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In the past 30 years, palm oil production has increased ninefold, with almost all the growth occurring in Malaysia and Indonesia. This growth has been associated with extensive deforestation, with biofuels often named as the principal driver. However, other drivers have been less examined; in particular, restrictions on genetically modified food in Europe and on trans fats in many developed countries have led food companies to switch to using palm oil in production. This article uses a price analysis to examine the drivers of palm oil production growth during the 1980–2010 boom. Soya bean oil is used in the analysis as the leading vegetable oil, while crude oil represents the energy market; the prices of these oils, along with palm oil, are tested in vector autoregression (VAR) and vector error correction models. The two models consistently find that palm oil prices do not appear to respond to short-run fluctuations in crude oil prices. Rather, they are a function of lagged palm oil prices and current and lagged soya bean oil prices. Overall, the results indicate that while palm and soya bean oil markets have a potentially significant relationship, the crude oil market does not appear to have been an important driver of the palm oil boom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highlights: [•] We examine the interaction of two prosocial norms: restaurant tipping and generosity during the holiday season. [•] I identify seasonal differences in within-customer tipping behavior using two years of tipping data from a restaurant. [•] I find that people tip more, not less, during the holiday season. [•] The increase in tipping during the holidays is driven by those who are already the best tippers, indicating an intrinsic motive for norms like tipping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in agricultural land use have important implications for environmental services. Previous studies of agricultural land-use futures have been published indicating large uncertainty due to different model assumptions and methodologies. In this article we present a first comprehensive comparison of global agro-economic models that have harmonized drivers of population, GDP, and biophysical yields. The comparison allows us to ask two research questions: (1) How much cropland will be used under different socioeconomic and climate change scenarios? (2) How can differences in model results be explained? The comparison includes four partial and six general equilibrium models that differ in how they model land supply and amount of potentially available land. We analyze results of two different socioeconomic scenarios and three climate scenarios (one with constant climate). Most models (7 out of 10) project an increase of cropland of 10-25% by 2050 compared to 2005 (under constant climate), but one model projects a decrease. Pasture land expands in some models, which increase the treat on natural vegetation further. Across all models most of the cropland expansion takes place in South America and sub-Saharan Africa. In general, the strongest differences in model results are related to differences in the costs of land expansion, the endogenous productivity responses, and the assumptions about potential cropland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the theoretical and functional specification of production in partial equilibrium (PE) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models of the global agricultural and food system included in the AgMIP model comparison study. The two model families differ in their scope-partial versus economy-wide-and in how they represent technology and the behavior of supply and demand in markets. The CGE models are 'deep' structural models in that they explicitly solve the maximization problem of consumers and producers, assuming utility maximization and profit maximization with production/cost functions that include all factor inputs. The PE models divide into two groups on the supply side: (1) 'shallow' structural models, which essentially specify area/yield supply functions with no explicit maximization behavior, and (2) 'deep' structural models that provide a detailed activity-analysis specification of technology and explicit optimizing behavior by producers. While the models vary in their specifications of technology, both within and between the PE and CGE families, we consider two stylized theoretical models to compare the behavior of crop yields and supply functions in CGE models with their behavior in shallow structural PE models. We find that the theoretical responsiveness of supply to changes in prices can be similar, depending on parameter choices that define the behavior of implicit supply functions over the domain of applicability defined by the common scenarios used in the AgMIP comparisons. In practice, however, the applied models are more complex and differ in their empirical sensitivity to variations in specification-comparability of results given parameter choices is an empirical question. To illustrate the issues, sensitivity analysis is done with one global CGE model, MAGNET, to indicate how the results vary with different specification of technical change, and how they compare with the results from PE models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies assessing plausible futures for agricultural markets and global food security have had contradictory outcomes. To advance our understanding of the sources of the differences, 10 global economic models that produce long-term scenarios were asked to compare a reference scenario with alternate socioeconomic, climate change, and bioenergy scenarios using a common set of key drivers. Several key conclusions emerge from this exercise: First, for a comparison of scenario results to be meaningful, a careful analysis of the interpretation of the relevant model variables is essential. For instance, the use of 'real world commodity prices' differs widely across models, and comparing the prices without accounting for their different meanings can lead to misleading