VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Orden, David R."

Browsing by Author "Orden, David R."

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Agricultural research in Senegal: Economic surplus evaluation of the adoption of variety La Fleur 11 by peanut farmers
Soufi, Widad (Virginia Tech, 2001-06-04)
Peanut production has been decreasing in Senegal over the past decades for historical, political, economic and environmental reasons. One of the solutions proposed by recent Senegalese administrations is to increase production through agricultural research and the development of peanut varieties that are adapted to the environmental constraints in Senegal. The last variety developed is La Fleur 11, which is very drought tolerant. The purpose of the study is to assess the economic impact of research on La Fleur 11 on the Senegalese economy through an ex-ante evaluation of the net social benefits from the adoption of this new variety. In order to fulfill this objective, an economic surplus analysis is conducted within the framework of a partial equilibrium model. Results indicate that the net social benefits from the adoption of La Fleur 11 are positive. Assuming that all peanut supply is sold to SONACOS at a producer base price and that research evaluation is conducted at the farm-level, Consumers (SONACOS) are the main beneficiaries from research. Their benefits are on average 6 times producers' (farmers). The research-induced increase in the government cost of the subsidy represents 84 percent on average of consumers' and producers' benefits; the research-induced increase in net social welfare represents 16 percent on average of consumers' and producers' benefits. The internal rate of return averages around 43 percent. When peanut markets are disaggregated, research benefits consumers (SONACOS) 3 times more than producers (farmers) at the farm level. Most of producers' benefits come from farm household consumption (47 percent of total farm-level benefits) and most of consumers' benefits come from the official seed market. At the SONACOS-level where peanut oil and cakes are exported, research benefits producers (SONACOS) only; consumers (rest of the world) do not benefit from research at this level. The IRR is more likely to be about 42 percent. This study suggests that future investments in agricultural research in Senegal can result in a positive economic impact provided that other actions are undertaken regarding extension, credit, and input distribution in order to enhance adoption and take advantage of the yield potential of the new peanut varieties. Also, this study provides a procedure of research evaluation for future use in Senegal and West Africa.
An analysis of sources of growth in French agriculture 1960-1984
Bouchet, Frederic C. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1987)
Agricultural production in France has increased considerably since the late fifties, turning France into a net exporter in world markets. This has generated a heated policy debate between France and the United States, centering around different views of the sources of growth in French agricultural production between 1960 and 1984. To shed some light on this debate, these sources of growth were analyzed. A sectoral model of the French agricultural sector is developed. It is based on the assumption of profit maximization. Duality theory is used to derive short- and long-run output supply and input demand equations. All variables controlled by the decision-maker are endogenized. These include output supplies (cereals, other crop products, milk, other animal products), use of variable inputs (feeds, fertilizer-energy, hired labor), and optimal quantities of the quasi-fixed factors (family labor, capital). The data used in estimation comes from published sources, except for series concerning French agricultural research expenditures, preferential credit rates, and agricultural labor. These were collected from unpublished sources specifically for the study. In general, signs of estimated coefficients conform to theoretical expectations. Technological change is estimated to have played the major role in inducing production growth. Technology-led increases are attributed mostly to French research expenditures in the case of cereals, and, in the case of milk, both to French research expenditures and to transfers of technology. Credit policies have also played a role, being responsible for an estimated 8.6 and 10.4 percent of the growth in cereals and milk production. These results have important policy implications. First, if rapid technological gains have brought France into a situation of comparative advantage, we should expect to see French policy-makers shift toward a freer market stance in trade negotiations. Second, because of massive technology transfers and shrinking export markets, the problem of protection of national research is likely to become a part of trade policy debates. Third, even if international negotiations succeeded at reducing price supports, such steps could be quickly outweighed by continual outward shifts of the supply curves if efforts to develop agricultural technology are pursued.
