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Long-only-Indexfonds stehen seit geraumer Zeit unter Verdacht, für die Preisanstiege an landwirtschaftlichen Warenterminmärkten verantwortlich zu sein. Hieraus wird die Forderung abgleitet, den Aktivitätsradius dieser Indexfonds drastisch einzuschränken. Allerdings stehen solche Forderungen sowie die zugrunde liegende Diagnose im Widerspruch zum aktuellen Stand wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Die empirisch orientierte Literatur liefert bisher keine belastbare Evidenz, dass Long-only-Indexfonds mit ihren Termingeschäften das Niveau bzw. die Volatilität der Preise für Agrarrohstoffe signifikant angehoben haben. Neue theoretische Arbeiten weisen vielmehr darauf hin, dass Long-only-Indexfonds gemäß ihrer Anlagestrategie tendenziell die Agrarrohstoffpreise stabilisieren sowie eine wichtige Versicherungs- und Wettbewerbsfunktion auf Agrarmärkten erfüllen. Durch ihr Engagement sinken die Risikoprämien, so dass sich Nahrungsmittelproduzenten zu niedrigeren Kosten gegen Preisschwankungen absichern können. Die niedrigeren Risikoprämien motivieren Landwirte, einen größeren Teil ihrer Ernte einzulagern, was saisonalen Preisschwankungen entgegenwirkt. Im Sinne einer nachhaltigen Sicherung der globalen Nahrungsmittelversorgung sollte von strengen Marktzutrittsregulierungen der Long-only-Indexfonds abgesehen werden.

Since most agricultural programs employ two or more policy instruments simultaneously, it is notable that little research has attempted to find optimal instrument combinations and no research exists which evaluates the social costs (unrealized benefits) of combining instruments suboptimally. In our paper we report a simple and feasible method to find optimal policy instrument combinations, and we provide the first general, formal approach to measuring the social costs of suboptimal policy instrument combinations. Our approach is illustrated in an analysis for five major U.S. crops (com, feed grains, wheat, rice, cotton). The simple model we employ for the illustration suggests that except for the feed grains program, the observed programs combined policy instruments quite suboptimally. We conclude that agricultural economics research now can and should begin placing increased emphasis on studying optimal policy instrument combinations. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper I improve Gardner's surplus transformation curve framework by assuming that governments are able to vary many policy instruments simultaneously instead of only one. I use my framework to find the combination of the currently used instruments which provides the most efficient income redistribution for the Austrian bread grains market. Comparing the most efficient policy with the actual policy reveals that 464 X 106 Austrian shillings were wasted. I theoretically compare for a small country the transfer efficiency of every possible pair of the four major agricultural policy instruments: floor price, (production) quota, co-responsibility levy, and deficiency payments. Without considering the marginal cost of public funds (MCF), deficiency payments cum quota (equal to a fully decoupled direct income support) is the most efficient policy, succeeded by floor price cum quota, and floor price cum deficiency payments. If the MCF is taken into account, the ranking crucially depends on the market parameters, the transfer level, and the value of the MCF. For the Austrian bread grains market, I empirically demonstrate that given the present support level, a fully decoupled direct income support redistributes income most efficiently as long as the MCF is lower than 1.17. Beyond this value a floor price cum quota policy becomes more efficient. A floor price cum deficiency payments policy is never superior to the floor price cum quota.

Vertical coordination in food networks is characterized by dynamically changing supply and marketing relationships. E-business provides support and improvement options for vertical coordination processes and flexible supply chain management in food networks. However, adoption of e-business in food networks is low as available e-business offers as the communication of safeguards for trust and control as basis for the transaction decision is not realized appropriately. This paper analyzes decision preferences for trust generation as basis for the design of e-business environments for supply chain management in food networks. The analytic hierarchy process is applied to prioritize preferences for different transaction scenarios in food networks.