Are geographical indication products fostering public goods? some evidence from Europe

Within the framework of multifunctional conceptualisation, the authors have investigated the level of public goods embedded in Agri-food geographical indication productsPostprint (published version

Sustainable development goals in the European Union and its regions: Are we moving forward in economic, social, and environmental dimensions?

We build a framework using Markov transition matrices to develop comparative analyses of the dynamics of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals across 20 EU Member States and three sustainability dimensions—economic, social, and environmental—over the period of 2011–2019. The results indicate that the European Union has significantly progressed in achieving sustainable development, and that this progress has been achieved in all dimensions of sustainability and all EU regions. Nevertheless, we have detected different dynamics of sustainability across some countries and dimensions. This can help policymakers identify where greater emphasis should be placed on putting global goals back on track

Determinantes de las preferencias de los españoles hacia la tributación medioambiental

Este trabajo tiene tres objetivos relacionados con las preferencias de los españoles hacia la tributación medioambiental. Primero, se contrasta si, en línea con la literatura, los determinantes de las preferencias ciudadanas hacia la imposición medioambiental dependen de factores utilitaristas e institucionales. Segundo, se contrasta qué factores modulan la percepción ciudadana sobre la eficacia de aquélla para alcanzar fines medioambientales. Tercero, se contrasta si los determinantes hacia la imposición medioambiental difieren según sea la amplitud potencial de las bases imponibles de diferentes tasas medioambientales con diferente grado de utilización. Para ello, a partir de los microdatos de corte transversal del bloque específico de la oleada de 2020 del Barómetro Fiscal del Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, se estiman diversos modelos probabilísticos. De acuerdo con los resultados obtenidos, los determinantes de las preferencias de los españoles hacia la tributación medioambiental dependen de motivaciones utilitaristas e institucionales. También se obtiene que la amplitud de las bases imponibles precipita que los determinantes de las preferencias hacia diferentes tasas medioambientales no sean iguales para todas ellas. De los resultados anteriores emergen diversas recomendaciones de política tributaria que podrían contribuir a la aprobación de una profunda reforma fiscal medioambiental en España para alcanzar los ODS.imposición medioambientalpreferencias ciudadanasmodelos panel probi

Understanding the drivers of household food waste in Spanish regions

The global issue of food waste has major impacts on the environment, economy, and society. It is well known that an estimated one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, with private households being the largest contributor. Despite growing recognition, there is a shortage of consistent data that hinders comparison and track progress on reducing food waste across countries, sectors and regions. Our research aims at assessing the drivers of food waste at household level in Spain. It contributes the relevant literature by providing a novel dataset of food waste rates at regional level and the implementation of advanced panel data econometric techniques to assess the relative importance of macroeconomic drivers. The results will provide valuable insights for policymakers to take targeted measures in order to reduce food waste and enhance food security, and contribute to the broader literature on food waste, which is increasingly important for addressing population and climate change challenges.food wastemacroeconomic driverspanel dat

