Doctoral Dissertation Research: Subjective Expectations, Information and Competitiveness in East African Agricultural Output Markets

博士论文研究：东非农产品市场的主观预期、信息和竞争力

• 批准号: 0921833
• 负责人: Christopher Barrett
• 金额: $ 4.22万
• 依托单位: Cornell Univ - State: AWDS MADE PRIOR MAY 2010
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2011-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0921833&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Subjective; Expectations

Intellectual MeritThe proposed research addresses critical questions about the operation of agricultural markets in East Africa, focusing specifically on cotton markets in Tanzania. Over the last two decades Tanzania has made significant steps toward price liberalization and integration with world commodity markets. While the potential benefits of market liberalization are well understood, it is not entirely clear that the current structure and operation of agricultural output markets benefit the rural poor, who are the primary focus of development policy in this region. Simply put, although development strategies increasingly rely on markets to guide resource allocation, researchers know remarkably little about market functioning and the resulting price patterns in rural African markets. The PI's ask three important questions about Tanzanian cotton markets: First, what is the relationship between the subjective price and yield expectations held by farmers and their production and marketing choices? Second, noting that there exists considerable temporal and spatial dispersion of producer prices, what are the farmer, trader and local market characteristics that determine the actual price received by a particular producer? Third, are the price spreads earned as profits by cotton traders more consistent with full competition or with non-competitive, collusive behavior? The PI's address these questions by gathering two unique data sets. To address the first question, they will supply farmers with cell phones and collect their immediate, subjective expectations regarding harvest time prices and yields at bimonthly intervals throughout the course of an entire planting, cultivation, harvest and marketing year. To assess the second two questions, they will conduct a two-year panel survey of agricultural traders, with traders matched to farmers who are part of a three-year panel being gathered by the World Bank and Tanzanian National Bureau of Statistics. The results of the project will shed new light on price discovery and formation processes, and on the relation between market functioning and supply response in low-income rural areas.By emphasizing the role that expectations at the individual level play in determining agricultural production and marketing decisions, the research joins a recent, fast-growing literature incorporating insights about the importance of expectations into the analysis of economic outcomes. The question of trader competitiveness is an open one that has been addressed in recent papers, but without the benefit of a matched farmer-trader panel like the one they propose to gather. The two data sets they aim to gather are both highly innovative. There are no available matched trader-farmer surveys, and no attempts have been made to use cell phones to capture subjective expectations at regular intervals over an extended period. Thus in addition to addressing important questions on the frontier of agricultural and development economics, the research will pioneer new data collection methods that could prove useful for gathering high frequency subjective data in other settings.Broader ImpactRecent volatility in world agricultural markets, and the expected ongoing volatility from increased use of organic fuels, speculation in commodity markets and climate change, make the questions the PI's address important not only for the design of policy in rural east Africa and the advancement of knowledge in the field, but also for broader understanding of the workings of globalized commodity markets and their connection to rural poverty reduction in low-income, agrarian nations. If price changes in global commodity markets do not transmit cleanly to farmers, or if farmers do not adjust their expectations and behavior in response to market developments, then policymakers must take this into account in the design and implementation of market-based solutions to global poverty. The findings from this study should be of broad interest to non-governmental organizations, government ministries, international donor organizations, the private sector agribusiness community and national and regional media

知识分子优点提出的研究解决了有关东非农业市场运营的关键问题，专门针对坦桑尼亚的棉花市场。在过去的二十年中，坦桑尼亚已为与世界商品市场的价格自由化和整合迈出了重要的步骤。尽管人们对市场自由化的潜在好处有充分的了解，但尚不完全清楚的是，农业产出市场的当前结构和运营使农村贫困人口受益，这是该地区发展政策的主要重点。简而言之，尽管发展策略越来越依赖市场来指导资源分配，但研究人员对市场运作和农村非洲市场的产生价格模式的了解很少。 PI提出了有关坦桑尼亚棉花市场的三个重要问题：首先，农民所拥有的主观价格和产量期望与其生产和营销选择之间的关系是什么？其次，请注意，生产商价格的时间和空间分散存在相当大的时间，农民，商人和地方市场特征是什么决定了特定生产商所收到的实际价格？第三，作为棉花贸易商的利润而获得的价格差点是否与全面竞争或与非竞争性，合格的行为更加一致？ PI通过收集两个独特的数据集来解决这些问题。为了解决第一个问题，他们将为农民提供手机，并在整个种植，耕种，收获和营销年份的整个过程中，以两次间隔收获收获时间价格和收益率的直接，主观期望。为了评估第二个问题，他们将对农业商人进行为期两年的小组调查，交易员与农民相匹配，这些农民是世界银行和坦桑尼亚国家统计局收集的三年小组的一部分。该项目的结果将对价格发现和形成过程以及低收入农村地区的市场功能和供应响应之间的关系发出新的启示。通过强调，人们在确定农业生产和营销决策中的期望在确定个人层面上发挥的作用，这项研究加入了最新的快速发展的文献，这些文献融合了有关经济上的分析的洞察力。交易者竞争力的问题是一个开放的问题，它在最近的论文中已经解决了，但是没有像他们建议收集的匹配的农民交易小组的好处。他们旨在收集的两个数据集都是高度创新的。没有可用的匹配交易者农场调查，也没有尝试使用手机在长时间内定期捕获主观期望。因此，除了解决农业和发展经济学领域的重要问题外，这项研究还将在其他环境中收集新的数据收集方法，这些方法可能有助于收集其他环境中的高频主观数据。世界农业市场中的不良波动性的不足性波动性，以及预期的持续波动性，以及对有机燃料和有机燃料的使用中的质疑，这是有机燃料的重要性，而不是质疑有机燃料，而不是有机燃料，而不是有机化的变化，那么这种质量是有机燃料的变化，而这种质量的变化是造成有机化的范围，而这种变化是造成有机化的变化，而这种范围的范围则是造成的，而这是造成有机化的变化。东非农村地区和该领域知识的发展，但也更广泛地了解全球商品市场的运作及其与低收入农业国家的农村贫困之间的联系。如果全球大宗商品市场的价格变化不会干净地传输给农民，或者农民没有根据市场发展调整其期望和行为，那么政策制定者必须在设计和实施基于市场的全球贫困方案时考虑到这一点。这项研究的发现应该引起非政府组织，政府部，国际捐助组织，私营部门农业综合企业和国家和地区媒体的广泛关注