Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy最新文献

The United States has been the world's largest agricultural exporter, consistently recording substantial surpluses in agricultural trade for decades. However, this landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years, with the US incurring a trade deficit ($1 billion) for the first time in 2019 since the USDA trade statistics became available in 1967. This deficit climbed to a staggering $21 billion in 2023 and continues to grow. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the shifting US trade patterns from 1985 to 2023, focusing on bilateral agricultural trade with major trade partners and key commodity flows. Structural break analysis is employed to identify significant turning points. Breaks are found in trade with China, Canada, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Australia. Trade with China stands out as the most disrupted, with structural breaks closely aligned with the imposition of retaliatory tariffs during the US–China trade war. No structural breakpoints are detected in US–Mexico agricultural trade. The rapid and consistent growth in imports from Mexico in recent years has been a significant force behind the spiking US agricultural trade deficits. The potential driving factors behind the observed trends and identified structural breaks are discussed.

This paper examines the impact of economic integration agreements (EIAs) on virtual water trade (VWT) using a three-way gravity model and a novel dataset integrating international and intra-national water flows. We find that EIAs increase VWT by 18.2%, with deeper integration having a greater impact. Agreements containing water management provisions expand VWT by 42.8%, compared to 16.4% for those without. These provisions facilitate virtual water exports from water-abundant regions while curbing them from water-scarce regions. While limitations remain in how current trade policies address water allocation imbalances, our results suggest the potential for embedding targeted environmental clauses in EIAs to align trade flows with water availability and support more sustainable patterns of global resource use.

Using a randomized controlled trial and a choice experiment in Nigeria, we examine the impact of a 2-year free provision of tailored advice through a digital decision support tool (DST) on farmers' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a targeted decision support system. We find that farmers are willing to pay varying subscription fees to access different kinds of tailored advice. Also, we find that 2 years of exposure to DST-mediated interventions significantly increases farmers' WTP for tailored advice, particularly for soil fertility management and market information, but does not fully cover the costs of delivering such advice. On average, control farmers are willing to pay around 1–2 USD per year for different kinds of tailored advice, and treatment farmers are willing to pay 19%–85% more than the control in response to the interventions. In settings like ours, where there is limited viability of business models for DST-mediated advice that rely on full cost recovery from farmers, continued public support—through subsidized subscription fees and public investment in upscaling DSTs may be required, consistent with the public good nature of traditional agricultural extension.

This study evaluates the economic feasibility of carbon sequestration through cover cropping in Alabama cotton fields, emphasizing the role of implicit costs, proxied by cash rent and reflecting land productivity and market proximity. Using a cost-efficiency optimization model, we compare carbon supply curves under two cost assumptions: one with explicit costs and another with both explicit and implicit costs. While the carbon supply appears nearly linear with explicit costs alone, adding implicit costs sharply raises sequestration costs, revealing diminishing carbon sequestration efficiency. Spatial analysis highlights regional disparities driven by land values, underscoring the need for targeted, region-specific policy incentives to strengthen the effectiveness of agricultural carbon markets.

This study examines the impact of minimum wage policies on low-wage food processing workers. The empirical analysis assesses how minimum wage policies affect hourly wages, working hours and weeks, and the likelihood of employment. The findings indicate significant wage increases but no adverse employment effects in the overall food-manufacturing industry. However, subsector and subpopulation analyses reveal significant heterogeneity, with wage gains concentrated in certain subsectors and positive employment effects for males and natives but negative effects for immigrants. These findings emphasize the need to consider industry specific and demographic characteristics when evaluating the impact of minimum wage policies.

Zinc biofortified rice presents a promising solution for addressing zinc deficiencies in developing countries, but its adoption is still very limited. Interventions that provide information on both demand and supply, along with social interactions, have the potential to increase farmers' adoption of biofortified crops such as zinc rice, though their combined effects are not well explored. Our study examines how information-based interventions and social interactions impact smallholder farmers' valuations of zinc and non-zinc rice seeds in the context of Bangladesh. Results reveal that demand-side information about zinc rice alone significantly raises farmers' willingness to pay for zinc rice seeds and that additional supply-side information further raises this premium. Our findings also indicate that combining information-based interventions with social interactions among farmers had a synergistic effect, promoting greater adoption of zinc rice. The results provide a key policy implication that combining information-based interventions with social interactions can effectively promote biofortified crops and other agricultural innovations.