This analysis employs cointegration methods and semiparametric regression in order to assess the integration of maize markets and the factors determining national and cross-national transmission of price signals in Sub-Saharan Africa. We use a rich dataset of 16 series of wholesale maize prices...

The cost of complying with a sanitary standard is certain. However, such regulatory measure is a source of uncertainty for exporting firms in relation to border rejections. Shipments may fail to pass inspections and may be refused entry into the importing country. We examine how the risk of...

This paper investigates the consequences of a locust plague that occurred in Mali in 2004. We argue that in agricultural economies with a single harvest per year, this type of shock can affect households through two channels: first, a speculative/anticipatory effect that kicks in during the...

Reforms often occur in waves, seemingly cascading from country to country. We argue that such reform waves may be driven by informational spillovers: uncertainty about the outcome of reform is reduced by learning from the experience of similar countries. We motivate this hypothesis with a simple...

We investigate the effects of economic crises on the subsequent economic performance, economic reform, democratization and institutional change. Our analysis is based on a sample of post-communist countries, most of which experienced severe economic crises during the 1990s. We find that the...

Trade liberalization of the agri-food sector is a sensitive topic in both Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) discussions. Using a general equilibrium model, we assess the potential impact of these agreements. The US agri-food sectors would...

Biotic factors such as pests create biodiversity effects that increase production risks and decrease land productivity when agriculture becomes more specialized. We show in a Ricardian two-country trade setup that production specialization is incomplete under free trade because of the decrease...

This paper examines the causal effects of shifts in international food commodity prices on euro area inflation dynamics using a structural VAR model that is identified with an external instrument (i.e. a series of global harvest shocks). The results reveal that exogenous food commodity price...

The SSM is a proposal from the G-33 Group in the Doha Round negotiations in which developing countries would be allowed to use contingent tariffs to control import surges of food commodities and/or downward spikes in their border prices. The principal objective is to safeguard the livelihood...

This article presents a Ricardian model of trade with learning-by-doing to study the effect of barriers to trade in products with low growth potential on the long-run economic growth. The model shows that, when elasticity of demand for the product with a lower learning potential is lower than...