An Assessment of Technical Barriers in Central American Agricultural and Food Trade
Yamagiwa, Takayoshi Jose (Virginia Tech, 2005-04-21)
This dissertation explores technical regulations (sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, technical barriers to trade, and geographical indications) in Central American agricultural and food trade. In the first part, a framework to systematically evaluate the broad issues for developing countries is presented. Evaluation of the issues for Central America is based on interviews with about 100 persons in the region and in the United States (US), and on secondary sources. The topic is of significance in Central America, especially when related to SPS measures. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements have had relatively little direct impact in improving Central America's response to technical regulations, while homologous Central American regional institutions may have been more successful, with indirect support from the WTO and the US, in reducing the incidence of illegitimate regulations in intra-regional trade. Central America may implement illegitimate barriers more against others in the region than against the US. Although the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) may support Central America's capacity to meet more stringent technical regulations, the improvement may not be sufficiently perceptible. The potential for Central American greenhouse tomato exports to the US is analytically evaluated in the second part. These tomatoes may be admitted as the ban based on the risk of introduction of the Mediterranean fruit fly is partially lifted, due in part on discussions in the CAFTA negotiations. Mature green, vine-ripe and greenhouse tomatoes are heterogeneous in demand, and vine-ripe tomatoes are but greenhouse tomatoes are not heterogeneous by origin. A static partial equilibrium model is constructed for the US tomato market, where demand is based on multi-stage budgeting and supply is a function of own tomato price. When the Central American greenhouse excess supply function is introduced to the model, the region exports to the US, the aggregate greenhouse quantity increases, and its prices decrease. As greenhouse preference increases, greenhouse quantity and prices also increase. Changes are perceptible but small in the mature green and vine-ripe markets in the expected direction. Access by Central America is particularly beneficial when US consumer preferences shift further toward greenhouse over other tomatoes.
The Challenge Of Increasing Global Trade: How To Address Linkages And Barriers
Orden, David R.; Peterson, Everett B. (Virginia Tech, 2008-02-22)
Two specific cases of trade regulation are examined in this presentation. In the case of avocados from Mexico, the U.S. market has been opened following more than a decade of related rule making. Substantial imports now occur. In a second case, China has expressed interest in exporting fresh apples to the United States. There is not a related regulatory process underway, but China received approval to export fresh apples to Canada in 2004.
A computable general equilibrium analysis of regional impacts of macro-shocks in the 1980S
Kraybill, David S. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988)
The purpose of this study is assess the domestic regional impacts of changes in federal fiscal policies and the nation's trade deficit. An attempt is made to fill a gap in the literature of regional economics by providing an explanation of how economic changes at national and international levels are transmitted to regions, and by providing general-equilibrium estimates of the effects of these changes. The level of regional economic activity is assumed to be linked to the federal budget through federal purchases of goods and services, through intergovernmental transfers, and through net transfers to households. Domestic regions are linked to the balance of trade through shifts in exports and imports and through shifts in net income transfers from abroad. An interregional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is constructed and calibrated for Virginia and the rest of the United States (ROUS). Scenarios approximating federal fiscal policies and the trade deficit during the period 1981-85 are introduced, and the model is solved to obtain a new equilibrium. As a result of these shocks, it is concluded: (a) that the magnitude of sectoral effects differed in Virginia versus ROUS, (b) that in contrast to non-rural sectors, rural sectors in Virginia experienced slower growth in value added, (c) that investment in Virginia and in ROUS increased in response to the net inflow of savings from abroad, but the increase was mitigated by the rise in federal spending, and (d) that a tariff increase on the output of the apparel and textile industry would increase output in that industry in Virginia but would decrease it in other industries if the economy were fully employed.
Cost and Benefit Analysis of Possible Philippine Participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
Cororaton, Caesar B.; Orden, David R. (Virginia Tech, 2014-09-04)
The objective of this presentation was to quantify the effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on trade, especially in terms of Philippine participation.
COVID-19 & Agricultural Exports under the U.S.-China Trade Deal
Grant, Jason H.; Orden, David R.; Marchant, Mary A. (Virginia Tech. Center for Agricultural Trade, 2020-05)
This report from the Center for Agricultural Trade provides an update on COVID-19 and related impacts on US-China trade.
