CHINA'S RURAL HOUSEHOLD DEMAND FOR FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

A two-stage budgeting LES-LA/AIDS system is sued to estimate rural household demand in China with special emphasis on changes in demand for fruit and vegetable commodities across different income groups. The own-price elasticity for food was found to be more elastic than that for clothing, housing, durable goods, and other items. Within the food group, price elasticities range from -1.042 to -0.019. Grain, with an expenditure elasticity of almost unity, is an important staple food for the average rural household. Vegetables are important nonstaple foods relative to fruits. Lower value vegetables are the most price elastic in the vegetable group. Fruits are more price elastic than vegetables, with grapes being the most price elastic. Different income groups share a common demand function.AIDS model, Chinese rural households, Elasticity, Household demand, Household demand, LES model, Two-stage budgeting, Demand and Price Analysis,

Imports in the Washington State Economy: Importance and Regional Effects of Import Liberalization

This paper focuses on the import side of a regional economy quantifying the economic impact of import levels and trade liberalization. An innovation represents the linkage of a regional with a national model by combining two separate Computable General Equilibrium models into one framework. This allows for import price formation in liberalization scenarios on the national level and subsequent incorporation of these nationally simulated prices into the regional model. The regional model is applied to Washington State, one of the most trade dependent states of the U.S, the national model to the U.S. Data for the two identically structured models origin from the IMPLAN database which divides the U.S. and Washington economy into 509 industries. For both models, Monte Carlo techniques are used to mitigate parameter uncertainty inherent in CGE specifications. Two scenarios are simulated that differ in the assumptions about the macroeconomic and factor market adjustment options of the economies.Computable General equilibrium, regional modelling, trade liberalization, International Relations/Trade, C68, R13, F17,

RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION, LABOR MOBILITY AND AGRICULTURAL TRADE LIBERALIZATION IN CHINA

Under the terms of its accession to the WTO, China will likely commit to significant liberalization of its agricultural trade regimes. In this paper we consider how growing levels of urban unemployment, combined with a restrictive labor market policy, may alter the expected welfare effects of agricultural reform. We utilize a new AGE model of the Chinese economy based on the Harris-Todaro framework, incorporating imperfect labor mobility.International Relations/Trade, Labor and Human Capital,

CHINA'S ACCESSION TO THE WTO AND IMPACTS ON LIVESTOCK TRADE AND PRODUCTION PATTERNS

This paper was presented at the INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN LIVESTOCK PRODUCTS SYMPOSIUM in Auckland, New Zealand, January 18-19, 2001. The Symposium was sponsored by: the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium, the Venture Trust, Massey University, New Zealand, and the Centre for Applied Economics and Policy Studies, Massey University. Dietary changes, especially in developing countries, are driving a massive increase in demand for livestock products. The objective of this symposium was to examine the consequences of this phenomenon, which some have even called a "revolution." How are dietary patterns changing, and can increased demands for livestock products be satisfied from domestic resources? If so, at what cost? What will be the flow-on impacts, for example, in terms of increased demands for feedgrains and the pressures for change within marketing systems? A supply-side response has been the continued development of large-scale, urban-based industrial livestock production systems that in many cases give rise to environmental concerns. If additional imports seem required, where will they originate and what about food security in the importing regions? How might market access conditions be re-negotiated to make increased imports achievable? Other important issues discussed involved food safety, animal health and welfare and the adoption of biotechnology, and their interactions with the negotiation of reforms to domestic and trade policies. Individual papers from this conference are available on AgEcon Search. If you would like to see the complete agenda and set of papers from this conference, please visit the IATRC Symposium web page at: http://www1.umn.edu/iatrc.intro.htmInternational Relations/Trade, Production Economics,

Rational blow-downs and smoothings of surface singularities

In this paper we give a necessary combinatorial condition for a negative--definite plumbing tree to be suitable for rational blow--down, or to be the graph of a complex surface singularity which admits a rational homology disk smoothing. New examples of surface singularities with rational homology disk smoothings are also presented; these include singularities with resolution graph having valency four nodes.Comment: 61 pages, 28 figure

A SYSTEM-WIDE APPROACH FOR ANALYZING JAPANESE WHEAT IMPORT ALLOCATION DECISIONS

This paper develops and implements an import allocation model based on Theil's system-wide approach to demand and tests the assumption of blockwise dependence and uniform substitutability among different sources and types of wheat imported by Japan.Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

TRADE CREATION AND DIVERSION EFFECTS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT OF U.S. SUGAR IMPORTS FROM MEXICO

A world sugar model consisting of 21 countries was developed to determine the effects of NAFTA of U.S. and Mexican sugar markets and to quantify the trade creation and diversion effects on U.S. imports from Mexico. Mexican sugar production increases under NAFTA, causing Mexico to become a net exporter. NAFTA induces sugar imports from Mexico to displace U.S. production, to meet demand expansion, and also to divert U.S. imports from other foreign suppliers to Mexico. Effects of NAFTA on the U.S. sugar market are small because of the side agreements which limit Mexican exports and which include corn sweetener consumption when computing Mexico's production surplus.International Relations/Trade,

The Bioterrorism Act of the USA and international food trade: Evaluating WTO conformity and effects on bilateral imports

The September 11th event focused the world's attention on the threat of bioterrorism to the food chain. As a consequence, the U.S. implemented the Bioterrorism Act (BTA). These new administrative import rules will be evaluated regarding WTO conformity and trade impact. This analysis is based on an inventory approach systematizing the BTA, and a trade flow analysis. The BTA do not significantly deviate from WTO rules, however, the findings are driven by existing flexibility in international administrative import guidelines. The trade analysis highlights that products and countries with prior expedited or less regulated procedures and small import quantities are affected.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,

Segmentation of Retail Food Store Formats in Qingdao, China

This study empirically estimates a multivariate binary choice model for four categories of food shopping store formats. The results indicate that in the Qingdao market, traditional counter parts such as wet markets and small grocery stores have been dominated by supermarkets and hypermarkets. At the same time, the rapid growth of hypermarkets in Qingdao is significantly challenging current supermarkets in this city, but they do not compete extensively with wet markets and small grocery stores. Further development of various categories of the food shopping store format is linked to store owned characteristics, potential interrelations among existing retail formats, as well as consumers' demographics and shopping habits.Food retail store format, consumer choice, multivariate probit model, China, Agribusiness,