Although it has been shown that the poor are more responsive to food price changes than other people, they still may face higher food prices. Evidence from Zaire shows that there exists a movement within the month in food prices corresponding to changes in food supply and food demand. This...

Integration of commodity markets in developing countries has received considerable attention because price integration is perceived to be central to the success of food and agricultural policies. Price integration tests are performed in retail markets in Kinshasa (Zaire), i.e. between...

Higher world food prices have led many developing countries to adopt policies to mitigate the impact on low-income households. This article sets out a partial equilibrium framework to evaluate the efficiency, distributional, and revenue implications of alternative policy responses. The model is...

This article documents the role that personal relationships play in economic exchange. Original survey data show that agricultural traders in Madagascar perceive relationships as the most important factor for success in their business. Evidence details the extent to which relationships are used...

There is a vigorous debate on the liberalization of heavily regulated agricultural markets in India. A crucial institutional characteristic is the role of state regulated brokers in wholesale markets. Relying on data from a unique survey in Uttarakhand, a state in North-India, we find that...

Food quality has become an important determinant of success in global food trade and growers for international markets have to continuously adjust to buyers’ requirements. It is however not clear to what extent there is a demand for food quality - and how much buyers are willing to pay...

There is a vigorous debate on liberalization of the heavily regulated agricultural markets in India. A crucial institutional characteristic is the role of state-regulated brokers in wholesale markets. Relying on data from a unique survey in Uttarakhand, a state in North India, we find that...

In Bangladesh—one of the poorest countries in Asia, where rice accounts for almost 70 percent of consumers' caloric intake—the share of the less expensive, low-quality coarse rice is shown to be rapidly decreasing in rice markets and the quality premium for the best-quality rice has been...

We estimate the probability of deforestation at the plot level for Chiapas and Oaxaca, two poor Mexican states with high levels of biodiversity. Results highlight the importance of physio-geographic endowments as well as policy variables and allow to test explicitly for aggregation bias. They...