Modelling Health Impacts of Air Pollution and Their Valuation: An Application to Santiago, Chile

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The impact of COVID-19 and associated policy responses on global food security

We analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated policy responses on the global economy and food security in 80 low- and middle-income countries. We use a global economy-wide model with detailed disaggregation of agricultural and food sectors and develop a business-as-usual baseline for 2020 and 2021 called “But-for-COVID” (BfC). We then shock the model with aggregate income shocks derived from the IMF World Economic Outlook for 2020 and 2021. We impose total-factor productivity losses in key sectors as well as consumption decreases induced by social distancing. The resulting shocks in prices and incomes from the CGE model simulations are fed into the USDAERS International Food Security Assessment (IFSA) model to derive the impact of the pandemic on food security in these 80 countries. The main effect of the pandemic was to exacerbate the existing declining trend in food security. Food insecurity increases considerably in countries in Asia through income shocks rather than prices effects.We also review trade policies that were put in place to restrict imports and exports of food, and we evaluate their potential for further disruption of markets focusing on the food-security implications

Impact of the Berlin Accord and European Enlargement on Dairy Markets, The

Using a world agricultural model, we analyze the impact on dairy markets of the Berlin Accord on the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Reforms. We also investigate the consequences of enlargement of the EU to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for the same markets. We produce a market outlook up to 2010 for these two scenarios. The Berlin Accord induces lower EU milk and dairy prices. A change in relative prices between cheese and butter-skim milk powder (SMP) occurs after 2005 and induces an expansion of cheese production, consumption and exports at the expense of the butterï¾–SMP sector. Accession of the three central and eastern European countries (CEECs) leads to a permanent but moderate decrease in EU prices of milk and dairy products. For the three acceding CEECs, domestic prices increase dramatically. Their final consumption of milk decreases and dairy product consumption drops considerably. The derived demand of milk in dairy production increases, however, because of the higher prices for dairy products, benefiting dairy producers in these CEECs. Dairy exports of the three acceding countries to the EUï¾–15 increase by one to three orders of magnitude, despite building large inventories. The impact of accession on world markets is small.

The Impact of The European Enlargement and CAP Reforms on Agricultural Markets. Much Ado about Nothing?

We analyze the effects of the 2004 CAP reform and EU enlargement on European and world agricultural markets. We compare the results from a CAP reform only and a CAP reform plus enlargement scenarios to a no-enlargement baseline implementing Agenda 2000 CAP policies. We utilize the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute's policy analysis model to simulate the effects of CAP reform and EU enlargement on production, consumption, and trade for the EU, its New Member States (NMS), and major players in world agricultural markets. The model is a partial-equilibrium model of world agricultural markets including important producer and consumer countries in world livestock and products, dairy, grains, oilseeds and products, cotton and sugar markets. Each country's commodity sectors are modeled with structural equations which incorporate all important policy parameters. With prices in most commodities in the NMS historically below EU-15 prices accession leads to substantial price increases for many commodities in the NMS. Higher prices stimulate production and dampen consumption in the NMS, and trade between the new members and the EU-15 increases. Prices in the EU-15 decrease moderately. The impact of the two reforms on world markets is negligible. The CAP reforms have their greatest impact in the EU-15 markets for meats, rice, rapeseed, and dairy products. CAP reforms without enlargement generate a small increase in world and EU commodity prices.CAP, trade reform, policy reform, enlargement, new member states, European Union, Agricultural and Food Policy, Marketing, F1, Q17, Q18,

Microfossils from the late Mesoproterozoic - early Neoproterozoic Atar/EI Mreiti Group, Taoudeni Basin, Mauritania, northwestern Africa