results. Second, results suggest that, once some key assumptions are harmonized, the variability in general trends across models declines but remains important. For example, given the common assumptions of the reference scenario, models show average annual rates of changes of real global producer prices for agricultural products on average ranging between −0.4% and +0.7% between the 2005 base year and 2050. This compares to an average decline of real agricultural prices of 4% p.a. between the 1960s and the 2000s. Several other common trends are shown, for example, relating to key global growth areas for agricultural production and consumption. Third, differences in basic model parameters such as income and price elasticities, sometimes hidden in the way market behavior is modeled, result in significant differences in the details. Fourth, the analysis shows that agro-economic modelers aiming to inform the agricultural and development policy debate require better data and analysis on both economic behavior and biophysical drivers. More interdisciplinary modeling efforts are required to cross-fertilize analyses at different scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the capacity of agricultural systems to feed the world population under climate change requires projecting future food demand. This article reviews demand modeling approaches from 10 global economic models participating in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). We compare food demand projections in 2050 for various regions and agricultural products under harmonized scenarios of socioeconomic development, climate change, and bioenergy expansion. In the reference scenario (SSP2), food demand increases by 59-98% between 2005 and 2050, slightly higher than the most recent FAO projection of 54% from 2005/2007. The range of results is large, in particular for animal calories (between 61% and 144%), caused by differences in demand systems specifications, and in income and price elasticities. The results are more sensitive to socioeconomic assumptions than to climate change or bioenergy scenarios. When considering a world with higher population and lower economic growth (SSP3), consumption per capita drops on average by 9% for crops and 18% for livestock. The maximum effect of climate change on calorie availability is −6% at the global level, and the effect of biofuel production on calorie availability is even smaller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is unique among economic sectors in the nature of impacts from climate change. The production activity that transforms inputs into agricultural outputs involves direct use of weather inputs (temperature, solar radiation available to the plant, and precipitation). Previous studies of the impacts of climate change on agriculture have reported substantial differences in outcomes such as prices, production, and trade arising from differences in model inputs and model specification. This article presents climate change results and underlying determinants from a model comparison exercise with 10 of the leading global economic models that include significant representation of agriculture. By harmonizing key drivers that include climate change effects, differences in model outcomes were reduced. The particular choice of climate change drivers for this comparison activity results in large and negative productivity effects. All models respond with higher prices. Producer behavior differs by model with some emphasizing area response and others yield response. Demand response is least important. The differences reflect both differences in model specification and perspectives on the future. The results from this study highlight the need to more fully compare the deep model parameters, to generate a call for a combination of econometric and validation studies to narrow the degree of uncertainty and variability in these parameters and to move to Monte Carlo type simulations to better map the contours of economic uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated Assessment studies have shown that meeting ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation targets will require substantial amounts of bioenergy as part of the future energy mix. In the course of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), five global agro-economic models were used to analyze a future scenario with global demand for ligno-cellulosic bioenergy rising to about 100 ExaJoule in 2050. From this exercise a tentative conclusion can be drawn that ambitious climate change mitigation need not drive up global food prices much, if the extra land required for bioenergy production is accessible or if the feedstock, for example, from forests, does not directly compete for agricultural land. Agricultural price effects across models by the year 2050 from high bioenergy demand in an ambitious mitigation scenario appear to be much smaller (+5% average across models) than from direct climate impacts on crop yields in a high-emission scenario (+25% average across models). However, potential future scarcities of water and nutrients, policy-induced restrictions on agricultural land expansion, as well as potential welfare losses have not been specifically looked at in this exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether the inclusion of the price risk variable as an explanatory variable in a Gardner-type acreage response model is statistically significant. By estimating six separate soya bean acreage response equations, including two linear equations with and without risk, two double logarithmic equations with and without risk and two semi-logarithmic equations with and without risk, we find that adding a risk variable to the futures price model yields a better statistical result in every case. Furthermore, the models that have incorporated the risk variable have higher own and cross-price elasticities. This is a desirable result, since in the literature, many previous estimated supply elasticities were considered lower than plausible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global land use implications