Technical and Environmental efficiencies and Best Management Practices in Agriculture

An input distance function (IDF) is estimated to empirically evaluate and analyze the technical and environmental efficiencies of 210 farms located in the Chaudière watershed (Quebec), where water quality problems are particularly acute because of the production of undesirable outputs that are jointly produced with agricultural products. The true IDF is approximated by a flexible translog functional form estimated using a full information maximum likelihood method. Technical and environmental efficiencies are disaggregated across farms and account for spatial variations. Our results show that there is a significant correlation between technical and environmental efficiencies. The IDF is used to compute the cumulative Malmquist productivity index and the Fisher index. The two indices are used to measure changes in technology, profitability, efficiency, and productivity in response to the adoption of 2 selected best management practices (BMPs) whose objective is to reduce water pollution. We found significant differences across BMPs regarding the direction and the magnitude of their effect on profitability, efficiency and productivity.Environmental efficiency, distance function, phosphorus runoff, productivity, profitability, technical efficiency.

Do inventories have an impact on price transmission? Evidence from the Canadian chicken industry

This paper investigates the influence of inventories in explaining the magnitude of price transmission. The empirical strategy consists of two distinct steps. First, the flexible non-linear framework of Hamilton is used to investigate the influence of inventories on price transmission. The procedure detects significant non-linearities and suggests that the price transmission elasticity is increasing in the level of the farm price and decreasing in the ratio of inventories to sales. This evidence leads to specific functional forms for the price transmission and target inventory equations which are estimated in a second step. The estimation procedure accounts for potential simultaneity between sales at the wholesale level and the wholesale price. Our results suggest that price transmission is lower (higher) when inventories are below (above) a target which is function of domestic sales.Asymmetric price transmission; inventories

Agri-Environment Advisory Activities Effects on Best Management Practices Adoption

This study investigates the factors that determine producers’ participation in agri-environment (AE) extension activities and their adoption of best management practices (BMPs) in Quebec (Canada). Data were collected from farmers in telephone interviews and the impacts of AE extension activities were analyzed using average treatment effect and local average treatment effect, estimated with non-parametric approaches. The average effects of AE extension activities are statistically significant for the majority of BMPs. We also find a statistically significant formal diffusion effect of producer‘s membership in an AE advisory club. The informal diffusion effect is statistically significant for BMPs that have visible impacts

Optimal quality choice under uncertainty on market development

This paper analyzes the impact of risk and ambiguity aversion - Knightian uncertainty - on the choice of optimal quality and timing of market entry. Irreversibility of the investment in product development is introduced in a continuous-time stochastic model applying the real option literature. We consider a market characterized by a duopoly with a Stackelberg-Nash game for quality choice. When the follower provides a higher-quality good, the level of quality is decreasing in ambiguity aversion while it is a non-monotonic function of the level of risk. For low levels of risk, the increase of product quality is an efficient response. Up to certain threshold level of risk, risk and ambiguity aversion reduce the optimal quality level and increase the value of waiting when the follower supplies a higher-quality good. The implication is that risk and ambiguity aversion allow the leader to make a sustainable monopoly profit. When the follower supplies a lower-quality good, there is no value for it to wait. It should therefore provide the lowest-quality good possible. In a vertically integrated supply chain firms provide higher quality, and the difference between vertically integrated and non-integrated firms is increasing in risk and ambiguity aversion

Optimal quality choice under uncertainty on market development

This paper analyzes the impact of risk and ambiguity aversion - Knightian uncertainty - on the choice of optimal quality and timing of market entry. Irreversibility of the investment in product development is introduced in a continuous-time stochastic model applying the real option literature. We consider a market characterized by a duopoly with a Stackelberg-Nash game for quality choice. When the follower provides a higher-quality good, the level of quality is decreasing in ambiguity aversion while it is a non-monotonic function of the level of risk. For low levels of risk, the increase of product quality is an efficient response. Up to certain threshold level of risk, risk and ambiguity aversion reduce the optimal quality level and increase the value of waiting when the follower supplies a higher-quality good. The implication is that risk and ambiguity aversion allow the leader to make a sustainable monopoly profit. When the follower supplies a lower-quality good, there is no value for it to wait. It should therefore provide the lowest-quality good possible. In a vertically integrated supply chain firms provide higher quality, and the difference between vertically integrated and non-integrated firms is increasing in risk and ambiguity aversion

