Heterogeneous firms and trade costs: a reading of French access to European agro-food market

This article offers a new reading of intra-European trade based on recent developments in new international economics (Melitz, 2003; Chaney, 2008). These models take the heterogeneity of firms into account and offer a micro-economic analysis of the process of selection at work for firms entering markets. An exporting firm has to bear certain specific costs to break into a market, and only sufficiently productive firms are able to do so. Using individual data for French agro-food firms and the distribution of their exports across European markets, this article shows that access conditions to the various European markets are not identical for French firms: the Belgian market would seem to be a natural extension of the French market, whereas the markets of small, distant countries (Austria, Finland or Sweden) are the least accessible. Econometric analysis based on analysis both of the firm selection process and of the value of their exports shows that the standard geographical variables (distance, country size) affecting the single European market still play a major role in the choice of export markets. Results also reveal that there are still remaining trade costs at entry to the different European markets; but these trade frictions don’t matter to all firms in the same way. The higher the firm experience, the lower the impact of trade costs.firm heterogeneity, trade costs, European Integration., International Relations/Trade,

Trade and Transport Modes, A Differentiated Impact of Distance

International Relations/Trade,

EU market access for Mediterranean fruit and vegetables: A gravity model assessment

Since 1995, a liberalization process - the so- called Barcelona Process - has begun in the Mediterranean area. It aims at establishing a free trade area for 2010 in the Mediterranean Basin. For the moment the full liberalization concerns industrial product s trade whereas agriculture remains sensitive. Among agricultural product s, the fruit and vegetables (F&V) sector is essential for Mediterranean countries and the EU is their first trading partner. In this context, two questions arise: Firstly, to what extent protection influence trade for the med countries, compared to the other countries? Secondly, what would be the impacts of a greater liberalization on F&V trade between the EU and Mediterranean Countries? Our model, based on the new development s of gravity equation focuses on the difficulties faced by the Mediterranean countries to enter on the EU market, compared to the other EU partners, considering the relative impact of the different trade costs. It is estimated at the product level, in a sector with a huge specificity: some product s may be very perishable and thus particularly time sensitive. The Mediterranean basin appears as a highly heterogeneous country bloc. Beside the actual level of preferences allowed by the EU, two main elements vary according to the exporting country: its tariff sensitivity and its "non- tariff" trade resistance. Thus, with respect to the Euromed liberalization, the higher the tariff sensitivity the higher the impact of liberalization on trade and this impact can be limited by a high trade resistance (NTB, logistic constraints...).Fruit and Vegetables, EU-Med agreement, gravity models, transport cost, tariffs, International Relations/Trade, Marketing,

History matters for the export decision and the volume exported: Firm-level evidence from French agri-food firms

As a result of the rapid growth of microeconometric studies of exporting firms, we know quite a lot about the hysteresis occurring in the current decision of firms to export. Firms entering a foreign market the previous year are more likely to export the current year. This fact is traditionally interpreted as a consequence of sunk export costs at entry to the international market. These costs are for instance the knowledge of foreign markets, the search for new distribution networks, or the compliance with border crossing standards specific to a given market. The specificity of the destination market appears as being of huge importance for the firms. Papers in this field propose to test for the existence of sunk-cost hysteresis by analysing entry and exit patterns in plant-level panel data, whatever the destination market. Roberts and Tybout (1997) or Özler et al. (2009) develop and estimate a dynamic discrete-choice model of the plant’s current exporting status in Colombia or Turkey respectively. Only a few studies have accounted either for the destination of the exports or for the volume exported. Blanes-Cristobal et al. (2008) show that previous experience on a market has a positive impact on the probability of current export on this market. Das et al. (2007) consider both the decision to export and the value exported in a dynamic model. They show that entry costs on international markets (whatever the destination market) are substantial. The questions addressed by this study are: Are sunk costs a feature of the firm's export behavior (decision and volume) and do they vary across export markets? A multivariate dynamic panel model of French agribusiness firms' exports to two aggregate markets (EU and Rest of the World) is specified. The model accounts for both zero level and positively skewed exports by adopting the Cragg (1971) logarithmic Tobit model. Unobserved firm-level heterogeneity is accounted for by introducing random effects which may be correlated across export markets. The initial conditions problem is treated by assuming that a component of the unobserved firm effect is conditional on initial values and exogenous variables (Wooldridge, 2005). As a consequence the degree of structural state dependence can be estimated for each export market. Previous export experience in both markets is hypothesized to impact both the decision to export and the level of exports in each market.dynamic tobit model, French agri-food firms, exports, destination markets, Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

Does Input Trade Liberalization Boost Downstream Firms Exports? Evidence from the French Agrofood Sector

intermediate good, heterogeneous firms, agrifood sector, trade liberalization., Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

Euromediterranean agreements: which advantages for Mediterranean countries in fruit and vegetables sector?

This article measures the advantage granted by the European Union to different Mediterranean countries in the fruit and vegetables sector in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements. The advantage of each country are evaluated by calculating the value of the preferential margins, which compares the amount of the customs duties paid by an exporting country with the amount of the duties this country would have paid if it had not enjoyed tariff preferences. The situation of the Mediterranean countries appears to be highly unequal in terms of the advantages granted by the EU in the fruit and vegetables sector. The progress of bilateral negotiations and the export structure in each country explain the significant variations in preferential margins from one Mediterranean country to the next. These results allow us to discuss the potential impacts of a liberalisation of fruit and vegetable trade within the Euro-Mediterranean zone.Euromediterranean agreements, preferential margin, fruit and vegetables, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Analysis of the meiotic segregation in intergeneric hybrids of tilapias

Tilapia species exhibit a large ecological diversity and an important propensity to interspecific hybridisation. This has been shown in the wild and used in aquaculture. However, despite its important evolutionary implications, few studies have focused on the analysis of hybrid genomes and their meiotic segregation. Intergeneric hybrids between Oreochromis niloticus and Sarotherodon melanotheron, two species highly differentiated genetically, ecologically, and behaviourally, were produced experimentally. The meiotic segregation of these hybrids was analysed in reciprocal second generation hybrid (F2) and backcross families and compared to the meiosis of both parental species, using a panel of 30 microsatellite markers. Hybrid meioses showed segregation in accordance to Mendelian expectations, independent from sex and the direction of crosses. In addition, we observed a conservation of linkage associations between markers, which suggests a relatively similar genome structure between the two parental species and the apparent lack of postzygotic incompatibility, despite their important divergence. These results provide genomics insights into the relative ease of hybridisation within cichlid species when prezygotic barriers are disrupted. Overall our results support the hypothesis that hybridisation may have played an important role in the evolution and diversification of cichlids