The Empirics of Information Sharing in Supply Chains: The Case of the Food Industry

Using the Supermarket Panel Data gathered by The Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota, the behavior of food retailers is examined in their adoption of Information Technologies that facilitate information exchange with suppliers. Using a theoretical framework developed by Mohtadi and Kinsey (MK) (2004) the predictions of that paper are examined. Logistic Regressions based on Maximum Likelihood Estimation support the hypothesis that food retailers with greater market power and numerous suppliers are more inclined to share, rather than to withhold, sales information. Stock-outs play a key role in the process as well. Finally, the structure of the market plays an interesting role in the type of information sharing platforms that the retailers adopt.Industrial Organization,

Labor Specialization and Endogenous Growth

International Development, Labor and Human Capital,

Risk Mitigating Strategies in the Food Supply Chain

Food safety events in the recent past have generated significant media attention and resulted in increased concerns over the food on the plate. A recent study (Degeneffe et al., 2007) on consumer perceptions of bio-terrorism and food safety risks shows increasing concern over food safety and corresponding decreasing confidence in security of the U.S. food supply. While there are some mandated safety and security practices for the firms in the food supply chain the economic incentives for the firms to actively address food safety throughout the supply chain are less clear. Security practices often require significant investments in both within the firm and across the supply chain but do not show tangible returns. Also, higher investments in securing the firms’ processes and products do not necessarily make the food products more safe if the supply chain partners exhibit higher risks. However, a risk that is realized can potentially bankrupt the firm. Some high-profile cases of food safety outbreaks have had substantial economic consequences such as, lost sales, recall and compensation costs, damaged goodwill and hence impact on future markets. Such incidents can lead the firms out of business and the impact is not contained just at the firm level but also felt throughout the food supply chain. The issues of economic incentives and disincentives for risk mitigation strategies and investments, in a highly vulnerable area such as food sector, are an emerging area of concern both in private and public sector management as well as academic research. The research questions of interest that this paper addresses are: How much should the firm invest to address the security and safety risks that it faces? The optimum investment levels, among other things, are a function of the probabilities of contamination levels exceeding the maximum acceptable standards set. We consider a specification for the contamination levels follow gamma distribution as it exhibits the fat tail property which suggests that extreme events are more likely than predicted by the normal Gaussian form. Previous work by Mohtadi and Murshid(2007) has highlighted the fat-tail nature of extreme events for chemical, biological and radionuclear (CBRn) attacks, which are of intentional nature. However, for food safety risks of unintentional nature the fat-tail nature of the distribution though suggested, is not yet established in literature. The present model leaves less scope for analytical solutions but lends itself to numerical methods, which we employ to examine the firm strategies. Our preliminary model and its analysis suggest that infact for very low levels of risk exposure no investment in security is required! However, as the standards loosen and risk increases the optimum amount of investments also increase. Though the result here are intuitively consistent, they are largely dependent on the parametric specification of the model and their sensitivity to the parameter values is yet to be tested.Agribusiness, Risk and Uncertainty, L100, L800,

The risk of catastrophic terrorism: an extreme value approach

This paper models the stochastic behavior of large-scale terrorism using extreme value methods. We utilize a unique dataset composed of roughly 26,000 observations. These data provide a rich description of domestic and international terrorism between 1968 and 2006. Currently, a credible worst-case scenario would involve losses of about 5000 to 10,000 lives. Also, the return time for events of such magnitude is shortening every year. Today, the primary threat is from conventional weapons, rather than from chemical, biological and/or radionuclear weapons. However, pronounced tails in the distribution of these incidents suggest that this threat cannot be dismissed.CBRN, extreme value theory, risk, terrorism

Education, Job Signaling, and Dual Labor Markets in Developing Countries

An overlapping generational model of educational investment in a dual labor markets is presented in which education serves both as a screening device and as investment in human capital. Labor market dualism arises not only via the conventional technology (productivity) differential between a primary and a secondary sector, but also by a higher than a labor market clearing wage in the primary sector, to insure no shirking by the workers (an element shared with the efficiency wage theories). The important determinants of the workers' educational investment decision are the degree of discipline in the labor market and the cost of education. Among the three most commonly discussed educational policies of maximizing the number of the educated, maximizing the primary sector employment and maximizing social welfare, the last one, i.e., the most efficient one, leads to a lower level of education subsidy by the government.Labor and Human Capital,

Endogenous Growth, Health and the Environment

Environmental Economics and Policy, Health Economics and Policy, International Development,

Political Economy of Endogenous Growth (Revised)

Using an endogenous growth framework, this paper analyzes the impact of lobbying for public goods on the long run steady-state growth rate of the economy. A socially optimal level of lobbying can be found to exist in the absence of a social planner. Atomistic households, however, exceed this level by viewing taxes as fixed, ignoring the aggregate tax impact of lobbying via increased public expenditures. Two extensions are presented. In one, anti-tax lobbying is analyzed, drawing parallel results. In another, a quasi-public good is introduced, lobbying for which is based not on altruism, but on private gains, though public gains occur as a side effect.Political Economy,

DEMOCRACY, RENT SEEKING, PUBLIC SPENDING AND GROWTH

Does democratization imply faster growth, less corruption and less inefficiency? Past studies yield ambiguous results on the effects of democracy on economic performance and growth. We develop a simple two-sector endogenous growth model that shows both very young and mature democracies grow faster than countries in mid stages of democratization, producing a 'U' effect. This effect results from the pattern of rent seeking as it diverts from the provision of public goods. Rent-seekers act as monopolistic competitors. Initially, more democracy increases their number, raising aggregate rents. However, rents per rent-seeker fall with the number of rent seekers, aggregate rents fall in mature democracies. Thus, rents show an 'inverted-U' effects in relation to democracy. We find fairly robust supportive evidence for the latter.Political Economy,

INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND GROWTH: AN OVERVIEW FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE NEW GROWTH THEORY

The role of international trade in the new growth theory is investigated from several perspectives. Following a historical outline and a brief analytical sketch of the R&D based models, the results from fitting three structural models to data are presented. Results show the relative impacts on growth from trade and R&D based policies including technological spillovers from trade. The mechanism of inter-sectoral adjustments to the long-run growth path are also discussed. Results from selected econometric studies are reviewed. With emphasis on agriculture, this includes evidence of technological spillovers from trade, the effect of R&D expenditures on growth in total factor productivity, and the extent to which the stock of technological knowledge is accessible by others.Endogenous Growth, Trade, Technological Spillovers, International Relations/Trade,

Optimum Investments to Mitigate Catastrophic Risk: Application to Food Industry Firms

The incidence of food security breaches has been on the rise over the past decade. The goal of this paper is to devise an optimum investment strategy by food companies (retailers and manufacturers) to mitigate exposure to catastrophic risks. To do this, we develop and estimate a simple analytical model, using probability measures for catastrophic risks associated with food, from our prior research, together with the results of a "Benchmarking and Assessment Survey" of food companies. The limitations on the availability of catastrophic risk insurance and their high level of deductibility, together with the one-time nature of the alternative risk-mitigating investments suggest that such investments should be undertaken whether or not catastrophic risk insurance is available, particularly since these investments have a large impact on risk financing. Such investments may protect long term reputations and brand ratings in addition to mitigating potential catastrophic losses