Detecting macroeconomic impacts on agricultural prices and export sales: a time series forecasting approach
Bradshaw, Girard W. (Virginia Tech, 1988-06-13)
The effect of movements in the real exchange rate on agricultural prices and agricultural export sales is assessed based on the principle of Granger causality. An out-of-sample forecasting procedure is used to conduct tests for Granger causality from the exchange rate to agricultural prices and export sales. Technical time series issues such as stationarity, the method of lag-length selection, in sample versus out-of-sample tests for Granger causality, and long-range versus short-range forecasting are considered in relation to the outcome of Granger causality tests. Theoretical and empirical studies are reviewed which indicate the importance of working with stationary data series when testing for Granger causality. Differing methods of lag-length selection are found to affect the outcome of both in-sample and out-or-sample tests for Granger causality. The usual in-sample tests for Granger causality are compared to out-of-sample tests; the results of the comparison reveal that the in-sample tests do not in-general agree among themselves, nor do they agree with the out-of-sample tests' results. This indicates the importance of searching the model space for the best specification before conducting Granger causality tests. Long-range forecasts are compared to the I-step ahead forecasts used to test for Granger causality; these forecasts corroborate the out-of- sample tests for Granger causality in finding significant impacts from the exchange rate to agricultural export sales and agricultural prices.
Effects of Exchange Rate Misalignment on Agricultural Producer Support Estimates: Empirical Evidence from India and China
Cheng, Fuzhi (Virginia Tech, 2005-10-04)
There have been different degrees of exchange rate disequilibrium in the developing countries during recent transition or reform periods. The level of the exchange rate and its misalignment can have significant impacts on agricultural policy measures such as the Producer Support Estimates (PSEs). However, little efforts have been made to explicitly take into account the issue of exchange rate misalignment. In the conventional PSE studies the prevailing actual (nominal) exchange rates are usually used. There is general agreement that the use of actual exchange rates may introduce a bias in the PSE calculations, and that this bias can be substantial when the actual rates are significantly out of equilibrium, but there is much less agreement on the most appropriate alternative. This dissertation proposes a theoretical and an empirical model for estimating equilibrium exchange rates. Within the context of these models, the equilibrium exchange rates are argued to be determined by a group of real economic fundamentals. These fundamentals within this study include technological progress (Balassa-Samuelson effect), levels of government expenditure, world interest rate, net capital inflows, terms of trade, and openness of the economy. Base on various time series techniques and using data from India and China, sensible long-run relationships are identified between the real exchange rate and these economic fundamentals. The long-run co-integrating relationships are used to derive the equilibrium exchange rates and to gauge corresponding misalignments for the currencies in the two countries. The relevance and usefulness of the exchange rate equilibrium and disequilibrium in the calculation of the PSEs for India and China are then discussed. Results from the commodity-specific measures including the Market Price Support (MPS) and the PSE show that agricultural support levels are quite sensitive to alternative exchange rate assumptions. Specifically, exchange rate misalignments have either amplified or counteracted the direct effect on agriculture from sectoral-specific policies. With a few commodity exceptions such an indirect effect in both countries is relatively small in magnitude and dominated by the direct effect. This is also the case when the indirect effect rises substantially as a result of more misaligned exchange rates. Counterfactual MPS measure calculated assuming the exchange rate is in equilibrium with different exchange rate pass-through is also presented. It is shown that when no exchange rate pass-through to domestic prices occurs, the transfer of the indirect effect of exchange rate misalignment into the counterfactual MPS is full. But when there is exchange rate pass-through, even though partially, the transfer of indirect effect is significantly smaller. Results based on the commodity-specific PSE show that the exchange rate effect also depends on the relative importance of different PSE components. In addition to a positive impact on the direct effects measured by commodity-specific PSE compared to those measured by commodity-specific MPS, the increasing share of budgetary expenditures in India's agricultural support in recent years has resulted in more pronounced indirect effects. For China, the exchange rate effects are more similar between the PSE and the MPS measures at the commodity level because of the dominance of the MPS component relative to the budgetary payments in the PSEs. Moving from commodity-specific to aggregate measures, one can observe a similar pattern of agricultural support. However, the exchange rate effect measured by the total PSE appears to be more important: it becomes several times larger in magnitude than the direct effect in periods of severe exchange rate misalignment. The exchange rate effect when the PSE is "scaled up" from covered commodities to an estimate for the total agricultural sector is also demonstrated even though the assumption imposed by scaling-up may be unrealistic if price support is concentrated among those products included in the analysis. Since the commodity coverage in both countries tends to be incomplete and the scaling-up procedure leads to a total MPS component of greater magnitude, larger exchange rate effects are found in the scaled-up than the non-scaled-up version of the total PSEs. The impact of scaling-up on the indirect effect is proportional to the share of covered commodities in the total value of agricultural production. Again for the PSEs at both the commodity and aggregate levels, the counter factual measures indicate a full transfer of indirect effect of exchange rate when no exchange rate pass-through is assumed. A large portion of the indirect effect disappears when incomplete exchange rate pass-through is assumed resulting in a smaller transfer of the effect to the counter factual PSEs.
