1,721,109 research outputs found
Mexican meat demand analysis: A post-NAFTA demand systems approach
Full text linkEstimates of the parameters of Mexican demand for beef, pork, and chicken are determined using demand system methodology with the most recent data available. Updated cross-price and expenditure elasticities are estimated to support a more accurate analysis of the effects of prices and income on Mexican demand for meat in recent years. A test for structural change is included to examine if preferences have shifted meat demand elasticities in Mexico since the NAFTA implementation, but the test does not determine a definitive shift in demand
Exploring the incentive effects of food aid on crop production in Zambia
No full textUnderstanding the effects food aid on crop production is very valuable especially in Zambia where food aid distribution to rural households has become a common phenomenon in recent years. In many respects, food aid can be considered as an important enabler to food production while at the same time it can potentially act as an impediment to sustainable agricultural growth. Integrating the effects of food aid on small holder productivity in designing agricultural programs can be very helpful and could provide decision makers with the right choices for sustaining agricultural growth in Zambia.
This study analyzed the effects of food aid on the average quantities of maize produced by farmers in a community using two complimentary estimation procedures: OLS and quantile regressions. The OLS results show that there is a mean effect of food aid on average household maize production which is negative and significant (holding other observable factors constant). However, the results of the quantile regression show that food aid has distinct impacts at different points of the conditional maize production distribution. This shows for example that communities producing small quantities of maize are affected by food aid differently relative to communities that produce large quantities of maize. The quantile regression results actually show that communities at the lower end of the maize production conditional distribution (and in the region of the mean) tend to have stronger negative effects of food aid. The effect however reduces in magnitude in the extreme upper end of the distribution (at the 90th quantile) even though this effect is not statistically significant.
Both the OLS and quantile regression results provide evidence that food aid distributed to communities does reduces household maize production significantly (at least at many points of the maize production distribution in the case of quantile regression results). These results suggest that it would be appropriate to carefully evaluate continuation of food aid programs in agricultural development as this approach results in an estimated average reduction in maize production of 2,000 Kgs for every 1,000 Kgs of food aid received by a community in the last season.
While the results suggest a negative effect of food aid at the community level, it should be recognized that the available data did not support panel estimation, which would have allowed us to correct for fixed or random productivity effects. We compensated for this data limitation by including province level dummy variables and a lagged dependent variable. However, panel estimation would still be preferred. Future work could strengthen the implications of the results by using panel data at the household level
Expiring temporary safeguards on apparel trade: Implications for U.S. cotton
No full textIn 1995, the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) provided for the calculated liberalization of the textiles and apparel sectors over a 10-year period ending in 2005, except for some safeguard measures ending on December 31, 2008. These safeguard measures allowed for import restrictions by the U.S. on certain categories of cotton apparel from China.
Using a 57-equation, annual econometric, price equilibrium simulation model of the U.S. cotton and cotton apparel markets, results point to lower cotton apparel prices in the U.S. by as much as 0.01 per kilogram once these safeguards expire. In the baseline scenario, quotas are removed in 2009-2015 except for the safeguards. In the simulation, the safeguards are taken out beginning 2009
Crop insurance premium rate impacts of flexible parametric yield distributions: An evaluation of the Johnson family of distributions
No full textThis study evaluated the Johnson family of distributions as a flexible parametric approach to model crop yields. Specifically, its statistical performance was compared to the most common distribution used to model yields in the literature -- the beta distribution. All distributions examined were re-parameterized such that the suitability of the candidate distributions is solely determined by the span of the skewness-kurtosis combinations allowed by a particular distribution. This re-parameterization facilitates comparison of the performance of the distributions. The parameters of each distribution were then estimated using the maximum likelihood technique. Comparison of likelihood values was used to assess the statistical performance of the distributions. Application of the procedure to a sample of Illinois farm-level corn data showed that the Johnson family of distributions seemed to be a highly flexible parametric distribution that best fits the empirical data (as compared to the beta distribution). This may be attributed to the fact that the Johnson family can theoretically account for any possible underlying mean-variance structure and a wide variety of skewness-kurtosis combinations. The economic significance of the findings was assessed by evaluating the effect of yield distribution choice on the estimation of actuarially fair insurance premiums. Results showed that the actual unsubsidized premium rates used by RMA are significantly different from the premiums estimated using the Johnson family of distributions. This is suggestive of adverse selection problems for the sample of Illinois corn farms investigated. However, when the subsidy to the current RMA premium rates were taken into consideration, the magnitude of the difference became smaller. Hence, the subsidies implemented by the government to encourage participation of low-risk producers seem to have the positive side-effect of reducing adverse selection in the program
EX POST MORAL HAZARD IN CROP INSURANCE: COSTLY STATE VERIFICATION OR FALSIFICATION?
Full text linkThis article examines the extent to which actual crop insurance indemnification behavior conforms to the theoretical predictions of two ex post moral hazard models costly state verification and costly state falsification. A nonparametric regression technique is used to estimate the crop insurance indemnification profile for non-irrigated cotton in Texas. The results suggest that indemnification behavior in crop insurance is more in line with the costly state falsification paradigm. Thus, crop insurers seem to indemnify based on the assumption that it is not easy to verify actual ex post loss magnitude and eliminate the asymmetric information held by the insured farmers.Risk and Uncertainty,
Spatial Equilibrium Analysis of Reduced Chemical Pesticide Policies in the Southeastern Fresh Vegetable Industry
No full textEX POST MORAL HAZARD IN CROP INSURANCE: COSTLY STATE VERIFICATION OR FALSIFICATION?
Full text linkThis article examines the extent to which actual crop insurance indemnification behavior conforms to the theoretical predictions of two ex post moral hazard models - costly state verification and costly state falsification. A nonparametric regression technique is used to estimate the crop insurance indemnification profile for non-irrigated cotton in Texas. The results suggest that indemnification behavior in crop insurance is more in line with the costly state falsification paradigm. Thus, crop insurers seem to indemnify based on the assumption that it is not easy to verify actual ex post loss magnitude and eliminate the asymmetric information held by the insured farmers
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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