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Keywords: C61; N15; O16; O31; O38; O44; O47; O57; Q01; Q02; Q28; Q33; Q40; Q43; Q48; Q52; Q53; Q54; Q55; Q56; Q58; R11 EN C61 N15 O16 O31 O38 O44 O47 O57 Q01 Q02 Q28 Q33 Q40 Q43 Q48 Q52 Q53 Q54 Q55 Q56 Q58 R11 169 189 21 07/21/21 20210701 NES 210701 The Post-Abenomics Japanese Economy Mr. Shinzo Abe served as prime minister of Japan from September 26, 2006 to September 26, 2007, a period of 366 days (called the Abe I period); and again, from December 26, 2012 to September 16, 2020, a period of 2822 days (called the Abe II period). Prime Minister Abe implemented a series of labor market policies that aimed to increase the employment rate among groups of workers whose labor market attachment has been historically weak, such as working-age women and older people, to counter the trends of a decreasing labor force due to population aging. Ito on an assessment of Abenomics Takatoshi Ito (2021) provides an overview and assessment of the economic policy package of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his second term as prime minister (Abe II) from December 2012 to September 2020. Panel (a) displays the net support ratings for Prime Ministers Koizumi and Abe II, and Panel (b) displays the net support ratings for the remaining eight prime ministers.[3] All prime ministers enjoyed "honeymoon" periods, that is, their net support started out rather high, but declined in their first 12 months. [Extracted from the article]

Small sample size often limits forecasting tasks such as the prediction of production, yield, and consumption of agricultural products. Machine learning offers an appealing alternative to traditional forecasting methods. In particular, support vector regression has superior forecasting performance in small sample applications. In this article, we introduce support vector regression via an application to China's hog market. Since 2014, China's hog inventory data has experienced an abnormal decline that contradicts price and consumption trends. We use support vector regression to predict the true inventory based on the price‐inventory relationship before 2014. We show that, in this application with a small sample size, support vector regression outperforms neural networks, random forest, and linear regression. Predicted hog inventory decreased by 3.9% from November 2013 to September 2017, instead of the 25.4% decrease in the reported data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID‐19 has had unprecedented effects on the US economy, in large part because of its effects on workers. Within food and agriculture, these effects pose the greatest threat to the production of labor‐intensive commodities—in particular, fruits and vegetables, the production of which tends to require large numbers of workers for harvesting and packing. We econometrically estimate the effects of COVID‐19 on fruit and vegetable production as the US agricultural labor supply is adversely affected by this pandemic. The major crop losses include $16 million in lettuce, $5 million in apples, and $4 million in grapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Table 1 indicates, 9 of the top 10 greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters, including China, the largest GHG emitter by far, have ratified (or in the case of Japan, accepted) the treaty governing the Paris Agreement by early November 2016. There are some important aspects to the case of GHG emissions which have potentially important implications for the policies that any country or the world as a whole should try to implement in order to reduce its emissions of GHG. For global warming, it is the total amount of GHG emissions worldwide that matters, not the geographic location of the source of GHG emissions. Emissions pricing has an advantage over a renewable portfolio standard in that the emissions price provides a broad signal to all relevant agents to reduce emissions when doing so is cheaper than paying the per-unit emissions price. [Extracted from the article]

Recent technological developments and past technology transitions suggest that the world could be on the verge of a profound shift in transportation technology. The return of the electric car and its adoption, like that of the motor vehicle in place of horses in early 20th century, could cut oil consumption substantially in the coming decades. Our analysis suggests that oil as the main fuel for transportation could have a much shorter life span left than commonly assumed. In the fast adoption scenario, oil prices could converge to the level of coal prices, about $15 per barrel in 2015 prices by the early 2040s. In this possible future, oil could become the new coal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to better understand how cross‐border price shocks are transmitted to domestic food markets, we augment an error correction model with a network approach and apply it to Tanzania. We show the following. First, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city and port, is not a significant influence. Second, demand shocks emanate primarily from border markets that may serve as conduits for informal trade. Third, market linkages differ considerably across seasons and commodities. Fourth, prices in areas with high production potential are especially sensitive to systemic shocks. More broadly, we show that a network approach in conjunction with time series analysis can enhance our understanding of the origins and channels through which shocks are transmitted to food markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a naturally occurring phenomenon that affects weather around the world. Past ENSO episodes have had severe impacts on the economy of Colombia. We study the influence of ENSO on Colombian coffee production, exports, and price. Our structural econometric specification is consistent with an economic model of the market for Colombian coffee which, in the short run, is characterized by a downward‐sloping demand curve and by a vertical supply curve. We show that El Niño (i.e., positive shocks to ENSO) is beneficial for Colombian production and exports and decreases the real price of Colombian coffee. On the contrary, La Niña (i.e., negative shocks to ENSO) depresses Colombian coffee production and exports and increases price. However, the overall impact of ENSO shocks is small. Both in the short run and in the long run, shocks to international demand for Colombian coffee are more relevant than supply‐side shocks in Colombia in explaining the dynamics of the price of Colombian coffee. Our results suggest that a given coffee price shock can have beneficial, detrimental, or negligible effects on the Colombian economy, depending on its underlying cause. As a consequence, policy responses to coffee price shocks should be designed by looking at the causes of the shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the links between commodity price bubbles and macroeconomic factors, with an application to the agricultural commodity markets in China from 2006 to 2014. Price bubbles are identified using a newly developed, recursive right-tailed unit root test. A Zero-inflated Poisson model is used to analyze the factors contributing to bubbles. Results show that (a) there were speculative bubbles in most Chinese agricultural commodity futures markets during the sample period, though their presence was infrequent; (b) economic growth, money supply, and inflation have positive effects on bubble occurrences, while interest rates have a negative effect; and (c) among all macroeconomic factors considered, economic growth and money supply have the greatest impact in triggering bubbles. Our findings shed new light on the nature and formation of bubbles in the Chinese agricultural commodity markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the degree of vertical price transmission along the wheat-bread value chain in Ethiopia. This is pursued by applying a vector error correction model and an impulse response analysis using monthly price data for the period 2000-2015. Our analysis considers transmission of price shocks across different market levels, including from the international and domestic wheat grain markets at the upstream to the domestic wheat bread market at the downstream of the value chain. The empirical findings indicate that significant cointegration exists across prices of the different market stages. There is a transmission from international prices to domestic prices at downstream markets, in particular to flour and bread prices. Prices at upstream markets are largely influenced by the domestic wholesale market. In general, the speed of adjustment is quite slow with a half-life of about one year for restoring the equilibrium price relationship. As price margins between the different market stages in the value chain have substantially decreased in the last 15 years, higher transmission, and thus exposure to international market shocks, can be expected in the future. The results also show that causal relationships exist between prices at different market stages-with the wholesale market identified as the key market level where prices and price expectations are formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluctuation in commodity prices is a significant and timely issue to be studied. This study is to examine the impact of monetary policy and other macroeconomic shocks on the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices. The major contributions of this study are twofold. First, unlike other studies that use indexes, this study analyzes the commodities individually, affording the inclusion of commodity-specific fundamentals such as the level of inventory-an important determinant of commodity price-in a structural VAR framework. Second, it exploits a rich data set of agricultural commodity prices which includes commodities that are usually overlooked in the literature, and extracts a common factor using the dynamic factor model to understand the extent of comovement of the prices and to gauge the extent to which macroeconomic shocks drive the 'comovement' in a factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) framework. The findings show that monetary policy, global economic conditions, and the U.S. dollar exchange rates play an important role in the dynamics of agricultural commodity prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses error correction models to evaluate the extent to and speed at which world agricultural commodity price movements affect consumer food prices in the European Union member states. We consider three types of world commodity price indices, each containing different commodities and weighting criteria. Results reveal a long-run relationship between world agricultural commodity and consumer food prices in over half of the member states. Consumer prices in different member states and categories of member states respond differently to specific world price indices, suggesting that there are disparities in the structure and the efficiency of their food markets. The eurozone founders generally have lower transmission elasticities. This should be taken into account when predicting the impacts of extreme world price volatility and consumer food price rises, prompting governments to pay attention to the most vulnerable households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the analysis of the weekly Commodity Futures Trading Commission reports on 12 US traded agricultural commodities, we revisit the heated debate on the impact of index flows on commodities prices. After introducing a novel stock-to-use proxy that may be used to represent inventory variations at the intra-month level, we show that speculators, contrary to index investors, are sensitive to commodity-specific fundamental information. Their endogeneity to commodities markets hinders the estimation of their market impact. Regarding the market impact of index flows, the endogeneity problem is alleviated in two ways: first, we restrict the scope to agricultural commodities, for which index flows are more exogenous to market prices; second, we introduce two novel instrumental variables that are computed from index flows outside the market under analysis. We find that index investment flows are offset by commercial players, not speculators. The serial correlation of index flows may explain the tendency of speculators to synchronize with index