptually and econometrically by making use of new...

Pluralism and Regulatory Failure: When Should Takings Trigger Compensation?

Palavras-chave: Distorted incentives; Agricultural and trade policy reforms; National agricultural development; Political economy; Agricultural price and trade policies; Agricultural and Food Policy; International Relations/Trade; F13; F14; Q17; Q18; F59; H20; N50; O13.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/50306

Boyd, James; Brennan, Timothy J..

The paper evaluates the desirability of compensation for regulatory takings. To do so, we describe a public choice model in which regulators' decisions are influenced by competing political interests. We consider how the political incentives of landowners, environmentalists, and taxpayers are affected by alternative compensation rules and in turn describe the regulatory decisions made in such a pluralistic political environment. Modeling the regulator's incentives in this way leads to the conclusion that compensation should not be paid unless environmentalists and property owners have unequal influence politically. Moreover, the model has several counter-intuitive implications when political influence is not balanced. For instance, if environmentalists are...

Explaining Agricultural Distortion Patterns : The Roles of Ideology, Inequality, Lobbying and Public Finance

Palavras-chave: Regulatory takings; Compensation; Political economy; Environmental Economics and Policy; K11; D72; L51.

Ano: 1996

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10702

Dutt, Pushan; Mitra, Devashish.

In this paper, we examine the political economy drivers of the variation in agricultural protection, both across countries and within countries over time. The paper starts by listing the key insights provided by both the theoretical and empirical literature on the political economy of trade policy formulation. We then set out a basic framework that allows us to put forth various testable hypotheses on the variation and evolution of agricultural protection. We find that both the political ideology of the government and the degree of income inequality are important determinants of agricultural protection. Thus, both the political-support-function approach as well as the median-voter approach can be used in explaining the variation in agricultural protection...

Sensitive Product Treatment in Agricultural Trade Negotiations

Palavras-chave: Distorted incentives; Agricultural and trade policy reforms; National agricultural development; Agricultural protection; Political economy; Agricultural and Food Policy; International Relations/Trade; F13; F14; Q17; Q18; D72; D78; F11.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/50299

Durand-Morat, Alvaro; Wailes, Eric J.; Sharp, Misti.

The fact that trade, and especially agricultural trade, remains far from free is puzzling, since the superiority of free trade receives overwhelming support among economists (Gawande and Krishna, 2003; Rodrik, 1994). International trade scholars have devoted significant resources to forecasting the impact of trade policy reforms (for a survey of these studies see Congressional Budget Office, 2005), and their findings are relevant inputs for officials negotiating a trade agreement as well as for politicians in charge of ratifying it. The perceived gains and losses attached to different outcomes have been identified as a significant factor shifting the outcome of a trade agreement negotiation (McMillan, 1990). Less well-known are the factors that would...

Delay on the Path to the Endangered Species List: Do Costs and Benefits Matter?

Palavras-chave: Trade negotiations; Agricultural trade; Free trade agreements; Political economy; Agricultural and Food Policy; International Relations/Trade; Political Economy; F59; Q17.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103835

Ando, Amy Whritenour.

This paper uses duration analysis to evaluate the ability of interest groups to influence the timing of decisions to add species to the endangered species list by exerting pressure on the Fish and Wildlife Service. Using data from 1990 to 1994, it finds that public opposition and support can substantially slow and hasten (respectively) the progress of candidate species through the parts of the listing process most directly under the agency's control. Since the Service is not an atypical agency, similar patterns of public influence on delay may exist in other areas of bureaucratic decision making as well.

Palavras-chave: Duration analysis; Endangered species; Political economy; Interest groups; Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10564

Food Protection for Sale

Lopez, Rigoberto A.; Matschke, Xenia.

This article tests the Protection for Sale (PFS) model using detailed data from U.S. food processing industries from 1978 to 1992 under alternative import demand specifications. All empirical results support the PFS model predictions and previous empirical work qualitatively. Although welfare weights are very sensitive to import demand specification, a surprising result is that we obtain weights between 2.6 and 3.6 for domestic welfare using import slopes or elasticities derived from domestic demand and supply functions. In contrast, results based on import slopes or elasticities from directly specified import demands (including the Armington model) yield the usual, unrealistically large estimates for the domestic welfare weight. We contend that the latter...

Invasive Species Management Through Tariffs: Are Prevention and Protection Synonymous?

Palavras-chave: Trade protection; Tariffs; Lobbying; Political economy; Food manufacturing; Agricultural and Food Policy; Political Economy; F13; F1; L66; C12.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/25195

Ranjan, Ram.

This Paper designs a political economy model of invasive species management in order to explore the effectiveness of tariffs in mitigating the risk of invasion. The revenue interests of the government together with the interests of the lobby group competing with the imported agricultural commodity, that is believed to be the vector of invasive species, are incorporated in a Nash Bargaining game. The government, however, also considers the impact of tariffs on long run risks of invasion and decides optimal tariffs based upon its welfare in the pre and post-invasion scenarios. Along with the size of the lobby group, which is a function of the slope of the demand and supply curves, the weights assigned to the various components in the government welfare...

Policy Responses to 2008 High Food Prices: Domestic Incentives and Global Implications

Palavras-chave: Invasive species; Political economy; Tariffs; Bargaining; Interest groups; Political Economy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; H23; Q17; Q58.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/15642

Woolverton, Andrea E.; Kiawu, James.

