Suchergebnisse

Kazakhstan is now widely regarded as a key player on world agricultural markets, with considerable export potential in the wheat, beef and dairy sectors. Based on unique farm-level data covering all production systems currently relevant, we offer new insights into the constraints that hamper further economic growth and provide an assessment of the governmentś agricultural development strategy. A frequently mentioned bottleneck is agricultureś lacking access to finance. But most farm managers in the farm survey doubt that agricultural investments deliver a sufficiently reliable return required for credit funding and thus do not take loans. Despite the vast land resources, a lack of land supply is now the most cited constraint to farm expansion in the highly regulated land market of the northern grain region. Another set of constraints in wheat production is related to the market power of elevators, the vagaries of trading over long distances in an underdeveloped rail and seaport infrastructure, and the intervention activities of state agencies. In the cattle sector, there are significant problems in year-round fodder supply. The value chains for beef and dairy are bifurcated into an import-dependent chain for industrially processed products serving urban consumers, and a local chain of raw products serving rural consumers and urban bazaars. Recent modernisation strategies of the government tend to focus on the provision of subsidised capital, while they underestimate the knowledge and incentive problems inherent to a state-guided management of sector development. The government should rather focus on providing impartial, reliable and high-quality public services to the sector, making sure that the weakest links in food chain development are identified and private entrepreneurs are provided with the necessary incentives to strengthen them. Our evidence suggests that a bundle of measures improving the local institutional environment of agriculture is more important than massive state funding of certain production lines.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Phänomen der Solidarischen Landwirtschaft, welche einen möglichen Ausweg aus der schwierigen Situation für Kleinbetriebe in Osteuropa bieten könnte. Der Schwerpunkt des Interesses liegt auf den Kosten und dem Nutzen für die Akteure - Landwirte und ihre Konsumenten - wenn diese eine auf Vertrauen basierte Marktbeziehung in Form der Solidarischen Landwirtschaft eingehen. Die Studie ist theoretisch in das Konzept der Solidarischen Ökonomie eingebettet. Die Analyse basiert auf drei Fallstudien rumänischer Kleinbetriebe, die als Pioniere das Konzept der Solidarischen Landwirtschaft in Rumänien anwenden, indem sie Gemüse ökologisch anbauen, und an ihre urbanen Vertragspartner liefern. In allen drei Fällen war eine lokale Nichtregierungsorganisation Initiator. Unsere empirischen Ergebnisse geben Einblick in rumänischen Partnerschaften der Solidarischen Landwirtschaft. Die Konsumenten rekrutieren sich aus einer spezifischen Gruppe urbaner Verbraucher. Diese zeichnet sich durch relativ hohe Bildung und Einkommen sowie ihr ausgeprägtes Interesse an Gesundheits- und Ernährungsfragen aus. Die Verbraucher zeigen einen hohen Grad an Vertrauen in ihre landwirtschaftlichen Vertragspartner, was wohl als einer der Schlüsselfaktoren für das Funktionieren der Partnerschaft gesehen werden kann. Solidarität stand im Mittelpunkt des Interesses der initiierenden Organisation. In der praktischen Umsetzung zeigt sich, dass Solidarität in der Tat einer der Werte ist, den die teilnehm enden Konsumenten realisieren wollen. Gewichtiger ist allerdings der Wunsch nach frischen Nahrungsmitteln aus ökologischer Landwirtschaft, die sonst kaum auf dem Markt zu erhalten sind. Die Motivation der Produzenten liegt vornehmlich in dem Wunsch begründet, einen stabilen Absatzmarkt mit fairen Preisen zu betreten. Beide Seiten kompensieren also durch die Partnerschaft bestehendes Marktversagen.

Viele zentralasiatische Regierungen verfolgen das Ziel der wirtschaftlichen Diversifizierung, insbesondere im Agrarsektor, allerdings oftmals mit geringer Wirkung. Hohe Handelskosten halten Landwirte, potenzielle ausländische Investoren und andere Akteure davon ab, neue Produkte zu entwickeln, die sie anschließend wettbewerbsfähig vermarkten können. Auf diese Weise wird eine wirtschaftliche Diversifizierung verhindert. Dieser Beitrag behandelt einige neuere internationale Arbeiten über Handelskosten und stellt empirisches Material mit Zentralasienbezug vor. Aufgrund der hohen Handelskosten hat Zentralasien, abgesehen von einigen Fällen in Kirgisistan, bisher kaum teil an globalen Wertschöpfungsketten. Beispiele aus den Bereichen Kleidung und Bohnenproduktion zeigen, wie ein zentralasiatisches Land in internationale Wertschöpfungsketten eingegliedert werden kann. Abschließend wird aufgezeigt, wie zentralasiatische Länder von diesen Erfahrungen lernen können, wenn sie eine weitere Diversifizierung ihrer Wirtschaft anstreben.