Effects of tariffs and sanitary barriers on high- and low-value poultry trade
Peterson, Everett B.; Orden, David R. (Western Agricultural Economics Association, 2005-04)
A competitive partial-equilibrium spatial model with heterogeneous goods is constructed to evaluate effects of the removal of tariffs, tariff-rate quotas, and sanitary regulations on world poultry trade. The model distinguishes between "high-value" (mostly white meat) and "low-value" (mostly dark meat) poultry products and simulates the trade flows among eight exporting and importing countries and regions. Removing all barriers simultaneously has a larger impact on trade than removing only tariffs and tariff-rate quotas. Imposition of sanitary barriers against U.S. products by Russia shifts trade flows, but does not have large net impacts on U.S. producers.
The effects of the federal programs on the U.S. dairy industry
Bark, Pyengmu (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988)
Milk surplus in the U.S. dairy industry has been increasing substantially since the beginning of the 1980s. In order to analyze the surplus production situation, an interregional dairy trade model based on a spatial equilibrium framework was developed. The model included disaggregate manufactured milk markets and utilized separable programming as the solution technique. The objective of the interregional dairy trade model was to maximize the sum of producers’ and consumers’ surplus subject to the various institutional constraints incorporating unregulated and regulated market situations. Under the regulated market situation, the institutional constraints were based on the federal milk marketing order and dairy price support programs. Utilizing the interregional dairy trade model, a comparison of simulated market results and net economic effects between unregulated and regulated markets was drawn first. Results of the simulations for market results and welfare effects under pricing policy options with regard to changes in the support and purchase prices were also analyzed. Finally, a comparison of the results of simulations for simultaneous market clearing situations in butter and nonfat dry milk markets with no government purchases of these commodities under the 1982 market situation and an increasing quota system was considered. It was found that without considering the supply effect induced by price stabilizing regulations, the competitive manufactured milk market price would be lower than the 1982 support price level. The butter and nonfat dry milk markets would move toward a market clearing situation if the support price level was decreased by $1.00 per cwt for butter and by $2.00 per cwt for nonfat dry milk when cross price elasticity effects were included. Due to cross price elasticity effects, the butter market would clear at a higher price level (in terms of the support price) than the nonfat dry milk market. Simulations of simultaneous market clearing situations suggested that the 1982 butter price would be lower and the nonfat dry milk price would be higher than market clearing prices. Increases in import quotas would drop butter and cheese market clearing prices and raise the nonfat dry milk price relative to the actual 1982 case.
An Empirical Assessment of the Effects of SPS Regulations on U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Exports
Ramniceanu, Radu (Virginia Tech, 2011-12-06)
A fundamental requirement in agricultural trade is that imported products are safe, and do not pose a risk to human, animal and plant health. To address this issue, all countries maintain measures to ensure that imported food is safe for consumers, and to prevent the spread of disease among animals and plants. These measures, by their nature, can affect competitiveness by increasing the costs of imports or prohibiting them altogether. To ensure that these measures are used for their intended purpose and not as protectionist measures, WTO member countries signed the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures. A growing number of studies attempt to quantify the effects of SPS regulations on international trade flows. However, precious little research is dedicated to determining the effects of specific phytosanitary regulations on trade flows and, more importantly, questions regarding SPS regulations and their impact as "trade barriers" or "trade catalysts" remain to be settled. This thesis contributes to existing literature in two ways. First, a comprehensive and user friendly database on specific phytosanitary regulations faced by U.S. exports of onions, peas, walnuts, apples, cherries, grapes, peaches/nectarines, oranges and strawberries to 176 countries is developed for the period 1999-2009. Second, this database is used for an empirical investigation to determine how existing SPS regulations affect U.S. fruit and vegetable exports. The results indicate that initially, phytosanitary treatments act as "barriers" to trade. However, as exporters' experience grows, the negative impact of treatments is reduced and eventually eliminated.
