Price discrimination and market power in export markets: The case of the ceramic tile industry.

This paper combines the pricing-to-market equation and the residual demand elasticity equation to measure the extent of competition in the export markets of ceramic tiles, which has been dominated by Italian and Spanish producers since the late eighties. The findings show that the tile exporters enjoyed substantial market power over the period 1988-1998, and limited evidence that the export market has become more competitive over time.price discrimination, market power, export markets, ceramic tile industry

The Trade Creation Effect of Immigrants: Testing the Theory on the Remarkable Case of Spain

There is abundant evidence that immigrants' networks are associated with larger trade flows between countries of origin and the country (or province) where they settle. The causality of such relation and its magnitude, however, have not been proven beyond reasonable doubt. We use the simple predictions of the model by Chaney (2008) and treat networks of migrants as a device that reduces fixed bilateral trade costs. In so doing we have strong predictions on the effect of immigrants on total exports, exports by category of goods, and on the extensive and intensive margin of trade. We test these predictions using the remarkable and uneven increase of immigration to Spanish provinces between 1993 and 2008. The richness of our data, a panel of import and export by sector between 50 Spanish provinces and 77 countries over fifteen years, allows us to control for a very large set of covariates and fixed effects and to use an instrumental variable strategy so that we can isolate the trade-creation effect of new immigrants. We are also able to qualify the effect of immigration on bilateral trade of homogeneous and differentiated goods, and its impact on the intensive and extensive margin of trade. Our findings support all the implications of the Chaney model showing that migration network indeed seems to decrease the fixed costs of trade. Finally by decomposing the effect across provinces and over time we find evidence that the elasticity of trade creation to new immigrant is larger once a critical mass has been reached.

Building resilient communities in Belize through climate-smart agricultural practices

Indigenous communities have always coexisted with nature. Their subsistence has had a dependence on the heightened stewardship of the natural environment, requiring that their farming practices evolve and adapt to today’s rapidly changing environment. As the effects of climate change become more obvious in weather pattern alterations influencing agricultural yields, so do the resilient farming practices that are being adapted to strengthen the agricultural sector. Since forests are sources of livelihoods for Mayan communities, agricultural advances promoting forest conservation and good governance are viewed as socially and environmentally responsive approaches to rural development. Cacao-based agroforestry is a long-term solution to improve our forests’ health and livelihoods in southern Belize. This system allows for the development of entrepreneurship opportunities through small-scale business models in agrotourism that highlight the cultural and biodiversity richness in these communities. The incorporation of apiculture and Inga alley cropping ensure that traditional crops such as corn, beans, and vegetables can be continuously cultivated, decreasing the deforestation rate, hence conserving our landscape and its ecosystem. These practices involve the growing of staples for the organized communities, who are embracing ecofriendly solutions for a sustainable future. The experience and knowledge developed within the communities have resulted in the development and application of climate-smart solutions and adaptation mechanisms that ensure livelihoods continue to thrive. These local initiatives establish an easy-to-replicate forest governance model, influencing regional and even national solutions to building climate-resilient forest communities in the Maya Golden Landscape

The National Immigrant Survey of Spain. A new data source for migration studies in Europe

Spain has recently become the destination for large numbers of international migrants and now ranks as a key focal point for international migration in Europe. Currently, approximately one in ten residents in Spain are foreigners, up more than tenfold from figures holding at the outset of this century. Migration has now become a major social and political issue in the country. In order to provide reliable data about migrants in Spain for researchers and policy makers, acting on a proposal of a research team working within the context of the Population and Society Research Network (GEPS), the Spanish Statistical Office has recently carried out an extremely ambitious survey of foreign-born persons currently living in Spain. In the course of the survey, nearly 15,500 persons were interviewed regarding a large array of issues pertaining to their migration experience. Important documentation, including the project report, the methodological specifications of the survey, and the anonymized micro data have recently been made available to the scientific community and to policy makers at the website of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística. The purpose of this paper is to describe this data source, its content, its methodological underpinnings, and the way the fieldwork and data cleaning were carried out. Examples of preliminary results will be presented so as to underscore the potential this survey affords for researchers everywhere.immigrant survey, international migration, migrant strategies, migration data set, migration studies, migratory networks, Spain

