Economic statistics can be used to inform policy as it is being designed, avoid policy design mistakes, or implement government programs once they are established into law. Oftentimes, statistics are used for all three purposes. This paper considers the relationships between statistics and...

Output quotas are known to be more efficient than input quotas in transferring surplus from consumers to producers. Input quotas, by distorting the shadow prices of inputs, lead to inefficient production and generate larger deadweight losses, for a given amount of surplus transferred. Yet, input...

Although the key concept of a quota is simple – to set a limit on production – the market and welfare implications of operating a quota system are relatively complex. The purpose of the analysis reported in this paper is to address two aspects relevant to an evaluation of quota systems. First,...

This paper presents a comparative analysis of three different economic studies that played major roles in the policy debate over the Compact. It draws an important distinction between before-after and counterfactual impact analysis and highlights constraining assumptions in models. Over time the...

A política agrícola e de preços mínimos, no Brasil, é baseada a partir de 1996 na criação de novos instrumentos de política agrícola, menos intervencionistas e mais orientados para o mercado como o Prêmio de Escoamento de Produtos (PEP) e o Contrato de Opções. Para este artigo, foram...

Paper prepared for presentation at the Third International Conference onCoexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM basedAgricultural Supply Chains (GMCC)Seville (Spain), 20th and 21st November 2007

A regime-switching model for analysis of market integration has been developed that incorporates rate of trade information. An application of the methods to United States–China soybean trade demonstrates that the extended trade information allows better interpretation of market conditions....

The increasing use of agricultural contracts and processor concentration raises concerns that processors may offer lower contract prices in absence of local competition. This study examines the price competitiveness of marketing and production contracts depending on the availability of...

This paper aims to determine the solidity of the notion of the "coffee paradox" using annual data from 1977 to 2007. In the confines of an export supply model, we analyze the effects of export coffee price on export volume. Price and profit equation are used to determine the effects of market...

Unlike in developing countries, there tends to be no problem of access to water, electricity, and heating for private households in transition countries. However, transition countries have a considerable amount of low-income households, and the problem of affordability of these...