Essays on the Political Economy of Domestic and Trade Policies in the Presence of Production and Consumption Externalities
Schleich, Joachim (Virginia Tech, 1997-08-01)
This dissertation extends the Grossman-Helpman models of endogenous trade policy formation to incorporate local and global production and consumption externalities, and to allow governments to choose domestic production or consumption policies together with trade interventions. The models presented are among the first to allow environmental quality and the structure of industry protection to be simultaneously evaluated in a political economy framework, when some industry groups lobby their governments for higher output prices. The equilibrium tax and subsidy policies are implicitly expressed as the sum of distinct political support, terms-of-trade, and local and global environmental effects. Whether these effects reinforce or counterbalance each other depends on whether an industry is organized, whether the good is imported or exported, whether the externality is caused by production or consumption, and, in the large-country models, on whether governments set policies noncooperatively or cooperatively. The model results imply a political economy version of Bhagwati's normative targeting principle: governments use the most efficient policy available to satisfy the lobbies, to address the externalities, and, in the noncooperative large-country model, to exploit international market power. All of the initial Grossman-Helpman results (for the small-country model and the noncooperative and cooperative large-country models) are shown to be special cases where governments have only trade policy available and there are no externalities. In the small-country model and the cooperative large-country model, when there are production externalities, the lobbying of a polluting industry usually leads to lower environmental quality than socially optimal, but with terms-of-trade effects or for particular preferences cases the equilibrium policies may induce environmental quality higher than socially optimal. When there are consumption externalities, and the government has consumption (or production) as well as trade policy available, environmental quality will be socially optimal (again, unless governments exploit market power). Thus, depending on the policies available, a local or global consumption externality will be fully internalized, even though polluting industries lobby and production may be distorted. This dissertation also shows that--in contrast to standard economic theory--the use of trade policy alone can lead to higher environmental quality than a more direct domestic policy alone.
The Exchange Rate and U.S./Canadian Relative Agricultural Prices
Xu, Miao (Virginia Tech, 2001-08-17)
The law of one price (LOP) plays an important role as a building block in theories of international trade and exchange rate determination. It also serves as a measure of integration for international commodity markets. The LOP states that in competitive markets after adjustment for transportation costs and trade barriers, identical commodities sold in different countries should sell for the same price when their prices are defined in a common currency. The existing economic literature provides a vast body of theoretical and empirical investigations of the validity of the LOP. In general, previous evidence is mixed and there is no unanimous LOP support or refutation. The effects of exchange rate changes on agricultural outputs have been extensively studied, but the issue of the impacts on traded non-farm produced inputs has not been explored as much. This study investigates the impact of the exchange rate ($CN/$US) on the relative prices in U.S. and Canadian agricultural markets for five major farm outputs and four non-farm produced inputs, which are traded between these two closely integrated economies. Adherence to the LOP is evaluated by examining the pass-through effects of exchange rate changes on these prices using quarterly data. The sample covers the period of 1975 - 1999, when there were substantial exchange rate movements. Regression and cointegration techniques are utilized to estimate whether and at what rate exchange rate changes are transmitted to prices. The empirical results give rise to supportive evidence in favor of the LOP for the five farm outputs. The evidence is somewhat weaker for three of the four non-farm produced inputs, and the LOP is violated for one input.
Farm Policy Reform in the United States: Past Progress and Future Evolution
Orden, David R. (Virginia Tech, 2007-10-29)
This chapter examines the issues facing U.S. farm policy in 2007 and beyond in an historical context. Reforms of the main commodity programs along a cash-out and decoupling path peaked when prices were high in 1995-96. Recent buyouts, driven largely by declining production levels and revenues, have also ended supply-control quota programs for peanuts and tobacco. Then, in a setback to reduced subsidies, countercyclical payments were re-institutionalized for the main commodities in 2002, although farmers retained substantial planting flexibility. The radical option of a broader buyout of the commodity programs is an idea whose time has not arrived. Instead, farm groups sought to retain their traditional programs in 2007, despite another commodity price boom. Under budget pressure, direct payments that represent the most decoupled instrument of support of farm incomes came under scrutiny in the domestic debate but were defended by subsidy recipients.