of biofuel expansion have received considerable attention in the literature over the past decade. Model-based estimates of the emissions from cropland expansion have been used to assess the environmental impacts of biofuel policies. And integrated assessment models have estimated the potential for biofuels to contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement over the coming century. All of these studies feature, explicitly or implicitly, competition between biofuel feed stocks and other land uses. However, the economic mechanisms governing this competition, as well as the contribution of biofuels to global land use change, have not received the close scrutiny that they deserve. The purpose of this article is to offer a deeper look at these factors. We begin with a comparative static analysis which assesses the impact of exogenously specified forecasts of biofuel expansion over the period: 2006-2035. Global land use change is decomposed according to the three key margins of economic response: extensive supply, intensive supply, and demand. Under the International Energy Agency's 'New Policies' scenario, biofuels account for nearly one-fifth of global land use change over the 2006-2035 period. The article also offers a comparative dynamic analysis which determines the optimal path for first and second generation biofuels over the course of the entire 21st century. In the absence of GHG regulation, the welfare-maximizing path for global land use, in the face of 3% annual growth in oil prices, allocates 225 Mha to biofuel feed stocks by 2100, with the associated biofuels accounting for about 30% of global liquid fuel consumption. This area expansion is somewhat diminished by expected climate change impacts on agriculture, while it is significantly increased by an aggressive GHG emissions target and by advances in conversion efficiency of second generation biofuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identify critical stocks-to-use ratios (SURs) for major grains and for an index of total calories from these grains. The latter appears to be a promising indicator of vulnerability to large price spikes when the current price shows no cause for concern. More generally, our results suggest that stocks data, though no doubt unreliable, can be valuable complements to price data as indicators of vulnerability to shortages and price spikes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food markets in developing countries are experiencing an expansion of new functional products. Even though their market share is small, these food products are usually imported and post a higher price compared to local products. In this article, we investigate the consumer response toward new functional food products in Uzbekistan by focusing on the incorporation of apples enriched with antioxidant coating in the food market. We conduct consumer surveys with two different information treatments. We utilize a dichotomous-choice contingent valuation methodology to estimate willingness to pay for this product and analyze factors that affect consumer choice. The results suggest that the average Uzbek respondent is willing to purchase functional apples with a 6% discount. The effect of information regarding the potential health benefits of antioxidants is positive and statistically significant. We compare the findings with a previous U.S. study of the same product and discuss how the delivery method provides an additional hurdle in the Uzbek market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The authors identified three breaks in the relationship between corn and oil prices. The first break coincides with the second oil crisis. The second break marks the end of the agricultural export subsidy war between the European Union and the United States in the second half of 1980s; the third one occurred at the beginning of the ethanol boom at the very end of the 1990s. The relationship between corn and oil prices tends to be stronger when oil prices are highly volatile and when agricultural policies create less distortion. The ethanol boom strengthened the relation between corn and oil prices, which are cointegrated only in the fourth and last regime. Impulse response functions confirm that corn prices systematically respond to oil price shocks, but the converse is not observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using daily scanner data we analyze consumers' reactions to negative information with regard to product quality with reference to a fraud that involved a number of leading Italian firms in the cheese sector in 2008. We evaluate the effects of this event by using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy that compares the brands that were involved in the fraud with those that were uninvolved. It emerges that the negative news with regard to product quality induced consumers to shift their demand from involved to not involved brands. These effects persisted over time, even after the media stopped giving attention to the issue. Retailers suffered part of the costs of the bad news about product quality: the retail margin on brands that were mentioned adversely by the media decreased after the negative publicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We examine the role of information in understanding the differential effects of income on the demand for health. In the health capital framework of Grossman (JPE, 1972), we derive the testable hypotheses that individuals adjust their diet in a healthier direction upon receiving negative health information, and that the effect is greater for richer individuals. Based on unique Chinese longitudinal data and a regression discontinuity design that exploits the exogenous cutoff of systolic blood pressure in the diagnosis of hypertension, we find that, upon receiving hypertension diagnosis, individuals reduce fat intake significantly, and richer individuals reduce more. Our results also indicate that among the rich, hypertension diagnosis is more effective for individuals with lower education. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Over the last decade, governments throughout eastern and southern Africa have increasingly used strategic reserves and/or marketing boards to influence grain market outcomes, yet little is known about how these activities are affecting grain markets. This article estimates the effects of the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) on maize market prices in production and consumption regions in Zambia using a vector autoregression model and monthly data from July 1996 through December 2008. In recent years, FRA has become the dominant buyer of smallholder maize in Zambia. Simulations show that FRA activities stabilized market prices throughout the July 1996-December 2008 study period and raised mean prices between July 2003 and December 2008 by 17-19%. The price raising effects of FRA policies have assisted surplus maize producers but adversely affected net buyers of maize in Zambia, namely urban consumers and the majority of the rural poor. The increase in maize price stability is unlikely to have had substantial welfare effects on poor households. In contrast, relatively wealthy producers are likely to have benefited from the higher average and more stable maize prices resulting from FRA policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cotton, both a source of livelihood for millions of poor rural households and a major source of export revenues, is a vital commodity for the economic and social development of Mali. Inefficiencies in the Malian cotton system at the ginnery and producers' cooperative levels (e.g., late payment to farmers and poorly functioning credit schemes) have recently led to an important decline in supply, threatening the sustainability of the sector. Using regional data from 1998/1999 to 2008/2009, this study aims to quantitatively assess the contribution of key determinants, such as cotton prices and timely payment, toward the downward trend in cotton area. A dynamic supply model, based on adaptive expectations and partial adjustment, is employed to estimate the effects of prices and institutional factors, such as credit recovery rates and date of payment to farmers, on the Malian cotton supply. Results show that supply responds significantly to cotton prices relative to cereal and fertilizer prices. Date of payment varies across agricultural cycles and late payment negatively influences land devoted to cotton. Low credit repayment rates create disincentives to grow cotton. Therefore, the revitalization of the Malian cotton sector depends upon getting both prices and institutions right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we analyse how three scenarios involving different levels of harmonisation of common agricultural policy (CAP) decoupled payments in the EU affect the distribution of farm income across regions and farm types. We use the farm type extension of the common agricultural policy impact (CAPRI) model, which captures farm heterogeneity across the EU. The first scenario (NUTS1) assumes uniform per-hectare payments at the NUTS1 level. The second scenario (MS-CONV) equalises the per-hectare rates inside each Member State (MS) and partially harmonises the single payment scheme (SPS) across MS in line with the 2011 Commission proposal. The third scenario simulates a uniform per-hectare payment at the EU level. Depending on the implementation of the SPS, the NUTS1 flat rate induces a substantial redistribution of payments across farm types and NUTS2 regions, particularly in regions that apply the historical SPS. The MS-CONV and EU flat-rate schemes have more significant impacts at the EU-wide level. In the EU-15, almost all farms lose payments from MS-CONV and EU-wide flat rates, whereas in the EU-10, almost all farm types gain from these scenarios. Our conservative estimates indicate that the flat-rate payments could redistribute up to €8.5 billion. Lower land rental costs partially offset the losses of farm income in the EU-15 from payment redistribution. Land rents drop for all flat-rate scenarios across most sectors and farm sizes in the EU-15. In the less productive new MS, the landowners' rental income is largely unaffected by the introduction of the flat rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aquaculture growth has led to worries about overfishing and reduction in wild-caught food fish supply because of increased demand for fish meal. As such, the price ratio between fish meal and soybean meal has received much attention as an indicator of changing market conditions. In recent years, the price ratio between these two commodities has become more volatile. Several authors have suggested that the traditional relationship between fish meal and soybean meal has broken down and that this is evidence of increased demand pressure on fish meal. In this article, we investigate the hypothesis that there are two regimes for the relative price between fish meal and soybean meal. The empirical results support this hypothesis, with the low-price regime representing the traditional stable relative price. The continued linkages between the fish meal and the soybean meal markets indicate that aquaculture is reducing its dependency on marine proteins in favour of vegetable proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: Economic analyses of farm policies generally focus on long run, steady state impacts while the transition dynamics are often overlooked. In this paper we develop a determinist dynamic computable general equilibrium analysis allowing agents to form adaptive versus perfect expectations. Using an illustrative CAP reform scenario, we simulate an abrupt versus a gradual implementation of this reform. Our results show that if economic agents are able to perfectly anticipate the impacts of the reform, delaying its implementation is never optimal. On the other hand, if agents gradually learn from market developments, we find some cases where a gradual implementation of this reform is welfare improving. Such gradual implementation allows minimizing adjustment costs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The study addresses the economic effectiveness of