investors. There is strong evidence of an index flows' impact in those commodities markets where speculative and index positions are the most correlated. The market impact of index flows is located in periods of liquidity stress, as is the correlation between speculative and index positions. Overall, our results demonstrate an impact of index investors on some agricultural prices and suggest that the synchronicity between speculative and index positions is an important determinant of this impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT China's 2008 milk scandal severely impacted its dairy industry. Afterwards, the government took prompt efforts to regulate and enhance food safety standards. For example, a dairy marketing management policy was implemented, and concentrated dairy complexes were recommended as options for smallholder dairy farmers. The results of this study show that the policies affected marketing channels at the farm gate. Since then, new dairy complexes have emerged and are becoming the primary marketing channel for milk. The marketing transformation has profound implications for food safety, and has strengthened vertical coordination in the Chinese dairy chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the effects of the dramatic rise in agricultural commodity prices during 2007-2008 on income dynamics and poverty among rural households in Bangladesh. A unique panel data set allows us to put the effects of recent events in the context of long-run trends in income and poverty. We use data from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of rural households in Bangladesh collected in four waves in 1988, 2000, 2004, and 2008. Nargis and Hossain (Nargis, N., Hossain, M., 2006. Income dynamics and pathways out of rural poverty in Bangladesh, 1988-2004. Agric. Econ. 35, 425-435) analysed income dynamics and poverty incidence for the first three waves, finding a declining trend in both the incidence and severity of poverty, aided in particular by human capital development and off-farm employment opportunities. We update and extend the analysis to include data collected in 2008, at the height of a spike in agricultural prices. We find that the price of a balanced food basket increased by more than 50% during 2000-2008, while household income rose only 15%. As a result the incidence and severity of rural poverty in Bangladesh sunk to pre-2000 levels during 2004-2008. Thus, the price spikes in 2007-2008 helped push an additional 13 million people into poverty in rural Bangladesh. Moreover, we find that the determinants of poverty have not been time-invariant. In particular, agricultural production, which had previously been associated with a higher incidence of poverty, served as a hedge against higher food prices during 2004-2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, when all of the 70 million domestic cars becomes EVs, there is a possibility that 760 billion kWh/year of electric power can be transported by using EVs. In other words, EV batteries can be used for not only energy storing for EVs, but also for "storing solar power" and for "transporting electricity with the movement of cars (people)". This electric power transportation using EVs will largely reduce the demand for fuel oil in power generation. [Extracted from the article]

Furthermore, Cherif I et al i . complete a subsequent examination on what the fast catch-up of EVs could mean for the international oil market, which implies that an anthropologic energy transition may take place, if the historical technology paradigm shifts. Cherif I et al i . actually touch upon differences between Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries, but they should provide a discussion of the implications of these differences. Furthermore, perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the demand for oil that is not motor vehicle related, that is, the demand for the secondary products of crude oil, even though it is less than 40% of global consumption, it still constitutes a big portion of the oil demand. [Extracted from the article]

This article deals with the social implications of ethanol expansion in Brazil. The evolution of the labor market in sugarcane production in the country is analyzed together with its regional patterns of expansion, to illustrate how changes in the recent expansion are modifying the traditional pattern of labor demand in the activity. At the same time, the distributional effects of sugarcane expansion, as well as it's impacts on food security and land use change was approached with the aid of general equilibrium simulation models. The analysis shows that both the average earnings and the average years of schooling in sugarcane production are actually higher than in general agriculture in Brazil, and that this is linked to the growing increase in production in the Southeast and Central-West. Sugarcane production in these regions is more capital intensive and has a much higher productivity than in other traditional regions in Northeast Brazil. The study concludes that the expansion in sugarcane production according to actual patterns does not have a negative effect on poverty, and has only minor impacts on food prices and deforestation. The increase in the regional economic imbalances within the country appears to be the problem that requires attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For countries dependent on agriculture, the recent wave of investor interest in farmland could, in principle, help set in motion a virtuous cycle of economic growth and poverty reduction. A large literature documenting failure of such investments documents the risks involved. To appreciate associated opportunities and challenges, we review past experience, quantify country-level potential for area expansion versus intensification, and identify determinants of countries' attractiveness for investors in the initial stages of the 'land rush.' The fact that weak land governance seems to increase, rather than reduce, land demand justifies an emphasis on improving institutions, transparency, and accountability while at the same time providing concrete suggestions for policy and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]