Food security in less developed countries: assessing the effects of food aid in rural Kenya as a food supply shock on consumption and nutrition
Athanasios, Athanasenas (Virginia Tech, 1986-06-05)
Food Security can be defined in terms of establishing national or regional minimum nutritional standards, or in terms of securing national or regional self-sufficiency production levels. In this research, food security is viewed from a nutritional-economic standpoint. The prevalence of severe malnutrition and food production instability, especially in Sub-Saharan African Countries, creates the impetus to identify the several economic aspects which characterize the overall food sector and its security floor. Hence, LDC governments, drawing on the WFP (World Food Program) and other international agencies, are interested in formulating a desirable national food strategy which, to a certain degree, secures a balanced national food production sector and consumption pattern. Food aid, in turn, is an essential mechanism designed to serve developmental purposes, such as income redistribution or provision of food as a real resource. Food-for-Work (FFW), as a specific form of food aid programs, represents a short-run food supply shock in the market environment of the recipient country's economy, since it is used as a "bridge" for meeting the basic nutritional requirements of the poorest households in the short-run. In the long-run, FFW can be used for developing infrastructure, creating jobs and advancing working skills, providing additional income to participants, and further improving the overall nutritional status of the poor. Recognizing these features of food aid, this research focused on the empirical estimation of the specific nutritional contribution of a FFW project, implemented at the community level in the Ewalel and Marigat locations of the Baringo District, Rift Valley Province, Kenya. The primary objectives were to measure empirically the magnitude of the FFW contribution on the nutritional status of the participant households, and to determine the relationship between consumption patterns and domestic (local) food prices. In this research, FFW participants' consumption behavior was hypothesized to be differentiated from the non-participants in terms of their income elasticities of demand for nutrients. Also, it was hypothesized that the FFW nutritional contribution to participants was greater than the equivalent net income gains through the value of the FFW provided food items (monetary market value of provided food items). Both hypotheses are supported by the analysis. To determine the course of this research, a two step analytical procedure was followed. First, following Lancaster's conceptual setting on the "Goods' Characteristics Theory."
The free-linking task: A graph-inspired method for generating non-disjoint similarity data with food products
Lahne, Jacob; Phetxumphou, Katherine; Tejedor-Romero, Marino; Orden, David R. (Elsevier, 2022-01-01)
“Free sorting”, in which subjects are asked to sort a set of items into groups of “most similar” items, is increasingly popular as a technique for profiling sets of foods. However, free sorting implies an unrealistic model of sample similarity: that similarity is purely binary (is/is not similar) and that similarity is fully transitive (similarities {A, B} and {B, C} imply {A, C}). This paper proposes a new method of rapid similarity testing—the “free-linking” task—that solves both problems: in free linking, subjects draw a similarity graph in which they connect pairs of samples with a line if they are similar, according to the subject's individual criteria. This simple task provides a more realistic model of similarity which allows degrees of similarity through the graph distance metric and does not require transitive similarity. In two pilot studies with spice blends (10 samples, 58 subjects) and chocolate bars (10 samples, 63 subjects), free linking and free sorting are evaluated and compared using DISTATIS, RVb, and the graph parameters degree, transitivity, and connectivity; subjects also indicated their preferences and ease-of-use for the tasks. In both studies, the first two dimensions of the DISTATIS consensus were highly comparable across tasks; however, free linking provided more discrimination in dimensions three and four. RVb stability was equivalent for the two methods. Graph statistics indicated that free linking had greater discrimination power: on average subjects made similarity groupings with lower degree, lower transitivity, and higher connectivity for free linking in both studies. However, subjects did overall find free sorting easier and liked it more, indicating a higher cognitive difficulty of free linking. The free-linking task, therefore, provides more robust, realistic similarity maps at the cost of higher panelist effort, and should prove a valuable alternative for rapid sensory assessment of product sets.
