Alert at Maradi: Preventing Food Crises in West Africa by Using Price Signals

The aim of this paper is to exploit grain price data to detect the warning signs of looming food crises in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Firstly we identify which markets play a leading role at the national and regional level. The second step consists of identifying crisis periods and characterizing price movements during the period proceeding a crisis. This analysis leads to the identification of early warning indicators whose relevance is tested using panel data qualitative choice models. The results show that monitoring price movements on "leading markets" during crucial periods of the year can help in forecasting future crises.Food security, Africa, Niger, early warning systems, discrete choice panel model, Food Security and Poverty, Q18, C25, D40, O18,

Alert at Maradi: preventing food crisis using price signals

National early warning systems of Sahelian countries are mainly based on biophysics models to predict agricultural production shortages and prevent food crisis. The objective of this paper is to show that cereal market prices also bring useful information on future food availability that could complete current early warning disposals. Indeed, at any point in time prices are informative not only on the state of present food availability but also on agents' expectations about future availability. The research is based on the exploitation of the statistical properties of price series. It aims at detecting movements in the prices trend signalling a coming crisis. We first identify markets playing a leading role in price formation at the national and regional level through the estimation of VAR models. The second step consists in identifying crisis periods and then the price shocks characterises during the period which precedes a crisis. This analysis leads to the identification of early warning indicators whose relevance is tested using panel data qualitative choice models. The data set encompasses 50 markets belonging to three countries: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, over the period 1990-2008. The results show that past price shocks on a few number of leading marketplaces can help preventing coming crises.Food security ; Sahel ; grain markets ; early warning systems ; discret choice panel model

The effect of devaluation on cattle markets integration in Burkina Faso

The aim of this paper is to highlight an aspect of devaluation that is generally ignored in the literature, namely, its positive impact on domestic trade. We develop a parity bounds model for cattle markets of Burkina Faso with two regimes of prices, autarkic and integrated, consistent with spatial and inter-temporal arbitrage conditions. When markets are autarkic, prices follow a random walk and when markets are integrated, prices are equal up to transaction costs. The integrated regime is more likely when transaction costs are low. In our model, the 1994 franc CFA devaluation reduces transaction costs relatively to cattle prices, thereby promoting markets integration. The model is tested using a switching regression with exogenous selection variables. The results show that the probability of market integration significantly increased after the devaluation.panel data., switching regression model, burkina faso, franc CFA devaluation, cattle, inter-temporal arbitrage, Market integration

Devaluation and Cattle Markets Integration in Burkina Faso

The aim of this paper is to highlight an aspect of devaluation that is generally ignored in the literature, namely, its positive impact on domestic trade. We develop a parity bounds model for cattle markets of Burkina Faso with two regimes of prices, autarkic and integrated, consistent with spatial and inter-temporal arbitrage conditions. When markets are autarkic, prices follow a random walk and when markets are integrated, prices are equal up to transaction costs. The integrated regime is more likely when transaction costs are low. In our model, the 1994 franc CFA devaluation reduces transaction costs relatively to cattle prices, thereby promoting markets integration. The model is tested using a switching regression with exogenous selection variables. The results show that the probability of market integration significantly increased after the devaluation.panel data., switching regression model, burkina faso, franc CFA devaluation, cattle, inter-temporal arbitrage, Market integration

Does Land Tenure Insecurity Drive Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon?

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the detrimental impact of land tenure insecurity on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. It is related to recent controversies about the detrimental impact of land laws on deforestation, which seem to legitimize land encroachments. The latter is mainly the result of land tenure insecurity which is a key characteristic of this region and results from a long history of interactions between rural social unrest and land reforms or land laws. A simple model is developed where strategic interactions between farmers lead to excessive deforestation. One of the empirical implications of the model is a positive relationship between land tenure insecurity and the extent of deforestation. The latter is tested on data from a panel of Brazilian Amazon municipalities. The negative effect of land tenure insecurity proxied by the number of squatters on deforestation is not rejected when estimations are controlled for the possible endogeneity of squatters. One of the main policy implications is that ex post legalizations of settlements must be accompanied by the enforcement of environmental obligations.deforestation, land tenure insecurity, squatters, Panel Data Analysis, Brazil