vaccination in the case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks. The effectiveness is evaluated in a U.S. case study comparing the outbreak costs under the currently recommended HPAI control practice versus one which also includes vaccination. An integrated economic-epidemic partial equilibrium model is used to empirically simulate HPAI outbreaks in three different poultry regions within the State of Texas. The simulation results show that the effectiveness of vaccination depends on flock density in the region and risk aversion preferences of the decision maker. In regions with high flock densities, if the decision maker is less risk averse the currently recommended strategy-which includes depopulation, movement restrictions, and flock testing-is more cost-effective than the same strategy supplemented with vaccination. Addition of vaccination improves cost effectiveness only if the decision maker is highly risk averse or if surveillance, carcass disposal, and cleaning costs are high. In regions with medium and low flock densities, adding vaccination to the currently recommended strategy is not cost-effective except in the case of high surveillance, carcass disposal, and cleaning costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of index-based crop insurance is often impeded by the existence of systemic risk of insured losses. We assess the effectiveness of two strategies for coping with systemic risk: regional diversification and securitization with catastrophe (CAT) bonds. The analysis is conducted in an equilibrium pricing framework which allows the optimal price of the insurance and the number of traded contracts to be determined. We also explore the role of basis risk and risk aversion of market agents. The model is applied to a hypothetical area yield insurance for rice producers in northeast China. If yields in two regions are positively correlated, we find that enlarging the insured area leads to higher insurance premiums. Unless capital market investors are very risk averse, a CAT bond written on an area yield index outperforms regional diversification in terms of certainty equivalents of both farmers and insurers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper studies the land use change impacts of fuels and biofuels. We test the theoretical hypothesis, which says that changes in fuel prices cause changes in land use both directly and indirectly and that, because of price inter-dependencies, biofuels reinforce the land use change impacts. We apply time-series analytical mechanisms to five major traded agricultural commodities, the cultivated area of agricultural land and crude oil price. Our data consists of yearly observations extending from 1950 to 2007 for the US. The empirical findings confirm that markets for crude oil and cultivated agricultural land are interdependent: an increase in oil price by 1dollar/barrel increases land use between 54,000 and 68,000ha. We also find that the increase of bioenergy sector accelerates land use change in the US, i.e. food commodities are being substituted for bioenergy crops. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article develops an econometric procedure to test the validity of the Law of One Price (LOP) under nonlinearity and to distinguish between its strong and its weak version. The procedure is applied to four major EU pork markets using weekly prices from 1991 to 2008. The empirical results suggest that the markets are well integrated, with deviations from the steady-state price differentials corrected nonlinearly. The LOP is valid for all market pairs and for the pair Germany-Spain it holds in its strong version. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. dairy sector is characterized by increasing volatility of milk prices, and consolidation in production as evidenced by declining number of dairy farms with an increasingly larger share of milk supplied from a small number of very large farms. Using aggregate national data, we build a mixed-frequency herd dynamics econometric model of the U.S. milk supply that updates and substantially amends the model first proposed by Chavas and Klemme. We implement a dynamic residual-based bootstrap technique that can be used in testing for changes in nonmarginal simulated long-run supply responsiveness, and trace the evolution of long-run milk supply elasticity from 1975 through 2010. Several papers in the past have suggested that long-run supply elasticity increases with dairy farm size, which implies that increased importance of large farms would increase aggregate long-run supply responsiveness. Contrary to this conclusion, we find a declining trend in long-run supply elasticity from 1975 through 2005. Persistence of such a decline would be a major cause for worry, as ever larger price swings would be needed to equilibrate the market in face of demand shocks. However, we find that milk supply is becoming more responsive since 2005 both to milk and feed price changes. Increasing responsiveness to feed prices further justifies focusing the next generation of the dairy policy instruments on managing dairy profit margins rather than just revenue streams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A seasonal model is proposed to forecast agricultural prices with pseudo-periodic seasonal patterns, in which the length of the seasonal period does not remain the same over time. The seasonal effect at a season is defined as a function of the proportion of the seasonal period length elapsed up to that season, and the seasonal pattern is modeled by means of evolving splines to capture any dynamic process of change. Such a model is a useful tool to forecast seasonal behaviors. To illustrate the relevance of this modeling framework, the methodology is applied to weekly prices of tomatoes exported to German markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing linkages between agricultural and energy markets have attracted considerable attention in research and policy discussions during recent years. As one of the largest biofuel markets worldwide, the German biodiesel market is of