Since the work of FEENSTRA (2002), the standard ANDERSON & VAN WINCOOP (2003) Gravity Model has been estimated using a fixed effects approach. However, a fixed effects approach has a major drawback: it does not allow for the estimation of exporter- and importer-invariant variables. Thus, economically relevant variables such as exporter and importer gross domestic product are disregarded. Here, we propose a random intercept model to address this gap. This approach not only provides identical estimates to a fixed effects approach, but also allows for the estimation of exporter- and importer-invariant variables.

Over the past two decades, the Black Sea region has exhibited significantly growing wheat production and exports. In 2017/18, Russia ultimately became the world's largest wheat exporter, a position that was held by the USA for decades. Mostly serving destination markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Russian grain exports have become vital to ensuring regional and global food security. However, the Russian wheat export market shows several characteristics that can negatively affect agricultural trade, potentially jeopardizing food supply in import-dependent countries. First, in the face of severe harvest shortfalls, Russia and other Black Sea countries have frequently restricted grain exports in the past, which can contribute to price surges on international markets. Secondly, a functioning futures market reflecting Black Sea wheat does not yet exist. Grain traders therefore use established futures markets for price discovery and to hedge price risk in the Black Sea region, which can involve basis risk. Thirdly, previous research has suggested that Russian wheat exporters exercise market power in order to price discriminate among different destination markets. Further, grain exports can be hampered by deficiencies and bottlenecks in the Russian transportation and export infrastructure. Against this background, this dissertation analyzes how the ascent of Russian wheat exports changes the patterns of global physical trade, results in different pricing dynamics on physical and futures markets, and affects futures price volatility by changing trade policy. The methodological focus lies on time series econometrics, and price analysis in particular. Using vector autoregressive (VAR), autoregressive moving average (ARMA) and vector error correction models (VECM), the econometric analyses are conducted using price series recorded at varying frequencies (monthly to intradaily) to account for economic transactions occurring at different speed on physical compared to futures markets. An initial, descriptive analysis depicts the evolvement of Russian wheat exports over time, with respect to main destination regions. The focus on Russia's food trade with four key markets in the MENA region, namely Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran, shows that grain trade is the central component in the respective trade ties. The deepening or loosening of food trade relations corresponds to the present state of respective political ties. Further, a market integration and price leadership analysis is conducted using a multivariate VECM approach. Analyzing the Egyptian wheat tender market as a proxy for the world wheat market, results suggest that European export prices play an increasingly important role for international wheat price formation, likely stemming from close regional proximity between European and Black Sea markets. These results are in line with the findings of a VAR analysis focusing on realized volatility relations between Black Sea spot and leading futures markets. Here, prices posted at the Euronext Paris (EPA) futures market are determined to affect the Black Sea physical market, while such an effect is not found concerning the Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT) market. Further, this analysis provides evidence of asymmetric adjustment to ruble jumps, which suggests that Russian wheat prices are more likely to increase in response to exchange rate movements than they are to decrease. The final ARMA analysis shows that news about Russian grain export restrictions significantly increase intraday seasonally adjusted realized volatility on the CBoT futures market. Further, elevated volatility can be determined in days preceding such news publications. These pre-announcement effects offer important insights into the validity of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) in the studied market. The restructuring of the world wheat market resulting from the rise of Russian wheat exports is ongoing. Particularly with respect to futures markets, leading exchanges still compete to establish a functioning Black Sea wheat futures contract that could potentially serve as novel global pricing benchmark. Moreover, the Russian government continues to intervene in the grain trade by imposing export taxes or quotas. Against the background of growing world populations and increased likelihood of harvest shortfalls due to climate change, it is stressed that unimpeded food trade is indispensable to ensure global food security. Policy recommendations aiming to prevent the introduction of food export restrictions are provided at the end of the dissertation.