The well-preserved Meso-Neoproterozoic shallow marine succession of the Atar/EI Mreiti Group, in the Taoudeni Basin, Mauritania, offers a unique opportunity to investigate the mid-Proterozoic eukaryotic record in Western Africa. Previous investigations focused on stromatolites, biomarkers, chemostratigraphy and palaeoredox conditions. However, only a very modest diversity of organic-walled microfossils (acritarchs) has been documented. Here, we present a new, exquisitely well-preserved and morphologically diverse assemblage of organic-walled microfossils from three cores drilled through the Atar/El Mreiti Group. A total of 48 distinct entities including 11 unambiguous eukaryotes (ornamented and process-bearing acritarchs), and 37 taxonomically unresolved taxa (including 9 possible eukaryotes, 6 probable prokaryotes, and 22 other prokaryotic or eukaryotic taxa) were observed. Black shales preserve locally abundant fragments of organic-rich laminae interpreted as benthic microbial mats. We also document one of the oldest records of Leiosphaeridia kulgunica, a species showing a circular opening interpreted as a sophisticated circular excystment structure (a pylome), and one of the oldest records of Trachyhystrichosphaera aimika and T. botula, two distinctive process-bearing acritarchs present in well dated 1.1 Ga formations at the base of the succession. The general assemblage composition and the presence of three possible index fossils (A. tetragonala, S. segmentata and T. aimika) support a late Mesoproterozoic to early Neoproterozoic (Tonian) age for the Atar/El Mreiti Group, consistent with published lithostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy and geochronology. This study provides the first evidence for a moderately diverse eukaryotic life, at least 1.1 billion years ago in Western Africa. Comparison with coeval worldwide assemblages indicates that a broadly similar microbial biosphere inhabited (generally redox-stratified) oceans, placing better time constraints on early eukaryote palaeogeography and biostratigraphy

Economic Perspectives on GMO Market Segregation

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Long-Term and Global Tradeoffs between Bio-Energy, Feed, and Food

Projections of U.S. ethanol production and its impacts on planted acreage, crop prices, livestock production and prices, trade, and retail food costs are presented under the assumption that current tax credits and trade policies are maintained. The projections were made using a multi-product, multi-country deterministic partial equilibrium model. The impacts of higher oil prices, a drought combined with an ethanol mandate, and removal of land from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) relative to baseline projections are also presented. The results indicate that expanded U.S. ethanol production will cause long-run crop prices to increase. In response to higher feed costs, livestock farmgate prices will increase enough to cover the feed cost increases. Retail meat, egg, and dairy prices will also increase. If oil prices are permanently $10-per-barrel higher than assumed in the baseline projections, U.S. ethanol will expand significantly. The magnitude of the expansion will depend on the future makeup of the U.S. automobile fleet. If sufficient demand for E-85 from flex-fuel vehicles is available, corn-based ethanol production is projected to increase to over 30 billion gallons per year with the higher oil prices. The direct effect of higher feed costs is that U.S. food prices would increase by a minimum of 1.1% over baseline levels. Results of a model of a 1988-type drought combined with a large mandate for continued ethanol production show sharply higher crop prices, a drop in livestock production, and higher food prices. Corn exports would drop significantly, and feed costs would rise. Wheat feed use would rise sharply. Taking additional land out of the CRP would lower crop prices in the short run. But because long-run corn prices are determined by ethanol prices and not by corn acreage, the long-run impacts on commodity prices and food prices of a smaller CRP are modest. Cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass and biodiesel from soybeans do not become economically viable in the Corn Belt under any of the scenarios. This is so because high energy costs that increase the prices of biodiesel and switchgrass ethanol also increase the price of corn-based ethanol. So long as producers can choose between soybeans for biodiesel, switchgrass for ethanol, and corn for ethanol, they will choose to grow corn. Cellulosic ethanol from corn stover does not enter into any scenario because of the high cost of collecting and transporting corn stover over the large distances required to supply a commercial-sized ethanol facility.biofuels, corn acreage, crop prices, ethanol production, food prices, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

U.S. Proposal for WTO Agriculture Negotiations: Its Impact on U.S. And World Agriculture

The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) analyzed the latest U.S. proposal to the Doha round of WTO negotiations (see Appendix 1, U.S. Proposal for WTO Agriculture Negotiations, USTR, October 10, 2005). While the U.S. proposal provides many concrete steps to reduce farm support and trade distortions, it does not provide all necessary information for quantitative analysis of the proposal. FAPRI, through consultations with economists and staffers of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Office of the United States Trade Representative, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, elaborated a complementary set of policy assumptions to carry the quantitative analysis. The analysis is conducted in deviation from the baseline of the FAPRI 2005 U.S. and World Agricultural Outlook. New policies put in place since the 2005 baseline was established have been accommodated to separate the impact of the policy scenario from the full set of policy assumptions.

Large deviations for a damped telegraph process

In this paper we consider a slight generalization of the damped telegraph process in Di Crescenzo and Martinucci (2010). We prove a large deviation principle for this process and an asymptotic result for its level crossing probabilities (as the level goes to infinity). Finally we compare our results with the analogous well-known results for the standard telegraph process

FAPRI 2005 World Agricultural Outlook Briefing Book

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