Agricultural Economics最新文献

The Vietnamese government is concerned with long-term food security due to the rising demand for food and potential climate-induced conversion of areas under food production. This article is among the first studies which examine the climate-induced uptake of crop substitution and its likely impact on the national target of maintaining food areas to sustain food security. In contrast to most crop choice analyses which obtain cross-household evidence using a Multinomial Logit model, we model within household competition across alternative uses of land using a Fractional Multinomial Logit model. Our empirical findings suggest that Vietnamese farmers have adapted to the changing climate by selecting different crops. Increases in winter and summer temperatures mean that farmers are more likely to substitute cereals for others. Farmers choose annual industrial crops in locations with warmer springs and autumns. The choice of perennial industrial crops is sensitive to spring and autumn temperatures. Precipitation has small impacts on land use choice. The projected climate changes are not likely to jeopardize the national target of maintaining 40 percent of farmland under food production. However, we expect projected climate changes to result in large shifts from cereals to annual industrial crops in the main rice bowl of Vietnam.

Aspirations influence future-oriented behavior and ensuing outcomes but they may also fail to do so when the aspired-to-status is far away from the current one. Theoretical predictions suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship between this aspiration gap and the effort to achieve what is aspired to. Aspirations that are ahead but not too far ahead of the current status serve as the best incentives for investments. We examine the income aspiration gap of smallholder households and relate it to livestock in a pastoral setting in Northern Kenya. Our focus on livestock is guided by the burgeoning recognition of livestock as an investment and saving conduit for many households in pastoral communities in developing nations. Employing different empirical strategies including parametric and semi-parametric techniques, we find livestock to be increasing with aspirations up to a threshold, from which it then declines to lead to an aspiration failure. Delving into livestock heterogeneity, we uncover evidence that cattle and poultry respond more to the aspiration gap than small ruminants such as sheep and goats. Different U-shaped tests confirm this relationship, bolstering the evidence of an aspiration failure. These findings are robust to the inclusion of relevant controls, truncations at zero, and different variable transformations. We also show that the findings are unlikely to be driven by unobserved heterogeneity. Additionally, we find that internal locus of control, that is the degree to which individuals believe they control outcomes in their lives is associated with livestock investments.

This article examines the relationship between agents’ behavioral attributes (or time preferences) and the problem of obesity and, more generally, problems of both overnutrition and undernutrition. Through a primary survey in western Delhi data were gathered on participants’ food choices and body mass index. Time preferences, as posited by the ($��\beta �,�\delta �$) quasi-hyperbolic discounting model, were elicited using an incentivized, choice-based experiment. Estimating a simultaneous two-equation model, the article finds that individuals in the sample with lower β and/or lower δ (or higher time preferences) make unhealthy food choices, which, in turn, significantly increases their BMI. In addition, a supplementary empirical exercise analyzes a large, secondary unit record data set, with savings as a proxy for time preferences, to provide evidence that these behavioral attributes also explain the problem of underweight (germane in developing countries).

Using rich data on graduate tenure-track faculty, we explore the gender pay gap in academic departments of economics and agricultural/applied economics and the differences between them. We find that the gender pay gaps in economics and agricultural/applied economics are 8.3% and 4.1%, respectively, controlling for faculty rank, experience, and university affiliation. The gender pay gap increases with rank and varies across institutions. Productivity is an important determinant of wages but it explains little of the gender pay gap. While the lower unexplained gap in agricultural/applied economics is laudable, a greater share of women who are assistant and associate professors is part of the explanation. Given institutional differences, we explore the extent to which institutional factors—differences in the returns to observed characteristics, such as rank; unobserved characteristics; and institutional differences in pay levels—contribute to the gender pay gap.

Measurement error in agricultural field area and productivity data for developing countries is widely acknowledged, but there is a shortage of evidence on what this implies, especially for farmers. By comparing self-reported to global positioning system measurements, we investigate area measurement errors using a nationally representative dataset of Zambian smallholder maize plots. We examine the implications for researchers’ understanding of productivity, but also how actual productivity may be affected. We find land area tends to be overstated on smaller fields and understated on larger fields. Correcting measurement error strengthens evidence of an inverse relationship between field size and productivity. Input use patterns indicate farmers believe the inaccurately reported area figures, suggesting measurement errors affect input choices and thus actual productivity. Improving farmer understanding of area measurements could improve productivity. Improving the accuracy of area data will improve researchers’ understanding of productivity.