LAND REFORM AND DEFORESTATION IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZONIA

No processo de reforma agrária brasileiro é comum a redistribuição de terra ocorrer por meio de invasões das grandes proprieades pelos sem terra. Esse mecanismo introduz insegurança no direito de propriedade fundiária e, na Regîão Amazônica, tem como consequência o excesso de desflorestamento. Esse trabalho utiliza um jogo não-cooperativo para mostrar que as interações estratégicas entre proprietários e posseiros em um contexto instittucional onde as florestas naturais são consideradas como recursos de livre acesso implicam o excesso de desflorestamento. A principal implicação analítica do modelo é que a taxa de desflorestamento de determinada área tende a aumentar com o número de posseiros na área. Essa implicação é confirmada quando testada em um painel de dados censitários municipais da Amazônia brasileira no período 1970-96 e esse resultado se mantem mesmo quando se controla o problema da endogeneidade do número de posseiros na especificação de uma equação de desflorestamento. Da perspectiva ambiental, portanto, o resultado permite questionar os mecanismos utilizados pelas políticas de reforma agrária no Brasil.----------------------------------------In Brazil, the land reform involves redistribution of land plots from large landowners to squatters. It generates property rights insecurity which alters land uses and fosters forest depletion. In this paper, a non cooperative game model is developed where natural forests are considered as an open access resource and the strategic interactions between landowners and squatters lead to an over deforestation. The main theoretical implication is a positive impact of squatters on deforestation. It is successfully tested on a panel data set covering the municipalities of the Legal Amazonia controlling for the endogeneity of squatters in a deforestation equation. The result questions the modalities of the Brazilian state-led land reformreforma agrária, desflorestamento, insegurança dos direitos de propriedade, econometria de painel, Land reform, Deforestation, land tenure insecurity, panel estimation, Land Economics/Use,

Does Land Tenure Insecurity Drive Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon?

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the detrimental impact of land tenure insecurity on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. It is related to recent controversies about the detrimental impact of land laws on deforestation, which seem to legitimize land encroachments. The latter is mainly the result of land tenure insecurity which is a key characteristic of this region and results from a long history of interactions between rural social unrest and land reforms or land laws. A simple model is developed where strategic interactions between farmers lead to excessive deforestation. One of the empirical implications of the model is a positive relationship between land tenure insecurity and the extent of deforestation. The latter is tested on data from a panel of Brazilian Amazon municipalities. The negative effect of land tenure insecurity proxied by the number of squatters on deforestation is not rejected when estimations are controlled for the possible endogeneity of squatters. One of the main policy implications is that ex post legalizations of settlements must be accompanied by the enforcement of environmental obligations.deforestation;land tenure insecurity;squatters;Panel Data Analysis;Brazil

Property rights and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

This paper focuses on the impact of property rights insecurity on deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon. Deforestation is considered as a risk management strategy: property rights insecurity reduces the present value of forests and fosters forest conversion into agricultural and pasture lands. Moreover, deforestation is the consequence of strategic interactions between landowners and squatters. Landowners clear the forest preventively in order to assert the productive use of land and to reduce the expropriation risk. Squatters invade land plots, clear the forest and may afterwards gain official recognition with formal property titles. A particular attention is paid to the measure of land property rights insecurity in the Brazilian context. It is assumed that property rights insecurity has a multidimensional character taken into account by the number of homicides related to land conflicts and expropriation procedures. Principal component analysis allows synthesising such information. An econometric model of deforestation is estimated on a panel dataset on the 1988-2000 period and the nine states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. The hypothesis that insecure land property rights contribute to higher rates of deforestation is not rejected when the simultaneity bias between insecure property rights and deforestation is addressed. This result questions the modality of the Brazilian land reform that considers forested areas as unproductive and thus open for expropriation procedures.deforestation;insecure property rights;Brazilian Legal Amazon

LA PRIVATIZACIÓN Y CAMBIOS EN LA CONTABILIDAD DE GESTIÓN: LOS “DRIVERS” DE LOS CAMBIOS EN LA DISTRIBUCIÓN ELÉCTRICA BRASILEÑA

