AJAE Appendix: Optimal Investment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power: A Developing-Country Analysis

The material contained herein is supplementary to the article named in the title and published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.Public Economics,

Food quality awareness : cases from shrimp producers in Thailand and vegetable producers in Vietnam

The high number of import rejections of food commodities suggests that producers in exporting countries are not complying with established standards. To understand why this is the case, we explore the behavior of producers and consumers in developing countries. First, we examine the successful transformation of production practices adopted by shrimp producers in Thailand. In support of the dramatic change in practices, we observe an important role played by the public sector in providing a means to visualize chemical residues and to control processes upstream of the supply chain via a registration system and a traceability system called Movement Document. Furthermore, very active information sharing by the private sector contributes to the dissemination of useful technical and market information among producers. We also examine the knowledge and perceptions of consumers with respect to food safety in Vietnam. We find that consumers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City behave differently toward the third-party certification VietGAP, probably owing to differences in the history of market mechanisms between the two cities

Status and constraints of costly port rejection : a case from the Vietnamese frozen seafood export industry

While the rising exports have been the source of growth for many developing countries in recent years, the rate of commodities rejected at the ports of developed countries has also been high. Yet why it has remained so despite the costs involved is mostly unknown. This paper takes a case of the frozen seafood export industry in Vietnam and examines the current status of port rejection, roles played by various stakeholders along the value chains, and the constraints faced by the Vietnamese producers and exporters. It concludes with some policy implications, including strengthening the enforcement mechanism of standards compliance particularly at the upstream of the value chain and providing public testing labs for small-scale producers

Better management practices and their outcomes in shrimp farming : evidence from small-scale shrimp farmers in Southern Vietnam

Despite the growth of aquaculture exports from developing countries in recent years, a high percentage of these products are rejected at developed countries\u27 ports because of non-compliance with international standards. This paper presents a case study of the shrimp aquaculture sector in Vietnam to examine the factors behind the persistence of such port rejections. In particular, we focus on why the so-called Better Management Practices (BMPs) are not appropriately adopted by many farmers and examine whether the number and types of information sources matter in farmers\u27 decisions on BMP adoption and whether BMP adoption actually leads to better performances. On the basis of our estimation using primary data collected in Southern Vietnam, we find that information sources and training experiences indeed matter in the adoption of a higher number of BMPs and that BMP adoption indeed reduces the possibility of disease outbreaks. These results prove the effectiveness of BMPs and suggest the importance of disseminating knowledge regarding them to farmers through experts

Willingness to pay for managerial training: A case from the knitwear industry in Northern Vietnam

http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/sonobe_tetsushi

Phagocytized corpora amylacea as a histological hallmark of astrocytic injury in neuromyelitis optica

学位記番号：医博甲147