Price volatility and European food quality schemes

Food price volatility became more the norm than the exception since the 2008 financial crisis. It is common that prices of agricultural and food products fluctuate as market conditions change. Even more, price fluctuations can be considered as a signal of good performance of food markets. But, when these fluctuations are large and unanticipated, actors in the food marketing chain are challenged since adopting long-term decisions become more risky, generating a negative impact on the food security of farmers and consumers. Since the 1980s, the European Union (EU) has regulated the quality schemes for agricultural products and food with the objective of helping producers to communicate to buyers and consumers the specific characteristics of such products and farming attributes, giving the possibility to producers to offer a unique and differentiated product of higher quality, normally at a higher price. However, most of the literature focuses on price premiums that consumers pay or are willing to pay. Moreover, no study has analysed the value generated along each stage of the food chain and to what extent farmers benefit from such higher consumer prices. And, more importantly, no study has dealt with the issue of to what extent food quality schemes (FQS) have contributed to reducing price volatility along the food chain. Probably the main reason of this lack of empirical literature is the lack of available data to conduct such type of analysis related to FQS products. In fact, we have not found any data source that provides systematic and continuous price information, both for conventional and FQS products, at the two extreme stages of the food supply chain, the producer and the retail level. For this reason, we believe that efforts should be directed to improving the monitoring and collection of this sort of price data. The main aim of Task 4.3 of the STREGTH2FOOD project was to assess how prices for different FQS products are transmitted along the food marketing chain and the extent to which FQS have proved to be useful in reducing price volatility. Deliverable 4.4 presents the main results that were obtained. The methodology is based on the cointegration notion and after ensuring time-varying volatility in the data, a multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticiy (MGARCH) is estimated. Our approach allows for possible asymmetry in the variance matrix. The three case studies analyse FQS products in two Mediterranean countries, Spain and Italy. For Spain, we examine two Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) products, “Ternera de Navarra” (beef from Navarra) and “Cordero de Navarra” (lamb from Navarra). For Italy, we analyse the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) “Parmigiano Reggiano”. The deliverable draws conclusions on whether European FQS have proven to be useful in reducing price volatility along the food marketing chain. The results corroborate the presence of long-run relationships in the three case studies, with faster responses to deviations from the equilibrium in the short-run in the Spanish FQS than in conventional systems, whereas responses are faster in the Italian conventional case. Moreover, the results corroborate the existence of time-varying volatility with asymmetries. In general, the magnitude of price volatility patterns is higher in conventional systems than in FQS, and in retail markets (for beef and cheese products). Finally, results indicate that, at least for these three case studies, asymmetric dynamics are more significant in the conventional system, which favours the role of European FQS in reducing price volatility linkages between chain actors. From the perspective of agriculture and food policy agents, the interest of our results is unquestionable because it improves knowledge about European FQS. Also, the difficulties in finding sources of reliable data, supports the need for further resources and efforts to monitoring, collecting and composing a reliable database of price series for premium products and respective conventional counterparts, at least, at two different stages of their respective supply chains. The lack of available data in official databases prevent researchers from performing this kind of pair-wise analysis to gain a better understanding of the differences between product types.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 678024Price volatilitymultivariate GARCHasymmetryFQScointegrationbeeflambchees

El contraste de raíz unitaria MSB: la influencia de la observación inicial

El objetivo de la tesis es analizar el comportamiento asintótico y en muestras pequeñas de un contraste de raíz unitaria, el contraste modificado de Sargan y Bhargava, abreviado como MSB, que propuso Stock (1999). Dada la simplicidad de la forma que adopta el contraste, se examina si un estadístico tan simple posee buenas propiedades en relación con otros contrastes existentes en la literatura. El contenido de la tesis se estructura en cuatro capítulos, de los cuales, los dos primeros basan su análisis en el supuesto tradicional de que la observación inicial es Op(1) bajo ambas hipótesis del contraste y los dos últimos, en tratamientos alternativos. La tesis concluye con una síntesis de nuestras aportaciones a la literatura así como con una breve exposición de líneas de trabajo abiertas para futuras investigaciones

Sustainability Performance of Certified and Non-certified Food: Social and Economic History

Abstract The dataset Sustainability performance of certified and non-certified food (https://www.doi.org/10.15454/OP51SJ) contains 25 indicators of economic, environmental, and social performance, estimated for 27 certified food value chains and their 27 conventional reference products. The indicators are estimated at different levels of the value chain: farm level, processing level, and retail level. It also contains the raw data based on which the indicators are estimated, its source, and the completed spreadsheet calculators for the following indicators: carbon footprint and food miles. This article describes the common method and indicators used to collect data for the twenty-seven certified products and their conventional counterparts. It presents the assumptions and choices, the process of data collection, and the indicator estimation methods designed to assess the three sustainability dimensions within a reasonable time constraint. That is: three person-months for each food quality scheme and its non-certified reference product. Several prioritisations were set regarding data collection (indicator, variable, value chain level) together with a level of representativeness specific to each variable and product type (country and sector). Technical details on how relatively common variables (e.g., number of animals per hectare) are combined into indicators (e.g., carbon footprint) are provided in the full documentation of the dataset.Publishe