The main of this study is to explain the main drivers of the process of management accounting change in a privatised Brazilian electricity distribution company (Electra) by discussing the main factors that affected the management accounting practices of the case study company. This study adopts an interpretive case study as research method to analyse the changes in management accounting that occurred in the case company in a period of 8 years, that is, from 2000 (the privatisation year) to 2007. The drivers of change after the process of privatisation normally come from different sources from inside and outside the organisation. However, in this case study, the pressure from the inside the organisation played an insignificant role as a driver of management accounting change in Electra, as the process of management accounting change was driven by massive pressure from outside the company. The drivers of change in Electra were identified as being: (a) the new regulation; (b) the managerial pressure introduced by the new private owner, that is, the change in the ownership of Electra; (c) the pressure from the electricity sector associations and other distribution companies; and (d) public opinion.O objetivo desse estudo é explicar os principais drivers para o processo de mudança na contabilidade gerencial de uma empresa Brasileira privatizada de distribuição de energia (Electra), discutindo os fatores intra e inter organizacionais que afetaram as práticas de contabilidade gerencial da empresa estudo de caso. Este trabalho é baseado num estudo de caso interpretativo como método de pesquisa para analisar as mudanças na contabilidade gerencial que aconteceram na companhia estudada durante um período de 8 anos, isto é, entre 2000 (o ano de privatização) até 2007. Os drivers de mudanças após o processo de privatização são provenientes de diferentes fontes de dentro e fora da organização. Porém, nesse estudo de caso, as pressões provenientes do ambiente interno da empresa tiveram um papel insignificante no processo de mudança da contabilidade gerencial, pois esse processo em Electra foi causado por uma pressão maciça proveniente de fatores externos à organização. Os drivers de mudanças que foram identificados em Electra foram os seguintes: (a) a nova regulação; (b) a pressão gerencial introduzida pelo novo dono privado, ou seja, a mudança no controle acionário de Electra; (c) a pressão proveniente das associações do setor elétrico e das outras empresas distribuidoras Brasileiras; e (d) opinião pública.El objetivo de este trabajo es explicar los principales impulsores de los procesos de cambio en la contabilidad de la gestión de una empresa de distribución eléctrica brasileña privatizada (Electra), discutiendo los factores intra e inter prácticas organizativas que afectaron caso de estudio de contabilidad de gestión de la empresa. Este trabajo se basa en un estudio de caso interpretativo como método de investigación para analizar los cambios en la contabilidad de gestión que han sucedido en la empresa estudiada durante un periodo de 8 años, es decir, entre 2000 (el año de la privatización) por 2007 Motores del cambio después de que el proceso de privatización son de diferentes fuentes dentro y fuera de la organización. Sin embargo, en este estudio de caso, las presiones del ambiente interno de la empresa tuvieron un papel menor en el proceso de cambio de la contabilidad de gestión, ya que este proceso Electra fue causada por la presión masiva de factores externos a la organización. Los impulsores del cambio que se han identificado en Electra fueron los siguientes : ( a) la nueva regulación ; ( B ) Presión de gestión presentado por el nuevo propietario privado , es decir, el cambio en el control de Electra ; ( C ) la presión de las asociaciones del sector de la electricidad y otras empresas distribuidoras brasileñas ; y ( d ) la opinión pública

Structural changes in exchange rate regimes in Brazil

Following a dramatic breakdown of a managed floating regime, Brazil adopted a framework for policy consisting of inflation targeting and floating exchange rates. The country's commitment to this arrangement, however, is often put to dispute. In this paper we revisit the issue of whether Brazil has truly accepted to let its currency float, taking use of cross-currency linear regression models complemented by inferential techniques for evaluating the stability of exchange rate regimes. The results found suggest that Brazil does seem to have shifted towards greater exchange rate flexibility after the abandonment of its dollar-peg. However, after the adoption of inflation targeting the degree of exchange rate flexibility seems to have reduced a little.Structural changes; exchange rate regimes; emerging markets.