TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND JAPANESE AGRICULTURAL IMPORT POLICIES

This analysis empirically evaluates a subset of Japanese agricultural policies during the 1970s and 1980s using the Trade Restrictiveness Index recently developed by Anderson and Neary. This index, though theoretically rigorous, is empirically demanding, resulting in relatively few applications. Inferences obtained from the index are in general accordance with policy changes and economic events over the period of analysis. Using 1970 as the base, the estimated TRI suggests that policy changes during 1970-87 resulted in moderately liberalized trade. Comparison with a conventional measure of trade distortion- producer and consumer subsidy equivalents (PSEs and CSEs)- reveals contrasting inference. This suggests the choice of empirical measures in evaluating trade policies in nontrivial.International Relations/Trade,

Evading Farm Support Reduction Via Efficient Input Use: The Case of Greek Cotton Growers

Utilizing a stochastic frontier approach, this paper examines the importance that input-oriented technical and scale efficiency may have for Greek cotton farmers in the context of the current EU cotton policy. To that end, a sample of cotton-growing farms in the representative cotton -producing county of Karditsa (central Greece) is empirically analyzed. The results suggest that the farms examined exhibit decreasing returns to scale and they are both scale and technically inefficient. Moreover, elimination of these inefficiencies could result in considerable gains; the cotton farmers examined could reduce production costs by 46.0%, by becoming both technically and scale efficient. Additionally, we estimate that if cotton farms in the area examined were technically and scale efficient the intervention price reductions (co-responsibility levy) imposed by the EU for excessive cotton production would be smaller for all Greek cotton growers.

Assessing the Perspectives of EU Cotton Farming: Technical and Scale Efficiencies of Greek Cotton Growers

Utilizing the stochastic frontier approach, this paper estimates output and input-oriented technical and scale efficiency levels for a sample of cotton-growing farms in Thessaly, Greece. The empirical results suggest that Greek cotton farm operations are technically and scale inefficient. There is a considerable scope for improvement in resource use and thereby in farm income of cotton farms; Greek cotton farmers could reduce production costs by 20.4%, making more efficient utilization of the existing production technology. Factors responsible for the technical efficiency differentials observed among cotton-growers include the farmer's age and education as well as the farm's land fragmentation and output specialization.Technical and scale inefficiency, stochastic frontier models, cotton production, Greece, Crop Production/Industries, C33, D24, O13,

Information Acquisition and Adoption of Organic Farming Practices: Evidence from Farm Operations in Crete, Greece

The objective of the paper is to model the degree of organic farming adoption as well as the importance of technical information acquisition in the adoption decision process. In doing so, a trivariate ordered probit model is specified and implemented in the case of organic farming adoption in Crete, Greece. The results suggest that the decisions of information acquisition and adoption are indeed correlated and different farming information sources play a complementary role. Policies required to encourage organic farming adoption should be primarily structural while the provision of technical information is more crucial than conversion subsidies if total organic adoption is to be pursued.Technology adoption, information acquisition, organic farming, Crete, Greece

Information Acquisition and Adoption of Organic Farming Practices

This study offers an empirical framework for analyzing farmers' joint decisions to adopt organic farming practices and to seek technical (i.e., farming) information from various sources. To that end, a trivariate ordered probit model is specified and implemented in the case of organic land conversion in Crete, Greece. Findings suggest that the decisions of information acquisition and organic land conversion are indeed correlated, and different farming information sources play a complementary role. Structural policies improving the farmer's allocative ability are found to play an important role in encouraging organic farming adoption.Crete, Greece, information acquisition, organic farming, technology adoption, Farm Management,

Trade Restrictiveness in the Presence of 'New' Goods

The Trade Restrictiveness Index (TRI) by Anderson and Neary (1994) is an index number aggregating trade distortions in the context of a small open economy. A liberalization process which allows trade in goods not traded in previous periods, implies different sets of goods in the two successive periods over which the TRI is defined; this may introduce a bias, inherent in index numbers. This paper attempts a refinement of the standard TRI to allow for the presence of newly traded goods in the definition of the index. In addition, an implementable expression of the refined TRI is provided. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000trade restrictiveness index, new goods, international trade,

Empirical Evidence of Technical Efficiency Levels in Greek Organic and Conventional Farms

The present study utilizes the stochastic production frontier approach in evaluating the technical efficiency rates achieved in four types of Greek organic and conventional farm operations, namely, olive oil-producing, cotton, raisin-producing, and grapes-for-wine producing farms. The empirical results are expected to illustrate possible differences in the technical efficiency scores between the two farming technologies, and provide empirical evidence which at least in the field of organic farming performance is scarce or even absent. Such assessments may also be helpful for pointing out purely economic advantages (or disadvantages) of organic farming, in addition to its environmental dimension, and formulating policies to improve its economic performance

Agricultural liberalization and the environment in Southern Europe: the role of the supply side

The argument advanced by free market optimists that liberalized agricultural policies will lead to conservation, through reductions in outputs and environmentally damaging inputs, leaves many more things to be decided. Critics have pointed out that lower prices may induce farmers either to abandon land with loss of biodiversity and rural landscape ecology as a result, to increase production and pollution in order to sustain current revenues, or to switch to more environmentally damaging crops. This article follows a different route. It proposes that overall reductions in the total volume of agricultural output or the total amount of agro-chemicals used does not guarantee environmental enhancement. Environmental problems are usually location specific and crop specific. The cultivation of industrial crops is responsible for serious ecosystem offences in areas around the World. Thus, to actually have some measure of which way a lower price regime would be going in terms of conservation, we need to study the effects of either technology shifts or production shifts. Looking at cotton, maize and sugar beet supply response in two Southern EU countries, under given production technologies, it concludes that price reductions will lead to minimal if any reductions in the supply of these crops. Thus, conservation efforts will need to assume explicit forms.