particular interest. It has grown rapidly since the beginning of the new millennium, with this growth being driven mainly by political interventions. Vertical price transmission channels along the biodiesel supply chain are analyzed in this study. We examine the relationship between diesel and biodiesel prices, and between rapeseed oil, soy oil, and biodiesel prices between 2002 and 2008. Due to pronounced changes in market conditions and the policy framework, a regime-dependent Markov-switching vector error-correction model is used. The regimes are characterized by markedly different price adjustment behaviors. Before 2005 and from late 2007 onward, a regime characterized by the strong orientation of biodiesel prices toward diesel prices dominates. Between 2005 and 2007, biodiesel and rapeseed oil prices are mutually interdependent. Frequent switches between the regimes of the price dynamics during this period indicate a high extent of uncertainty and instability in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we modified the two-region trade model developed by Dunn et al. (Agribusiness 3(4):393-402, 1987) for a small, open economy by incorporating the effect of transport cost on production cost. We then used the model to investigate the welfare impacts of rising transport cost in terms of consumer and producer surpluses, using the vegetable sector in Hawaii as a case study. We showed that the two key parameters affecting the adjustments in Hawaii's vegetable sector in response to the change of transport cost and the subsequent welfare impact are the transport cost content of the imported product and the local farm share of retail price. Using the import statistics of 10 major vegetable crops in 2006-2007, we found that every 1% increase in transport cost is expected to enhance the self-sufficiency of Hawaii's vegetable sector by approximately 0.5%, but at a cost of $0.27 million surplus loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid spread of mobile telephony throughout the developing world offers researchers a new and exciting means of data collection. This paper describes and analyses the experience of a research project that used mobile phones to collect high frequency, quantitative economic data from households in rural Tanzania. I discuss the research design, highlight some of the mistakes made and lessons learned, and speculate on the applicability of this method in other settings. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, the consumption of animal products has increased rapidly in China and India, driven by rising income and large populations. Such strong demand for animal products could have substantial impacts on both their own and global food and feed demand and supply. This paper examines the nature of rising demand for animal products in China and India and discusses national and global implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the influence of inventories in explaining the magnitude of price transmission. Using data from the Canadian chicken industry, a flexible non-linear inference framework detects significant non-linearities in the relationship between farm and wholesale prices. An empirical model is proposed to estimate a price transmission elasticity and a target inventory equation in the spirit of linear-quadratic inventory models in the macroeconomics literature. A generalized method of moments estimator measures the impact of inventories on price transmission and accounts for the potential correlation between sales and wholesale prices. The price transmission elasticity is lower (higher) when inventories are above (below) the target level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the direct and indirect impacts of ethanol production on land use, deforestation and food production. A partial equilibrium model of a national economy with two sectors and two regions, one of which includes a forest, is developed. It analyses how an exogenous increase in the ethanol price affects input allocation (land and labor) between sectors (energy crop and food). The total effect of ethanol prices on food production and deforestation is decomposed into three partial effects. First, the well-documented effect of direct land competition between rival uses arises; it increases deforestation and decreases food production. Second, an indirect displacement of food production across regions, possibly provoked by the reaction of international food prices, increases deforestation and reduces the food sector's output. Finally, labor mobility between sectors and regions tends to decrease food production but also deforestation. The total impact of ethanol production on food production is negative while there is an ambiguous impact on deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Fish markets can be expanded by two means, first by attracting newcomers in a local trading room and secondly by allowing remote bidders to participate. In both cases, electronic systems have played a key role in French primary fish markets. The computerisation of trading rooms started in the mid 1980s while connection through Intranet or Internet systems first started in the mid-1990s and then has spread more actively in France since 2007. However, the socioeconomic impact (on prices for example) of expanding markets by electronic means is far from being clearly predictable. First based on an econometric analysis, this article presents evidence of increases in price level and variability after the implementation of local electronic auction systems. Secondly, a comprehensive survey of the 40 fish auction markets in France brings additional information about the effects of electronic remote bidding on fish prices. The analysis of these two empirical outcomes uses the cross-fertilization of the positivist auction theory in economics with the constructionist approach of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in sociology to enrich the potential hypotheses lying behind the study of the structural impact of electronic systems on market prices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]