The purpose of the following paper is to explore different factors causing structural changes in the Colombian coffee sector. The Colombian economy is characterized by a revenue function (Dixit and Norman’s GDP function) with three quasi-fixed inputs and three outputs. The characterization of...

Supermarkets are currently gaining ground in the agri-food systems of many developing countries. While recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector, impacts on farming efficiency have hardly been studied. Productivity effects in previous studies are also estimated with...

Forthcoming in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

The need to provide agricultural information to farmers has led to emergence of numerous ICT-based MIS projects in developing country. These projects aim at promoting commercialization of smallholder agriculture and subsequently their welfare. This study examines the welfare effects of one such...

This study analyzes the determinants of TE among traditional dairy farms in the State of Wisconsin taking into account dairy farms’ heterogeneity. To do so, we first estimate a production frontier and the level of TE using the SPF framework. Then we analyze the determinants of TI using a...

The increasing use of production contracts in the hog sector has reduced the number of spot market transactions, raised concerns about price manipulation and helped to spur legislation requiring price reporting by packers. Using data from the 2002 and 2007 Censuses of Agriculture, this study...

We develop a framework in which the cost of producing a quantity food and the cost of food safety differs across firms. We show that large firms may supply the safest food even though small firms have a cost advantage in producing safe food. The model shows that mandatory traceability can...

Prion diseases have raised concerns in consumer’s minds about food safety associated with meat world-wide. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) both exist in Canada and consumer markets for beef, bison, elk and deer may have been affected by the diseases....