Miilions of people worldwide choose migration as a livelihood strategy, with the households and communities staying behind relying heavily on remittance infows. The question of whether migration is benefcial to the households and individuals staying behind is an important one, because the efects may occur in diferent spheres and over time and they may not always be straightforward. This calls for a detailed examination of how migration afects the well-being of households and individuals staying behind in migrant-sending communities. Accordingly, this thesis evaluates the efects of participation in international migration and remittances on the well-being of households and individuals in migrant-sending communities in Kosovo. Adopting a pluralistic conceptualization of well-being and utilizing a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods of investigation, it advances the current global migration debate on the efects of migration on the development processes in low- and middle-income economies. First, the dynamic efects of migration and remittances on households' poverty and income distribution are estimated. Based on a nationally representative dataset and using state-of-the-art matching techniques, we measure impacts based on counterfactual scenarios, and, for the frst time, take a step forward by applying a dose-response function approach to assess poverty efects due to variations in the time-length of receiving remittances. Our fndings show that remittances alleviate both absolute and relative poverty levels and lead to marginal increases in inequality for the case of Kosovo. We further demonstrate that - although poverty reduction efects are stronger in the short-run - remittances have a positive poverty reduction efect over time. The efects of migration and remittances on households' expenditure behavior are further assessed. The empirical results indicate that participation in migration reduces households' budget share for household food consumption with no immediate impact on households' budgetary allocations for business investments, health, and education expenditures. Our interpretation of such fndings is that participation in migration does not cause substantive changes on the spending behavior of households with migrant family members, while remittances are predominantly used to cover basic consumption needs. Second, participation in migration and remitting patterns are linked to broader and sometimes contradicting outcomes of well-being. Utilizing a case study research approach, we provide an in-depth analysis of these complex interlinkages between migration, remittances, and the well-being of migrant-sending communities. While we illustrate how remittances often protect families from poverty, there are negative outcomes as well. Social comparisons to migrants infuence the migration aspirations and the subjective well-being of individuals in the village communities. Together with the delineation of a minimum remittance income, it turns into a barrier for participation in the local labor markets. In particular, women's disengagement from work leads to increased vulnerability and economic dependency with negative implications for their empowerment and well-being. Our research contributes to the most recent migration research in three main aspects. First, the study applies novel econometric techniques to estimate dynamic welfare efects of migration. Given the scarcity of panel data in our feld of study, the approach opens a new methodological venue for future impact assessments in the absence of longitudinal data. Second, the analysis of the broader well-being outcomes of migration shows how the current migration and development agenda should be redefned to recognize improvements in well-being as a dynamic process that includes not only material welfare, but also aspects such as happiness, independence, empowerment and more. Third, our empirical fndings contribute to closing an empirical gap in research by highlighting migration and remittance efects in the highly remittance-dependent, but under-researched European and Central Asian transition economies.

The shutdown measures implemented to fight the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a historic drop in crude oil prices, which implies existential challenges to countries depending on energy exports. The three largest crude oil exporters in Africa (Algeria, Angola and Nigeria) are - like numerous other raw material exporters worldwide - facing devaluing currencies and dwindling currency reserves. As food security in these states largely depends on imports of wheat and rice, domestic food prices are expected to rise due to the currency depreciation. This puts further pressure on populations with already low incomes, while local shutdowns and reduced economic activity lead to additional income losses. Recent panic buying and (temporary) export restrictions on international grain markets further exacerbate the situation. Not least due to currently ample grain stocks, such measures are not to be recommended. Instead, solidarity amongst nations, taking the form of emergency aid such as debt relief, food deliveries and medical aid, is required more urgently than ever. Furthermore, it is advisable to ease bureaucratic and tariff trade barriers to facilitate international trade. Demands for greater autarchy and de-globalisation should be avoided in the current precarious situation.

Меры изоляции для борьбы с пандемией Covid-19 привели к падению цен на рынках сырой нефти и энергоносителей, из-за этого государства, зависящие от экспорта нефти, сталкиваются с экзистенциальными вызовами. У трех крупнейших нефтяных экспортеров Африки (Алжира, Анголы и Нигерии) – как и многих других экспортеров сырья во всем мире – снижаются курсы национальных валют и сокращаются валютные резервы. Так как продовольственная безопасность этих стран во многом зависит от импорта пшеницы и риса, следует ожидать, что девальвация валют приведет к расту цен на продукты питания внутри страны. Это увеличит финансовое давление на людей, у которых и без того низкие доходы, и которые дополнительно пострадали от потери доходов после введения местных мер по остановке работы и снижения экономической активности. Последние панические скупки и (краткосрочные) ограничения экспорта на международных рынках зерна усугубляют ситуацию. Также ввиду нынешних достаточных складских запасов подобные действия крайне нецелесообразны. Напротив, сейчас необходима солидарность со стороны международного сообщества в форме чрезвычайной помощи, такой как списание долгов, поставки продуктов питания и предоставление медицинской помощи. Одновременно необходимо в ближайшее время устранить тарифные и бюрократические барьеры в международной торговле. В столь критической ситуации со снабжением можно только предостеречь от призывов к автаркии.