Banana Splits and Banana Slips:The European and Trans-Atlantic Politics of Bananas

GATT; international trade; liberalization; regulation; WTO; Uruguay round

A second look at the pesticides initiative program : evidence from Senegal

This paper investigates whether the Pesticides Initiative Program has significantly affected the export performance of Senegal'shorticulture industry. The authors apply two main microeconometric techniques, difference-in-differences and matching difference-in-differences, to identify the effect of the Pesticides Initiative Program on exports of fresh fruits and vegetables. They use a unique firm-level dataset containing data on sales, employment, and exports by product and destination markets, as well as firm enrolment year, over 2000-2008. The results suggest that wile the program had no significant effect on exports pooled over all products and destinations, it had a positive effect when considering fresh fruits and vegetables exports to the European Union.E-Business,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Microfinance,Free Trade

Career Concerns and the Acquisition of Firm-Specific Skills

This paper studies compensation schemes that can motivate a worker to acquire nonverifiable firm-specific skills, when the acquisition process is also one of learning about managerial talent. At the beginning of the employment relationship, the worker encounters opportunities to enhance her specific human capital. Greater skills may increase the chances of being promoted; but as more opportunities are taken, more is learned about the worker's talent, and someone displaying low talent is sure not to be promoted. In this context we show that first-best firm-specific skills collection can be implemented with a scheme that combines discretionary promotions, an appropriate wage schedule and subsidies of training at the margin. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG - (Karrierepläne und der Erwerb von unternehmensspezifischen Fähigkeiten) In diesem Beitrag werden Entlohnungssysteme untersucht, die einen Beschäftigten dazu motivieren können nichtverifizierbare unternehmensspezifische Fähigkeiten zu erwerben, wenn es sich darum handelt, in diesem Prozeß auch Managementfähigkeiten zu erlernen. Zu Beginn der Beschäftigung sieht sich der Beschäftigte Möglichkeiten gegenübergestellt, sein spezifisches Humankapital zu vergrößern. Bessere Fähigkeiten können die Wahrscheinlichkeit für eine Beförderung erhöhen. Je mehr Gelegenheiten er wahrnimmt, desto besser wird auch das Talent des Beschäftigten erkannt. Bei geringem Talent wird auch deutlich, daß keine Beförderung ansteht. In diesem Zusammenhang wird gezeigt, daß der erstbeste unternehmensspezifische Fähigkeitserwerb mit einem Entlohnungsschema umgesetzt werden kann, das Beförderungen mit Ermessensspielraum bei einem angemessenem Gehalt und ein Fortbildungsförderungssystem "am Rand" verbindet.personnel management; human capital formation; occupational choice; labor productivity

How costly is it for poor farmers to lift themselves out of poverty?

The main objective of this paper is to provide estimates of the cost of moving out of subsistence for Madagascar's farmers. The analysis is based on a simple asset-return model of occupational choice. Estimates suggest that the entry (sunk) cost associated with moving out of subsistence can be quite large - somewhere between 124 and 153 percent of a subsistence farmer's annual production. Our results make it possible to identify farm characteristics likely to generate large gains, if moved out of subsistence, yielding useful information for the targeting of trade-adjustment assistance programs.Markets and Market Access,Rural Poverty Reduction,Economic Theory&Research,Agribusiness,Access to Markets

Tariff evasion and customs corruption : does pre-shipment inspection help?

The authors provide a new approach to the evaluation of pre-shipment inspection (PSI) programs as ways of improving tariff-revenue collection and reducing fraud when customs administrations are corrupt. They build a model highlighting the contribution of surveillance firms to the generation of information and describing how incentives for fraud and collusive behavior between importers and customs are affected by the introduction of PSI. The authors show theoretically that the introduction of PSI has an ambiguous effect on the level of customs fraud. Empirically, the econometric results suggest that PSI reduced fraud in the Philippines, it increased it in Argentina, and did not have significant impact in Indonesia.Trade Policy,Export Competitiveness,Environmental Economics&Policies,Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,Export Competitiveness,Trade Policy,Multi Modal Transport,Trade and Regional Integration,Common Carriers Industry

Trade Diversification, Income, and Growth: What Do We Know?

Export diversification, international trade, Growth and employment

Contribution to Productivity or Pork Barrel? The Two Faces of Infrastructure Investment

This paper proposes a simultaneous-equation approach to the estimation of the contribution of transport infrastructure accumulation to regional growth. We model explicitly the political-economy process driving infrastructure investments; in doing so, we eliminate a potential source of bias in production-function estimates and generate testable hypotheses on the forces that shape infrastructure policy. Our empirical findings on a panel of France’s regions over 1985-92 suggest that electoral concerns and influence activities were, indeed, significant determinants of the cross-regional allocation of transportation infrastructure investments. By contrast, we find little evidence of concern for the maximization of economic returns to infrastructure spending, even after controlling for pork-barrel. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG - (Beitrag zur Produktivität oder Pork-barrel? Die zwei Seiten von Infrastrukturinvestitionen) In dieser Untersuchung wird ein simultanes Gleichungssystem zur Schätzung des Beitrags von Verkehrsinfrastrukturinvestitionen zu regionalem Wachstum verwendet. Es wird explizit der politische Prozeß modelliert, der Infrastrukturinvestitionen determiniert; dadurch wird eine mögliche Ursache einer verzerrten Parameterschätzung vermieden, die eintreten kann, wenn Produktionsfunktionen einzeln geschätzt werden. Gleichzeitig fließen in das Modell weitere empirisch überprüfbare Hypothesen über die Determinanten von Infrastrukturpolitik ein. Die empirischen Ergebnisse für einen Paneldatensatz mit 21 französischen Regionen im Zeitraum 1985-1991 zeigen, daß unterstützende Aktivitäten in der Tat einen signifikanten Einfluß auf die regionale Allokation von Verkehrsinfrastrukturinvestitionen haben. Darüber hinaus werden nur wenig empirische Hinweise dafür gefunden, daß auch erwartete Produktivitätseffekte von Infrastruktur bei der regionalen Allokation in Frankreich von Bedeutung sind.Growth, Infrastructure, Political Economy, Lobbying, France

Export Diversification: What’s behind the Hump?

The paper explores the evolution of export diversification patterns along the economic development path. Using a large database with 156 countries over 19 years at the HS6 level of disaggregation (4’991 product lines) we look for action at the “intensive” and “extensive” margins (diversification of export values among active product lines and by addition of new product lines respectively) using various export concentration indices and the number of active export lines. We also look at new product introduction as an indicator of “export-entrepreneurship”. We find a hump-shaped pattern of export diversification similar to what Imbs and Wacziarg (2003) found for production and employment. Diversification and subsequent re-concentration take place mostly along the extensive margin, although the intensive margin follows the same pattern. This hump-shaped pattern is consistent with the conjecture that countries travel across diversification cones, as discussed in Schott (2003, 2004) and Xiang (2007).international trade, Export diversification

OECD imports : diversification of suppliers and quality search

This paper explores the evolution of OECD imports over time, measuring their concentration across origin countries at the product level. The authors find evidence of diversification followed, in the very last years of the sample period (post-2000), by a slight re-concentration. This re-concentration is entirely explained by the growing importance of Chinese products in OECD imports. They also find evidence of relatively more volatile concentration levels for goods with high quality heterogeneity, with temporary phases of re-concentration on goods with higher unit values. Both findings are consistent with a simple model of adverse selection and quality screening by OECD buyers predicting that diversification happens by"bouts"rather than continuously, with temporary re-concentration on higher-quality suppliers.Markets and Market Access,Microfinance,Labor Policies,E-Business,Agribusiness&Markets