Gender Needs Awareness and Gender Asymmetry: An Analysis of a Rural Women Survey in Mountainous Areas of South-eastern Spain

Achieving gender symmetry in rural areas is an important target for the European Union. There is no shortage of talent, ideas and energy amongst women in rural areas, nor are there legal constraints. However, a range of cultural obstacles still stand in the way of their full participation in rural development (the persistence of traditional views about women's and men's roles in society, etc.) particularly in the Mediterranean areas. The integration of equal opportunities will no longer be a choice, but it will be an obligation in the design and implementation of rural development programmes and projects. Some European initiatives (NOW, EQUAL, LEADER, etc.) have already been taken to improve rural women's opportunities to participate more actively in economic and public life. In this context, surveying and the data collection will be considered an important preliminary step in the implementation of gender symmetry-focused development policies. In this paper, after briefly discussing the different gender paradigms in rural development, some results of a survey conducted on 304 rural women living in mountainous rural areas of the province of Granada (Southern Spain) are presented. The position of rural women as regards employment, family, socio-cultural, institutional matters, etc., is described. Then women's perception and awareness regarding both practical and strategic gender needs in the area are analysed. Factors related to how women stand with respect to gender needs have been identified using the probit regression model. From the above results, some conclusions have finally been drawn that could be helpful for designing strategies to achieve a better level of gender symmetry in the region, focusing sustainable rural development on a "gender planning" approach.gender needs, rural development, gender asymmetry, Southeastern Spain, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital, O18, Q01, R13,

THE EFFECTS OF SPOT WATER MARKETS ON THE ECONOMIC RISK DERIVED FROM VARIABLE WATER SUPPLY

Water availability in semiarid regions commonly exhibits patterns of extreme variability. Even in basins with large infrastructure development, some users are subject to low levels of water reliability, incurring economic losses during periods of scarcity. More flexible instruments, such as voluntary exchanges of water among users, may help users reduce their risk exposure. Recent changes in the Spanish water Law have given an initial impulse to allow for lease-out contracts of water use rights. This paper analyses, from theoretical and empirical standpoints, the effect that establishing water markets has on the economic risk caused by water availability variations. The empirical study is performed on an irrigation district of the Guadalquivir Valley (Spain) with fair levels of average water availability but a high probability of periods of extreme scarcity. A non-linear programming model is used to simulate irrigators' behaviour and derive water demand functions. Another spatial equilibrium model is used to compute market exchange and equilibrium. These programming models are combined with statistical simulation techniques. It is shown that the probability distribution of profits for a representative irrigator is modified if water exchanges are authorised, resulting in unambiguous risk reductions. Results also suggests that if the market would be extended to several irrigation districts and users, each characterised by different hydrological risk exposure, the occurrence of extremely low benefits events would become more unlikely. In sum, it is shown that exchanging water in annual spot markets allows for the reduction of farmers' economic vulnerability caused by the variability of water supply across irrigation seasons.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Factors Related to the Adoption of Good Agrarian Practices (GAP) in Plastic Covered Horticulture of Southeastern Spain

The adoption by farmers of Good Agrarian Practices (GAP), that favouring the environment and assure food quality and safety, is being a frequent fact. Considering the plastic covered horticulture, these kind of practices can be of different nature: use of organic fertiliser, made of crops rotations, use of recyclable plastic as greenhouse cover, good management of organic residuals (use of containers), recycling of plastic containers, etc. This paper, wich try to analyse the adoption of GAP by protected vegetable growers, is based on a survey carried out to 114 farmers in the southeast coastline of Spain, asking for the level of adoption of a set of GAP. From the information gathered on the suvey, an aggregated index of adoption has been performed, and the relationship between this index and some structural and managerial characteristics of the greenhouses, and some sociocultural variables of the growers (age, study, agrarian formation, etc) has been analysed, trying to identify factors related to adoption of GAP, which could probably help to design strategies for the increase of the level of GAP adoption in the system.Crop Production/Industries,

