Government policy and dynamic supply response: a study of the compulsory grain delivery system

The impact of government policy on the dynamics of agricultural supply in Ethiopia during the 1980s is explored. Specifically, an intertemporal acreage allocation model that allows for the impact of compulsory grain delivery is developed. Subsequently, an estimable dynamic acreage demand equation is derived, and estimated for a crop using region-level data. Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators for dynamic panel data models are used. The elasticity estimates thus obtained suggest that the demand for crop acreage (and hence the supply of crop output) responded negatively to the level of forced grain procurement, and positively to output price.