Suchergebnisse

This article seeks further evidence on the elasticity of calorie demand with respect to household resources. The case presented is for urban areas of Papua New Guinea, where just over one-half of the population appear to obtain less than the recommended amount of dietary energy. The relationship between per capita calorie consumption and per capita expenditure in urban areas of Papua New Guinea is not consistent with the view that income changes have negligible effects on nutrient intakes. (DSE/DÜI)

AbstractBecause of the political importance of stable and affordable food prices, governments in transitional economies in Europe and Asia fkequently struggle to balance the desire to maintain state controls in the rural sector with the goal of promoting market development and privatizing or commercializing state agencies involved in rural trade or finance. This paper examines institutional change in China's rural state agencies during the reform period, focusing on the conflict between managerial incentives to maximize profits, on the one hand, and implement policy, on the other. We explain the reasons for changing contractual incentives and authority arrangements over time, assess the effects of new institutional forms on economic performance and policy implementation, and consider reform options.

This paper seeks to understand how market imperfections affect the behavior of consumers in China's rural economy. A theoretical and empirical model is developed and estimated using a household-level data from six counties in Hebei Province. The results show that market development plays an important role in explaining food consumption behavior in China. As the market develops, farmers demand less grain and vegetables and consume more meat, fruit, and other food products after control for income and price effects. Moreover, the elasticities of demand also change as farm households begin to rely more on rural markets. The results of this paper suggest that a government concerned about the welfare of its rural population may want to be paying a more active role in fostering rural markets. Understanding the forces behind these consumption pattern shifts also will aid academics and policymakers in making better projections about future consumerneeds and price levels. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; FCND

The paper analyzes the linkages between the reform strategies in transition countries and economic performance. We focus on agriculture because of the sharpness of the policy changes, fundamental differences among countries, and relative simplicity of agricultural relationships. We document post reform performance in the transition countries of Asia and Europe. We show how: a.) pricing reform and subsidy reductions; b.) land rights reform and policies that affect farm restructuring; and c.) the presence institutions that facilitate exchange (either markets or market substitutes) affect output and productivity. The paper ends with general lessons on reforms and transition.

The overall goal of our paper is to explore this question of how China's policy will likely respond as the nation enters the WTO. Specifically, we will have three objectives. First, we briefly review China's existing agriculture policy and past performance of China's agriculture and how it has changed during the past 20 years of reform. Next, we examine the main features of the agreement that China must adhere to as they enter WTO. Finally, we consider a number of possible ways that policy makers may respond, primarily focusing on the national government's viewpoint.

This paper studies insider privatization in transition economies. We show theoretically that the underperformance of insider-privatized firms could be due to the manager-cum-owner's lack of incentives after privatization. A screening theory predicts that a firm's postprivatization incentives increase with the firm's buyout price. The empirical results show that the buyout price decreases with the degree of information asymmetry and that a firm's postprivatization performance increases with the buyout price. We also find that the performance of premium-paying firms converges with that of private firms after privatization; in contrast, heavily discounted firms perform indistinguishably from government-owned firms.