The impact of exchange rate fluctuations on profit margins: The UK car market, 1971-2002

We investigate the impact on profit margins of exchange rate fluctuations in order to examine optimal pricing policy by source countries in the UK car market. We first estimate a nested logit demand model of new cars to calculate model-specific profit margins. Next we use these estimates to analyse the pricing-to-market (PTM) behaviour of car importers and local producers. The results show that: (1) profit margins fell over the period 1971-2002 as the UK car market moved from being a concentrated market to a looser oligopoly structure; (2) there is a positive association between exchange rate changes and mark-up adjustments of imported cars. Following a 10% pound depreciation, exporters’ profit margins declined by up to 4% and local producers’ profit margins increased by up to 2%; (3) PTM behaviour is asymmetric between appreciations and depreciations in bilateral exchange rates.exchange rates, markup adjustment, pricing to market, cars

A Multifunctional Comparison of Conventional versus Alternative Olive Systems in Spain by Using AHP

Sustainability of agriculture is strongly related to the multifunctional role implicitly or explicitly recognized to it in the framework of the European Union CAP. This multifunctional role entails a multicriteria approach when assessing the performance and value for society of farming systems. Multicriteria assessment of agricultural systems is characterized by the existence of many criteria often conflicting among then, many stakeholders and decision-makers with competing interests, and lack of information. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a multicriteria methodology that allows dealing with these problems, in a relatively easy, flexible and economical manner, and therefore it is a potentially useful tool in this field, although its application with this purpose has not been found in the literature. Therefore, this paper aims (1) to present AHP as a useful methodology to effectively assess and compare the multifunctional performances of agricultural systems, and (2) to apply AHP in the comparison, on the basis of experts' knowledge, of multiple functions -economic, technical, sociocultural and environmental- of conventional, organic and integrated olive producing systems in a region of Spain, and test the hypothetical superiority of the alternative systems with respect to the conventional one in the medium/long term and the average conditions of the region. Results confirm this global superiority thus providing a scientific base to endorse institutional and social support regarding the promotion and implementation of these alternative farming techniques. However, environmental issues are the more conflictive among experts and require a more in depth research in the future to clarify many of them.organic farming, integrated farming, olive-growing systems, AHP, multicriteria analysis., Crop Production/Industries, Q50, Q57, Q51, Q56, C6,

Adoption and diffusion of no tillage practices in Southern Spain olive groves

This paper analyses the process of adoption of no tillage in South-eastern Spain’s olive groves. Olive tree groves in South-eastern Spain’s mountainous areas are subject to a high risk of soil erosion, which is the main environmental problem for this crop, and have to incur in high costs of soil conservation. This results in a greater difficulty to comply with the practices required to benefit from both the single payment and agri-environmental schemes. In many high-steeped areas, farmers have opted for non-tillage practices as an alternative to other conservation practices. Using our own data from a survey carried out in 2006 among 215 olive tree farmers from the Granada Province in Southern Spain regarding the adoption of soil conservation and management practices, we model the diffusion process of no tillage practices using several specifications (logistic, Gompertz and exponential). We also estimate an ordered probit model to analyse which socio-economic and institutional factors determine the adoption of no tillage. Our results show that 90% of farmers in the area of study perform no tillage with either localized (21%) or no localized (69%) application of weedicides. The diffusion process of no tillage has been very intense since the middle nineties, and has been based on the interactions among farmers in the area of study rather than in external factors such as EU policies or extension services. Among other relevant factors that positively affect the adoption of no tillage practices in general, such as farm size and irrigation, the probability of a farmer adopting no tillage with non-localized application of weedicides increases when there is a relative that will continue with the farming activity, what causes the farmer to incorporate long term effects in his farming decisions, when the farmer is only a manager or when he bought the farm rather than inherited it (i.e. on more professionalized farms), and with his educational level. These results confirm some findings from previous studies in other nearby areas.Spanish olive groves, soil erosion, no tillage, Crop Production/Industries, Land Economics/Use,