The Impacts of Food Safety Fears and Policy on International Trade: Trade Creation, Diversion, and Depression as a Result of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
Jordan, Steven Earl (Virginia Tech, 2017-01-25)
In December of 2003, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced the presence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) within a cow in the state of Washington. The announcement prompted the cessation of beef imports by the largest traditional beef trading partners with the United States, resulting in immediately realized losses to the U.S. industry. This thesis evaluates the short- and long-term impact this discovery and subsequent policies had on the global beef market. We utilize market share analysis to examine the loss realized by the U.S. over a 13-year time frame, then employ a log-linear gravity model with fixed effects to quantify the changes in global export and import values and quantities using a novel bilateral trade database spanning 16 years. We find that the policies implemented immediately on discovery of the single BSE case were often slow to be rescinded even though additional related cases of BSE were not found in the United States. We also find that the removal of said policies does not guarantee full reentry of U.S. beef products, even after a lag of several years. Finally, we find that both traditional and newly emerging suppliers of beef and beef products contributed to the slow reentry of U.S. beef within critical markets. The losses and implications of the aforementioned policies detailed within this thesis suggests a different approach be undertaken by regulators should another similar threat to the U.S. food supply emerge in the future.
Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the U.S. and Virginia Farms and Businesses: May 2020
Holt, Matthew T.; Bovay, John; Friedel, Jennifer S.; Isengildina-Massa, Olga; Kayser, Patrick; van Senten, Jonathan; Grant, Jason H.; Orden, David R.; Marchant, Mary A. (Virginia Tech. Agricultural and Applied Economics, 2020-05)
This report addresses various aspects of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Virginia’s farm and agribusiness sector as of the beginning of May 2020. At the time of this writing (May 7, 2020) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports approximately 1.2 million cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United States, and over 70,000 deaths.1 Virginia’s Department of Public Health reports over 21,000 cases and over 700 deaths.2 33.5 million people have filed for unemployment claims in the United States since mid-March.3 The economic impacts of the disease have been felt much more broadly, as businesses have been forced to close or operate under different conditions, and as consumer spending power declines. As we look ahead, there is tremendous uncertainty about how the pandemic will end and how it will affect the global economy and our individual lives and livelihoods both in the short term and permanently. This report includes a general economic outlook, by Matthew Holt; overviews of the pandemic’s disruptions to the U.S. food supply chain and several major agricultural industries in Virginia, by John Bovay; an overview of agricultural policy under the pandemic, by Jennifer Friedel; a detailed analysis of effects of the pandemic on Virginia grain markets, by Olga Isengildina Massa and Patrick Kayser; an overview of results of a national survey of the impacts of the pandemic on aquaculture producers, with a focus on Virginia’s main aquaculture products, by Jonathan van Senten; and analysis of the current state of affairs for U.S.-China agricultural trade, by Jason Grant, David Orden, and Mary Marchant.
The impacts of trade and agricultural policies in the Dominican Republic: a sector programming approach
De Los Santos, Jesus Pineda (Virginia Tech, 1990-11-05)
A sector-wide programming model of the Dominican agriculture is developed and used to analyze the impacts of trade and agricultural policies in the Dominican Republic. The model includes ten agricultural commodities which accounted for 75 percent of the total value of agricultural production in 1988. Linear demand functions for the commodities are included and the model is solved in its quadratic form using the GAMS/MINOS package. A competitive market is assumed where consumer and producer surplus is maximized. Quantities and prices are obtained endogenously. Nominal and Effective Rates of Protection were estimated for selected crops. Results indicated negative protection for most of the crops. Two sets of policy changes and market condition changes were evaluated using the sector programming model. Inward--oriented policies included a policy of self-sufficiency and a penalty on traditional export crops through an exchange rate differential. Outward-oriented policies consisted of a change in the fertilizer price to reflect the border price and the elimination of government subsidies in the agricultural sector. External market condition changes included the elimination of the US sugar quota and an increase in the US sugar quota up to the level assigned in 1990. Agricultural production, income and employment are increased by a policy of food self-sufficiency, a reduction in fertilizer price and an increase in the US sugar quota. A policy of food self-sufficiency requires more government spending given the input subsidies available from the government.

Browsing by Author "Orden, David R."

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