This paper discusses major policy issues related to commodity dependence and export diversification in low-income countries. Contrary to some widely-held view, it argues that natural resources are not necessarily a ‘curse’ that condemns low-income countries to underdevelopment but can...

Vector autoregressions are used to model price transmission through the coffee processing chain, from producers to the world market and from the world market to consumers. A comparison is made of price dynamics against a backdrop of two very different market structures: pre-1989, producers...

Production and marketing lags in agri-food supply chains force competitive primary producers and food processors to commit to output targets before prices and exchange rates are realized. A theoretical model with one processor and many price-taking primary producers is developed to show that an...

The article analyzes production and marketing lags in agri-food supply chains that force competitive producers and processors to commit to output targets before prices and exchange rates are realized. We show that export markets act as put options for exporters and an increase in the volatility...

Following a critical review of the existing quantitative literature on cotton subsidies, a vector autoregression (VAR) is used to model the effects of US subsidies on the world cotton market from 1965 to 2001. Surprisingly, subsidies are found to have only a limited impact on prices despite...

Using cointegration techniques, we estimate two models that capture the long-term relationship between Spanish prices and agricultural production. The models were estimated over Spanish agricultural data from 1970 to 2000, a period spanning Spain’s implementation of the Common Agricultural...

This research investigates the strategic behavior of private crop insurance firms reinsured by the USDA through the Standard Reinsurance Agreement. This arrangement allows the private firm to strategically allocate individual policies into different risk sharing arrangements. Thus, firm earnings...

The study analyses the effects of CAP direct payments and their modulation on farm profitability for a sample of 369 farms in the Navarra region of Spain. Cost-revenue ratios are calculated in order to highlight the impact of CAP direct payments, modulation and the valuation of own production...

Whether bilateral trade barrier data conform with the Grossman-Helpman (1995) model’s predictions about “trade talks” is examined in this article. A simple form of the prediction from the model is tested. Bilateral US-Japan and US-EU data from the 1990s are employed. The results are the...