This paper examines the impact of a change in the policy regime from flat rate to free farm electricity pricing, introduced in Punjab, India in February 1997 using a difference-in-differences framework. Based on village-level data from the second and the third rounds of the Minor Irrigation Census, the study finds a differential increase in the number of electric-operated tubewells and horsepower load of pumps in Punjab as compared to an agriculturally-similar and neighboring state, Haryana, which is taken as the control group. Through these channels, the study finds that the average groundwater depth increased by 1.9 meters more in Punjab as compared to Haryana, which is 22 percent of the baseline average groundwater depth in Punjab. Nationally-representative well-level data on groundwater depths from the Central Ground Water Board shows impact heterogeneity with sharper effect on groundwater depth for wells that are lying closer to the cut-off of about 10 meters where a technological shift from centrifugal to submersible pumps is required to maintain access to groundwater pumping.

Extreme weather events have occurred more frequently because of global climate change. For farmers, diversification, including crop and income diversification, is one of the most effective strategies to improve rural livelihoods by managing risk and coping with weather shocks. We investigate the empirical linkages among weather shocks, livelihood diversification, and household food security, exploiting three waves of nationally representative rural household panel data merged with granular weather data in Bangladesh. Using instrumental variable methods to control for the possible endogeneity of livelihood diversification decisions, we find that weather shocks are significant drivers of crop and income diversification. Moreover, both crop and income diversification are found to impact per capita food expenditure, while their effects on household dietary diversity are not robust. In particular, the distributional effects of income diversification are uniformly positive and significant for all quantiles of a per capita food expenditure distribution but are more sizable for the richest households. The findings, therefore, highlight the unequal effect of livelihood diversification within the context of rural South Asia, suggesting the need for diversification interventions targeting rural low-income groups with the goal of improving socioeconomic status, institutional conditions, and infrastructure.

Improved agricultural inputs—including seeds, fertilizer, and pest control products—are necessary for raising farm productivity in Africa. Yet, in many locations, variable input quality and a proliferation of unregistered brands make product selection and calibration of optimal dosages difficult for farmers. Unregistered pesticides pose two specific quality problems: frequent underdosage and, in some cases, inclusion of banned substances. In response to widespread farmer complaints, this study estimates the prevalence of unregistered pesticide products by conducting a detailed survey of agricultural input retailers in 10 major agricultural markets across Mali. The article explores resulting risks and responses by private and public sector stakeholders through structured interviews with key informants in those same markets. The findings suggest widespread sales of low-cost, unregistered pesticides. In the 10 markets surveyed, unregistered products accounted for 26% of total pesticide volumes sold, posing risks to farmers, traders, and the environment. In response, farmer support groups and pesticide trade associations have begun to fight back through education and awareness campaigns, agro-input dealer training, farmer outreach, and in some cases, joint bulk procurement. To reinforce these initiatives, the survey results suggest two low-cost indicators for spatially targeting regulatory enforcement efforts.

Food systems have significant externalities that are not reflected in market prices. A first step to correct parts of these externalities is to make them transparent through “true-” or full-cost accounting. Estimates of the external health and environmental costs of food systems at a global level suggest that they may be about two times larger than food valued at market prices, that is, about 20 trillion US$ of externalities versus 9 trillion US$ of food value in the markets. The agricultural economics profession is challenged to move the true cost research agenda forward by identifying realistic pathways for internalizing some of the large food system externalities. Moving from true cost accounting (TCA) to policy action needs to involve citizens and policy-making bodies because internalizing externalities requires buy-in. This relates for instance, to policy instruments such as product labeling, nudging, and differential taxes and subsidies to incentivize healthy diets and disincentivize food waste. Agricultural economics will need to accompany the implementation of any true cost approaches with scrutiny in terms of the efficiency, welfare, ecological, and distributional effects of such policies.

Occupational sex segregation is a key driver of the gender gap in earnings. Using data from 11,691 aspiring agribusiness entrepreneurs in Nigeria, this article explores factors that drive sectoral choice, gender differences in the choice decision, and especially the role played by norms around gender roles. When given a choice of 11 agricultural value chains in a government program, we find the majority (54 percent) of the applicants chose to enter into the poultry value chain, and women were more likely to choose poultry than men. This article finds evidence of more restrictive gender norms in Northern Nigeria states, which lowers women's likelihood of entering into agricultural value chains where the potential for profit may be higher. The gender bias in sectoral choice is also attributed to differences in work experience especially in agricultural activities and in the chosen value chain, as well as in land ownership. Women with more experience in male-dominated agricultural value chains exhibit lower self-efficacy, which could reflect the challenges they face when deviating from social norms to operate within nontraditional value chains.