Global food commodity price inflation beginning in 2006 and continuing through mid-2008 became a priority concern for global consumers, producers and policy-makers alike. In response, many governments across the world implemented policies targeting high food commodity prices in their domestic markets. These policy responses were concentrated in lower income countries and primarily targeted rice and wheat. The 2007-08 policy responses across countries included liberalized import tariffs, export restrictions and increased domestic support for both consumers and producers. We develop a case study of 15 major global trading, lower-income countries’ policy responses . The analysis addressed the following questions: a) What policy responses did major global...

Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa

Palavras-chave: High food prices; Trade policy; Agriculture; Political economy; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Crop Production/Industries; International Development; International Relations/Trade; Political Economy.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/104506

Bates, Robert H.; Block, Steven A..

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/25/09.

Is Protection for Sale in U.S. Food Industries?

Palavras-chave: Distorted incentives; Agricultural and trade policy reforms; National agricultural development; Agriculture; Taxation; Political economy; Agricultural and Food Policy; International Relations/Trade; F13; F14; Q17; Q18; O13.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/50302

Lopez, Rigoberto A.; Hathie, Ibrahima.

This article tests the Grossman-Helpman Protection for Sale model using panel data from U.S. food processing industries with endogenous protection, imports, and political organization of industries. The results support the key predictions of the model: organized industries are granted higher protection that decreases with import penetration and the price elasticity of imports, but in unorganized industries protection increases with import penetration. In spite of substantial differences in data sets and empirical procedures, the estimated weight on aggregate welfare is strikingly similar those found by Goldberg and Maggi (1999) and Gawande and Bandopadhyay (2000), implying that protection is not for sale in these industries. Furthermore, the presence of...

Economies of Scope in Endangered-Species Protection: Evidence from Interest-Group Behavior

Palavras-chave: Trade protection; Tariffs; Lobbying; Political economy; Food manufacturing; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; International Relations/Trade; Political Economy.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/25182

Ando, Amy Whritenour.

This paper looks for positive spillovers from the legal protection of one species to the welfare of others, and for evidence of economies of scope in the costs associated with protecting species under the Endangered Species Act. The analyses use data on the intensity of interest-group comment activity in response to proposals to protect new species. The results suggest that these phenomena are significant, strengthening arguments that wildlife-protection policy should be shifted towards species groups or ecosystems. However, the findings are also consistent with diminishing public willingness-to-pay for protected species in a given area, a pattern which also has public-policy implications.

Getting on the Map: The Political Economy of State-Level Electricity Restructuring

Palavras-chave: Economies of scope; Endangered species; Political economy; Interest groups; Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10903

Ando, Amy Whritenour; Palmer, Karen L..

Retail competition in electricity markets is expected to lead to more efficient electricity supply, lower electricity prices, more innovation by suppliers and a greater variety of electric power service packages. However, only a handful of states have currently gone so far as to pass legislation and/or make regulatory decisions to establish retail wheeling. This paper analyzes a variety of factors that may influence the rate at which legislators and regulators move towards establishing retail competition. In general, we find that where one interest group dominates others in the struggle for influence over the decision makers, the net effect seems to push a state forward more quickly when retail wheeling is expected to yield large efficiency gains.

Tax-Versus-Trading and Free Emission Shares as Issues for Climate Policy Design

Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Deregulation; Political economy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; D78; L51; L94.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10643

Pezzey, John C.V.; Jotzo, Frank.

We give empirical welfare results for global greenhouse gas emission control, using the first multiparty model to combine tax-versus-trading under uncertainties with revenue recycling. Including multiple parties greatly reduces the welfare advantage of an emissions tax over emissions (permit) trading in handling abatement-cost uncertainties, from that shown by existing, single-party literature. But a tax has a different, much bigger advantage, from better handling uncertainties in business-as-usual emissions. Either mechanism's free emissions share, from tax thresholds or free permits, which lowers its possible welfare gain from revenue recycling, may however dominate any tax-versus-trading advantage. Moreover, political and practical constraints, such as...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Climate policy; Emission pricing; Tax vs. trading; Uncertainties; Revenue recycling; Political economy; Environmental Economics and Policy; D810; H230; Q580.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/95049

Institutions and EU Decisions-Making: the 'Power' of the European Commission

Pokrivcak, Jan.

I develop a two-stage political economy model that explicitly models the complexity of decision-making in the European Union on the Common Agricultural Policy, and I derive how the institutional design affects the outcome and the influence of the various agents involved, and the likelihood of political stalemate.

Teaching Agricultural Policy Using Games: The Agripol Game

Palavras-chave: Political economy; European Union; Common Agricultural Policy; Voting; International Development.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24862

Jongeneel, Roelof A.; Koning, Niek.

We developed the AGRIPOL game as a tool for teaching agricultural policy to economic and non-economic students. AGRIPOL consists of a world with 7 different countries, each one represented by a small group of students. The students have to maximize their country's social welfare by choosing an optimal set of policy instruments. By doing this students learn in an interesting and hands-on way to understand the workings of agricultural policy instruments, the interrelatedness between countries (policy impact spill-overs) and the role of political weights in the policy formation process. A WTO negotiation round is included to let students experience the difficulties and benefits of cooperation.

Environmental payments in conflicting situations between nature provision and cost minimization: a political economy approach

Palavras-chave: Economics education; Political economy; Agricultural policy; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession; A2; P16; Q18.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24773

Nuppenau, Ernst-August.

We will analyze a newly emerging conflict within the second pillar of the rural development policy of the EU: a conflict between those farmers, who want to participate in high nature value agriculture, and farmers, who feel negatively impacted by supporting nature provision. We see a link through competition for land between nature provision in agriculture and cost minimal production of commercial farmers. The idea is to model this conflict using a political bargain approach and make a contribution on how to solve the conflict by innovative institutional arrangements. The power of groups will be analyzed and what governments can do.