On the Choice of Appropriate Development Strategy: Insights from CGE Modelling of the Mozambican Economy

CGE modelling, Development strategy, Mozambique

A Vietnam Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the Year 2003

This paper documents a Vietnam Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the year 2003. The 2003 Vietnam SAM contains 275 accounts including 112 production activity accounts, 112 retail commodity accounts, three transportation margins accounts, three trade margins accounts, 14 primary factor accounts, one enterprise sector account, 16 households group accounts, seven government current budget accounts, two inventory accounts (private and public inventory accounts), three capital accounts (private, public and aggregate capital accounts), one rest of the world account, and one totals accountVietnam, Social Accounting Matrix

Trade Liberalization and Spatial Inequality: A Methodological Innovation in Vietnamese Perspective

poverty, trade liberalization, general equilibrium models, Vietnam

General Equilibrium Measures of Agricultural Policy Bias in Fifteen Developing Countries

A comparative analysis of 15 developing countries shows that, during the 1990s, indirect taxes, tariffs, and exchange rates significantly discriminated against agriculture in only one country (Malawi), was largely neutral in five (Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe), provided a moderate subsidy to agriculture in four (Mexico, Tanzania, Venezuela, and Zambia), and strongly favored agriculture in five (Egypt, Korea, Morocco, Mozambique, and Tunisia). In contrast to earlier partial equilibrium results, our general equilibrium analysis indicates that exchange rate changes can lead to anything between strongly increasing and strongly decreasing relative agriculture/non-agriculture incentives, depending on relative trade shares and relative tradability of agricultural and non-agricultural commodities. Country-specific circumstances greatly affect the relative impact of trade policies on agriculture and the rest of the economy in a general equilibrium setting. Earlier partial equilibrium measures of policy bias could not adequately incorporate country heterogeneity and are therefore likely to have overstated the bias. In any case, from the empirical results with our sample of countries, we conclude that any incentive bias against agriculture in the 1980s had mostly disappeared by the 1990s.urban bias, food and agricultural policy; general equilibrium modelling

General equilibrium measures of agricultural policy bias in fifteen developing countries

In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of the extent to which indirect taxes, tariffs, and exchange rates affected relative price incentives for agricultural production in a representative sample of 15 developing countries in the 1990s. Empirical studies from the 1980s, using partial equilibrium methodologies, supported the view that policies in many developing countries imparted a major incentive bias against agriculture. Eliminating this bias was one of the goals of policy reform strategies, including structural adjustment programs, supported by the World Bank and others; and many countries undertook such reforms in the 1990s. In our sample, general equilibrium analysis indicates that, in the 1990s, the economywide system of indirect taxes, including tariffs and export taxes, significantly discriminated against agriculture in only one country, was largely neutral in five, provided a moderate subsidy to agriculture in four, and strongly favored agriculture in five. Earlier work assumed that overvaluation of the exchange rate would hurt agriculture, which was assumed to be largely tradable. In a general equilibrium setting, changes in the exchange rate can as demonstrated in this paper lead to anything between strongly increasing and decreasing relative agriculture/non-agriculture incentives, depending on relative trade shares. We conclude that, whatever incentive bias there was in the 1980s, it has mostly disappeared by the 1990s. We also find that it is difficult to generalize-country specific circumstances greatly affect the relative impact of trade policies on agriculture and the rural economy. Authors' Abstract.

Marketing margins and agricultural technology in Mozambique:

Improvements in agricultural productivity and reductions in marketing costs in Mozambique are analysed using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The model incorporates detailed marketing margins and separates household demand for marketed and home-produced goods. Simulations improving agricultural technology and lowering marketing margins yield gains across the economy, but with differential impacts on factor returns. A combined scenario reveals significant synergy effects, as welfare gains exceed the sum of gains from the individual scenarios. Factor returns increase in roughly equal proportions, an attractive feature when assessing the political feasibility of policy initiatives.Rice Prices Models., Agricultural development., Marketing., Technology., Mozambique., Computable general equilibrium (CGE).,

Social accounting matrices for Mozambique, 1994 and 1995:

This working paper documents the construction of the 1994 and 1995 Mozambican social accounting matrices (SAMs). The aggregate macro-SAM is called MACSAM, and the disaggregated version is MOZAM. With 13 agricultural and two agricultural processing activities, the primary sectors are particularly well represented in MOZAM. There are also 40 commodities, and the three factors of production: agricultural and non-agricultural labour, and capital. Two household types (urban and rural) are identified, and government expenditure is divided into two separate accounts, recurrent government and government investment. MOZAM includes a number of innovative features, partly reflected in household demand, where a distinction is made between home consumption of own production and private consumption of marketedcommodities. Home consumption avoids trade and transport margins. Thus, MOZAM captures prevailing incentives for households to avoid markets and function more as autonomous production/consumption units. The disaggregation of household demand brings marketing margins in focus in relation to decisions regarding production. However, transactions costs are also important for exported and imported commodities. Domestic, export and import marketing margins are therefore explicitly broken out for each activity in MOZAM. Procedures used to balance MACSAM and MOZAM are also documented, including the use of maximum entropy methods to estimate the SAMs, which make efficient use of all available data in a framework that incorporates prior information and constraints.Mozambique., Social accounting Mathematical models., Production (Economic theory).,