Agri-Environment Advisory Activities Effects on Best Management Practices Adoption

This study investigates the factors that determine producers’ participation in agri-environmental advisory activities and their adoption of best management practices (BMPs) in Quebec (Canada). Data were collected from farmers in telephone interviews and the impacts of agri-environmental extension activities were analysed using average treatment effect and local average treatment effect, estimated with non-parametric approaches. The average effects of agri-environmental extension activities are statistically significant for the majority of BMPs. We also find a statistically significant formal diffusion effect of producer‘s membership in an agri-environmental advisory club. The informal diffusion effect is statistically significant for BMPs that need specific knowledge

Technical and Environmental efficiencies and Best Management Practices in Agriculture

An input distance function (IDF) is estimated to empirically evaluate and analyze the technical and environmental efficiencies of 210 farms located in the Chaudière watershed (Quebec), where water quality problems are particularly acute because of the production of undesirable outputs that are jointly produced with agricultural products. The true IDF is approximated by a flexible translog functional form estimated using a full information maximum likelihood method. Technical and environmental efficiencies are disaggregated across farms and account for spatial variations. Our results show that there is a significant correlation between technical and environmental efficiencies. The IDF is used to compute the cumulative Malmquist productivity index and the Fisher index. The two indices are used to measure changes in technology, profitability, efficiency, and productivity in response to the adoption of 2 selected best management practices (BMPs) whose objective is to reduce water pollution. We found significant differences across BMPs regarding the direction and the magnitude of their effect on profitability, efficiency and productivity

Technical and Environmental efficiencies and Best Management Practices in Agriculture

An input distance function (IDF) is estimated to empirically evaluate and analyze the technical and environmental efficiencies of 210 farms located in the Chaudière watershed (Quebec), where water quality problems are particularly acute because of the production of undesirable outputs that are jointly produced with agricultural products. The true IDF is approximated by a flexible translog functional form estimated using a full information maximum likelihood method. Technical and environmental efficiencies are disaggregated across farms and account for spatial variations. Our results show that there is a significant correlation between technical and environmental efficiencies. The IDF is used to compute the cumulative Malmquist productivity index and the Fisher index. The two indices are used to measure changes in technology, profitability, efficiency, and productivity in response to the adoption of 2 selected best management practices (BMPs) whose objective is to reduce water pollution. We found significant differences across BMPs regarding the direction and the magnitude of their effect on profitability, efficiency and productivity

The Environment, Trade Openness, and Domestic and Foreign Investments

This paper aims to study the impact of growth and trade openness on the environment at the regional level. We find support for the environmental Kuznet Curve hypothesis for CO2 emissions in Africa, Asia and OECD countries. We find that the pollution haven hypothesis is supported for CO2 in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, the former United Socialist Soviet Republic and Eastern Europe, and South America, but not for Asia, for which the pollution halo hypothesis could not be rejected. The pollution haven hypothesis is also supported for SO2 emissions in South America while the pollution halo holds for SO2 emissions in Africa. We show that local investment is contributing significantly to both CO2 and SO2 emission increases in most regions while trade openness matters only in OECD and South America

The Environment, Trade Openness, and Domestic and Foreign Investments

This paper aims to study the impact of growth and trade openness on the environment at the regional level. We find support for the environmental Kuznet Curve hypothesis for CO2 emissions in Africa, Asia and OECD countries. We find that the pollution haven hypothesis is supported for CO2 in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, the former United Socialist Soviet Republic and Eastern Europe, and South America, but not for Asia, for which the pollution halo hypothesis could not be rejected. The pollution haven hypothesis is also supported for SO2 emissions in South America while the pollution halo holds for SO2 emissions in Africa. We show that local investment is contributing significantly to both CO2 and SO2 emission increases in most regions while trade openness matters only in OECD and South America