Browsing by Author "Foster, William"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Collective marketing arrangements for geographically differentiated agricultural products: Welfare impacts and policy implications
    (BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, 2007) Lence, Sergio H.; Marette, Stephan; Hayes, Dermot J.; Foster, William
    We examine the incentives of atomistic producers to differentiate and collectively market products. We analyze market and welfare effects of alternative producer organizations, discuss circumstances under which they will evolve, and describe implications for the ongoing debate between the EU and the United States. As fixed costs of development and marketing increase and the anticipated market size falls, it becomes essential to increase the producer organization's ability to control supply to cover the fixed costs associated with the introduction of differentiated products. Counterintuitively, stronger property right protection for producer organizations may enhance welfare even after a differentiated product has been developed.
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    In search of economically significant food losses: Evidence from Tunisia
    (ELSEVIER SCI LTD, 2021) Anriquez, Gustavo; Foster, William; Ortega, Jorge; Rocha, Jozimo Santos
    Large estimates of food losses among farms and intermediaries publicized recently by several international organizations invite the question: Why do economic decision makers live with such losses? The intuitive, economic response would be that the marginal benefits of loss reduction do not exceed the marginal costs. This paper analyzes the possibility that economically significant losses nevertheless might be occurring at the farm and wholesale levels in two cases that have drawn attention in the Near East and North Africa. In Tunisia, concerns exist that farm equipment, especially harvesting equipment, is a major source of wheat losses in a country for which the grain plays an important role in diets and the national import bill. Our analysis finds that smaller wheat farms do have relatively large physical losses, compared to large farms, attributable to the use of older and imperfectly adjusted harvesting equipment. Nevertheless, given the scale of most operations in Tunisia, there is little incentive for farmers to make the specific investments that would significantly reduce losses. In Egypt, local experts have focused on large post-harvest losses of tomatoes, an important crop, largely produced by small-scale farmers. We examine the effectiveness of plastic crates for reducing food losses in harvesting, transport and storage as compared to traditional palm crates. We find that there is perhaps a marginal gain to be had in terms of the value of losses avoided, but such gains are likely within a margin that makes adoption of plastic economically ambiguous.
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    Innovative Rural Entrepreneurship in Chile
    (PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA CHILE, FAC AGRONOMIA INGENIERIA FORESTAL, 2021) Modrego, Felix; Foster, William
    Successful policies seeking to promote rural entrepreneurship require a conceptual model consistent with the features of rural spaces and free of stereotypes of entrepreneurship as being only technologically sophisticated. The objective of this essay is, first, to argue that rural areas can be fertile ground for entrepreneurial activities in middle income countries such as Chile and, second, to discuss policy options to achieve the goal of encouraging a more innovative entrepreneurship in rural areas. The scientific literature on entrepreneurship and the definitions, types and roles of entrepreneurship in development are reviewed. The literature on the location of entrepreneurship is summarized to understand the drivers of observed territorial differences in entrepreneurial activity. One conclusion is that rural areas face a (seemingly) adverse economic geography for entrepreneurship, although there is a recent tendency for amenities-led growth. We then present the geography of rural entrepreneurship in Chile. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the rates of entrepreneurship in Chilean rural areas are high, although presumably of a limited growth potential under current conditions. Nevertheless, this entrepreneurial base provides a stock of knowledge from which a greater sophistication could be reached, and we discuss potential policy approaches to stimulate more innovative rural entrepreneurship. In the case of Chile, available policy options are coherent with the recently enacted National Rural Development Policy. A systemic, amenity based approach gives middle-income countries opportunities for the development of more innovative rural entrepreneurship through territorial policies that provide local public goods and improve living conditions.
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    Measuring the costs and trade effects of phytosanitary protocols: A US-Japanese apple example
    (BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, 2008) Calvin, Linda; Krissoff, Barry; Foster, William
    This article investigates the trade impact of Japan's decision in 2005 to revise its phytosanitary protocol for fire blight for U.S. apple imports but retain its codling moth protocol. The analysis presents a participation model to measure the economic costs of phytosanitary barriers to trade. The model provides an explicit cost of the phytosanitary barriers in terms of the structure of the protocols, an important advantage over the price-wedge methodology. This makes it possible to separate the economic costs of various protocols-in this case, the fire blight and codling moth protocols.
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    Reflections on the Role of Agriculture in Pro-Poor Growth
    (PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2010) Valdes, Alberto; Foster, William
    This paper assesses the importance of agriculture poverty reduction, largely through its impact on overall economic growth, drawing on evidence from Latin America and other developing regions. The econometric evidence strongly suggests that the sector contributes to growth more than its share of GDP, certainly in Latin America but also elsewhere. Cross-country studies show that, on average in the developing world, agriculture tends to have an impact on both national growth and poverty reduction that is greater than its simple share of national GDP. The results reinforce the argument against taxing agriculture relative to other sectors and that in assigning government expenditures to public goods one should take into account the historical relationship between agricultural growth and the subsequent non-agricultural growth. The paper also considers approaches to stimulate the rural economy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    The Constraints to Escaping Rural Poverty: An Analysis of the Complementarities of Assets in Developing Countries
    (OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC, 2011) Foster, William; Valdes, Alberto; Davis, Benjamin; Anriquez, Gustavo
    Based on Food and Agriculture Organization data for 15 developing countries, we examine household characteristics, asset bundles and income-generating activities of the rural poor. Assets aid in exiting poverty, not independent of one another, but rather in combination. We develop an approach to estimate the complementarities between education, farm size and infrastructure. Limited access to the three assets of interest here (susceptible to medium-and long-term interventions) might prevent moving a large number of small farmers out of poverty in the short-term (even with support programs). Increased land holding often has lower poverty-reducing potential, and when its potential is high, it is in countries where most land is divided among small operations (for example, Bangladesh). Education is confirmed as highly poverty-alleviating, and has a high complementarity with infrastructure.
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    The distance to market effect on rural poverty in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago
    (PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA CHILE, INST ESTUDIOS URBANOS TERRITORIALES, 2013) Perez, Rodrigo; Salazar, Alejandro; Foster, William; Osses, Pablo
    The national poverty headcount in Chile has declined considerably since 1990. In 2006, rural poverty rate fell below that of urban areas, due in part to population mobility. Rural areas, however, are still characterized by low educational levels and incomes, explained, in part, by low population density, remoteness to services, and limited access to markets for rural-produced products. This study finds that distance (measured as travel time) of rural populations to urban areas is associated with the incidence of poverty in rural communities after controlling for other factors. Using an econometric model based on geographical and socioeconomic information of the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, the study finds that poverty levels in census tracts increase with distance to Santiago, and, for a given distance, access to transportation reduces poverty, through a mitigation of the distance effect.