Analysis of price transmission in European food quality schemes

The European Union (EU) has regulated the quality schemes for agricultural food products since the 1980s, with the objective of helping producers to communicate to buyers and consumers the specific characteristics of such products and farming attributes, giving the possibility to producers to offer a unique and differentiated product of higher quality, normally sold at a higher price. Nevertheless, most of the literature focuses on price premiums that consumers pay or are willing to pay. Moreover, no study has analysed the value generated along each stage of the food chain and to what extent farmers benefit from higher consumer prices. More importantly, no study has dealt with the issue of to what extent food quality schemes (FQS) have contributed to increase competitiveness of the food chain. Probably, the main reason for this lack of empirical literature is the scarcely available data to conduct such type of analysis. In fact, to our best knowledge, no data source exists that provides systematic and continuous price information, for both FQS and conventional products, at the two extreme stages of the food supply chain (producer and retail). Hence, more efforts should be oriented towards improving the monitoring and collection of this relevant information. Task 4.3 of the Strength2Food project deals with price transmission for FQS by analysing existing datasets to complement the investigation undertaken in WPs 5 to 9. In particular, the main objective is to assess how prices for different FQS products are transmitted along the food marketing chain and the extent to which FQS have contributed to improve the price transmission mechanism (in the long-run) with reduced asymmetries (in the short-run). Deliverable 4.3reports the main results derived from the assessment of the adjustments of prices in the marketing chain for FQS products. The methodological approach considered in this study is based on the specification and estimation of a multivariate threshold autoregressive model. Our approach allows us to investigate if there are non-linearities (asymmetries) in the adjustment mechanism of prices. In this study, we analyse three FQS products in two Mediterranean countries, Spain and Italy. For Spain, we examine two Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) products, “Ternera de Navarra” (beef from Navarra) and “Cordero de Navarra” (lamb from Navarra). For Italy, we analyse the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) “Parmigiano Reggiano”. The deliverable presents a comparison of the results for the FQS and conventional marketing chains. The information obtained may provide a wider view of the differences and similarities of the two chains. From the analysis, some conclusions are drawn on the extent to which European FQS products show a better transmission mechanism in the long-run and fewer asymmetries in the short-run, and hence more market efficiency. Note that the results derived here should be used with caution and limited to these case studies. Though the usefulness and importance of this analysis is beyond doubt, analysis on more protected products will be required to generalize the performance of European FQS.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 678024.Price transmissionFQSasymmetrynon-linear adjustmentscointegrationthreshold VECMbeefcheeselambimpulse response functio

Do food quality schemes and net price premiums go together?

This article addresses the issue of the profitability of Food Quality Scheme (FQS) products as compared to reference products, which are defined as analogous products without quality label. We approach this question by taking into account the level of the value chain (upstream, processing, and downstream), the sector (vegetal, animal, seafood) and the type of FQS (PGI, PDO, Organic). We collected original data for several products produced in selected European countries, as well as in Thailand and Vietnam. Comparisons depending on value chain level, sector and FQS are possible by using two comparable indicators: price premium and net price premium (including cost differential). The following principal conclusions were reached: 1) Price is higher for FQS products than for the reference products, regardless of the production level, the type of FQS or the sector; 2) Price premiums generated by FQS do not differ along the value chain, nor between sectors (vegetal, animal or seafood/fish); 3) Price premium for organic products is significantly higher than for PGI products, and this conclusion holds at upstream and processing levels, taking into account the costs directly related to production; 4) All organic products and almost all PDO and PGI products analysed benefit from a positive quality rent; 5) At upstream level and processing level, the relative weight of intermediate consumption in the cost structure is lower for organic products than for reference products.Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::12 - Producció i Consum ResponsablesPostprint (published version

Live and let live: understanding the temporal drivers and spillovers of life expectancy in Europe for public planning

The European continent has one of the longest life expectancies in the world, but still faces a significant challenge to meet the health targets set by the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations for 2030. To improve the understanding of the rationale that guides health outcomes in Europe, this study assesses the direction and magnitude effects of the drivers that contribute to explain life expectancy at birth across 30 European countries for the period 2008–2018 at macro-level. For this purpose, an aggregated health production function is used allowing for spatial effects. The results indicate that an increase in the income level, health expenditure, trade openness, education attainment, or urbanisation might lead to an increase in life expectancy at birth, whereas calories intake or quantity of air pollutants have a negative impact on this health indicator. This implies that health policies should look beyond economic factors and focus also on social and environmental drivers. The results also indicate the existence of significant spillover effects, highlighting the need for coordinated European policies that account for the synergies between countries. Finally, a foresight analysis is conducted to obtain projections for 2030 under different socioeconomic pathways. Results reveal significant differences on longevity projections depending on the adoption, or not, of a more sustainable model of human development and provides valuable insight on the need for anticipatory planning measures to make longer life-spans compatible with the maintenance of the welfare state.Publishe