The removal of trade sanctions’ impact on South African wine export

This paper investigates how the removal of the South Africa trade embargo in 1994 affected its wine exports. The goal is to determine the significance of the sanctions and trade agreements for this export. Specifically, sanctions and certain trade agreements are examined between the years 1990 to 2010. During this time, sanctions were imposed on South Africa because of apartheid. In 1994, apartheid ended, and then all sanctions had ended as well. To assess this, a gravity model is used. In this case, the model specifically estimates the parameters for South Africa's wine exports, South Africa's GDP, and the GDP for South Africa’s trading partners. An additional parameter that estimates the sanctions is included in this model. The results are compared to the change of wine exports for the world's largest wine exporting countries. This is done to exclude that the changes in wine exports are due to other parameters. South Africa’s economic growth effect is also illustrated. The data for the gravity model and for the complementary analyses are collected from the FAO State and the World Bank. The estimated results show that wine exports increased by 244 percent after the embargo was removed. This is a large increase that is economically significant. This may be due to the general globalization in the world at the same time. Although, as no other large wine exporting countries have such a high increase in their export (maximum 128 percent) this would suggest that the ending of all sanctions indeed had an effect. The results also show that the world’s GDP had an impact on South Africa's exports. The changes in South Africa's wine exports increased after 1994 and after 2000. These changes appear to be specific to South Africa. South Africa's GDP increased mainly after 2002. The conclusion of these findings is that the removal of trade sanctions had a large impact on South Africa's wine exports. This is especially evident in the results of the gravity model. The results also indicate that trade policy appears to have an impact on South Africa's economic growth. This can open for speculation about how trade policy can be used to control other countries

Sustainable meat consumption

Global warming, declining biodiversity, overuse of natural resources and social fundamentals such as health and a secure income are all affected by our food consumption. In the last 30 years, global meat consumption has doubled, which has increased the negative effects on these issues. This study assesses the possibilities of changing the negative trend and steer towards a more plant-based diet using economic instruments. When only climate change is considered, taxing beef would be the most efficient instrument. The study, however, also highlights other sustainability aspects such as circular production and biodiversity, making the choice of which type of meat to tax more complex. Therefore, a general taxation of all meat but also a subsidy on plant-based diets is examined. The aim is to give an overview of the consequences for such a policy mix, where the tax system is relatively easy to implement. Three tax scenarios are applied to real market data from one of Sweden's largest ICA stores. Two of the scenarios are based on GHG-emission taxes, where one only includes meat and the other includes all animal protein foods. The third scenario is an increase of VAT (value-added tax) to 25 % for animal goods and a VAT-reduction to 6 % for plant-based goods. A Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QAIDS) is used to estimate the change in budget shares and to estimate Marshallian demand and income elasticities. The parameters are used to construct a system of linear demand curves which then is used to calculate the change in quantities as an effect of the price change. The result indicates that an applied general meat tax has the potential to shift consumption towards an increased plant-based consumption. When the price of meat is increases by 10 and 11.6%, consumption decreases by 11.7, 10.7 and 11.87%, respectively, for the different scenarios. A subsidy on plant-based foods further increases this change by increasing plant-based consumption with 11.2 % for only a 5.4 % decrease in price. Including taxes on other animal protein foods does not show as large potential to further decrease the negative pressures. The third scenario resulted in the largest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 3.08 tonnes, but the difference between the scenarios is small. Including other animal goods in the analysis has almost no effect on emission reductions

Karlheinz Deller

Bakgrunden till detta arbete har varit att, på uppdrag av Green Cargo Road&Logistics, finna möjligheter att sänka kapitalbindningen vid Goodyears nordenlager i Norrköping. Lageromsättningshastigheten är i nuläget inte tillfredställande och även en generell minskning av lagernivåerna är önskvärd. En nulägesanalys har genomförts medelst intervjuer och studiebesök. Därefter har en grundlig litteraturstudie och en detaljstudie av ett urval artiklar i lagersystemet utförts. Utifrån dessa båda studier samt utförd problemanalys rekommenderas ett antal förslag på förbättringsåtgärder. Studien visar att lagerstyrningssystemet inte på ett godtagbart sätt klarar av att ta hänsyn till nordenmarknadens säsongsvariationer. Bristsituationer är vanligt förekommande tidigt under säsong samtidigt som överbeställningar sker i slutet på säsong. För dubbade och monterade artiklar kan i många fall höga lagernivåer och låg lageromsättningshastighet observeras, detta beroende på den process förädlingen medför. Ytterligare en faktor som starkt bidrar till komplexiteten är i detta fall det stora antalet artiklar i systemet. Dessutom kan ett stort antal artiklar iakttagas där lagernivåerna ligger relativt högt konstant över såväl hög- som låg säsong, där dessutom omsättningen är låg. Ett antal åtgärdsförslag med rekommendationer föreslås i sex punkter. Åtgärdsförslagen rekommenderar ett lagerstyrningssystem bättre anpassat till nordenmarknadens kraftiga säsongsvariationer. Karaktäristikan med påtagliga säsongsvariationer bidrar till stora prognosfel och lagerstyrningssystemet behöver på ett bättre sätt hantera prognosavvikelserna. Detta inkluderar en reviderad partiformningsmetod, då det nuvarande användandet av metoden TBO inte ger tillfredställande resultat. I dagsläget är förädlingen en flaskhals i lagersystemet, varvid ett införskaffande av högkapacitetsdubbningsmaskiner skulle höja lageromsättningshastigheten. Ytterligare en åtgärd vilken skulle höja lageromsättningshastigheten är en bättre bevakning av inaktuella artiklar. För lågvolymartiklar med avsevärd hög lagernivå i förhållande till prognos bör en översyn utföras och en rutin för övervakning av dessa skapas