Milk Supply Chain and Efficiency of Smallholder Dairy Producers in Pakistan

Many developing countries are re-orienting their production and marketing systems by linking local agri-producers with organized supply chain networks and supermarkets to meet increasing consumer demands. However, the existing literature is silent on the effects of such integration on relative inefficiency of smallholder producers. This paper analyzes the effects of such supply chains using data from a natural experiment in the dairy sector of Pakistan. We study the impact of rural milk supply chain, known as milk district, on smallholder efficiency of commercial dairy producers by employing stochastic production frontier and technical inefficiency effects model using survey data of 800 dairy households. While location of dairy households in our sample is exogenously determined, building of milk supply chain indeed decreases technical inefficiency. We detect stronger power of milk district in further reducing technical inefficiency if the farms are located in remote areas, or if their size is relatively large. The advice to policy makers from these results conforms to the standard economic view that market competition leads to decreased levels of technical inefficiency of smallholder producers.supply chain, Production frontiers, Dairy efficiency, Food policy

The State of Pakistan’s Dairy Sector : An Assessment

While there is a plethora of research documenting a multitude of dimensions of the crop sector of Pakistan, there is virtual absence of meaningful economic analysis of the dairy economy that is surprising. No serious attempt has been made in the past to clarify the micro-level potential of this sector in creating an impact on rural economy. This paper is a pioneering attempt to provide an objective assessment of the state of Pakistans dairy and to point out areas of further research. The paper analyzes some core issues and highlights the potentials, and recommends measures that could be adopted.dairy, rural economy, research areas

The State of Pakistan’s Dairy Sector: An Assessment

While there is a plethora of research documenting a multitude of dimensions of the crop sector of Pakistan, the virtual absence of meaningful economic analysis of the dairy economy is surprising. No serious attempt has been made in the past to clarify the microlevel potential of this sector to impact rural economy. This paper is a pioneering attempt to provide an objective assessment of the state of Pakistan’s dairy and to point out areas of further research. The paper analyses some core issues, highlights the potential of this sector, and recommends the measures to be adopted towards such a goal.Dairy Industry, Pakistan

Dual-Career Couples in Academia : Does Wage Growth Suffer When One’s Partner Works for the Same University?

Extending the literature on monopsony in academic labor markets, we find that faculty pay is inversely related to seniority in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets for a large public university in the United States. Fixed-effects results indicate that the negative relationship cannot be explained by lower quality of senior faculty. Arguing that mobility costs are higher when both partners work for the same university, we allow monopsony power to vary by employment status of partner. We find that pay of male faculty is negatively and significantly related to the number of years the partner has been employed by the university and that the penalty is greater when couples are hired together.Monopsony, academic labor market

Prospects of Wheat and Sugar Trade between India and Pakistan : A Simple Welfare Analysis

This paper asks how opening up of wheat and sugar trade between two nuclear neighbours, India and Pakistan, would affect welfare in the two countries. We conduct a partial equilibrium analysis to simulate welfare implications of trade between the two countries under three alternative trade regimes : a) under an FTA between India and Pakistan, b) under SAFTA, and c) under a grant of mostfavoured nation (MFN) to India by Pakistan. We conduct simple welfare analysis for wheat, on the basis of real world data of FY2005, and for sugar, based on data for FY 2000-01. In both these years, India had a net surplus and Pakistan had a net deficit for both wheat and sugar. We show that among other things, favourable weather conditions play a critical role in generating these surpluses, which are most likely to get reversed in years when weather conditions become more favourable to Pakistan. While we find there would be net gains to both countries, in case trade happens, the highest welfare gains accrue to both countries under free trade agreement. Further analysis reveals that if subsidies to Indian wheat farmers are removed, their competitive edge disappears in favour of wheat farmers in Pakistan.wheat, sugar, trade, weather conditions, Pakistan, India, subsidies

Search for H dibaryon on the lattice

We investigate the H-dibaryon, an $I(J^{P})=0(0^{+})$ with $s=-2$, in the chiral and continuum regimes on anisotropic lattices in quenched QCD. Simulations are performed on very coarse lattices with refined techniques to obtain results with high accuracy over a spatial lattice spacing in the range of $a_{s} \sim 0.19 - 0.41$ fm. We present results for the energy difference between the ground state energy of the hexa-quark stranglet and the free two-baryon state from our ensembles. A negative binding energy observed in the chirally extrapolated results leads to the conclusion that the measured hexa-quark state is bound. This is further confirmed by the attractive interaction in the continuum limit with the observed H-dibaryon bound by $\sim 47$ MeV.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Estimation of Export Supply Function for Citrus Fruit in Pakistan

There is strong evidence in the literature that export and economic growth have a positive relationship. In Pakistan, with an agrarian economy, earnings from primary agricultural exports are vital for the overall growth process. Fruits are the traditional export commodities, which contribute more than half of total export earnings from primary agricultural commodities. The persistent instability in world market prices for primary commodities has depressed the export earnings from these commodities over time. This poses great challenges to a country like Pakistan. The present study aims at examining changes in the volume of export of citrus fruit from Pakistan caused by such factors as changes in domestic and export prices, national product, foreign exchange rate, etc. The study uses time series data for the period 1975–2004 for citrus exports and related domestic price, export price, GDP, and foreign exchange rate, employing the co-integration and error correction techniques for analysis purposes.