Exploring the Impact of Agricultural Price and Trade Policy Reform under Transition in Albania
Agricultural policy decision making in economies undergoing transition to market is in need of empirical tools for assessing the impact of alternative policy options. The econometric means available for such exercise, however, are limited for lack of data and structural breaks in economic behaviour. Synthetic, partial equilibrium, multi-market models offer a potential alternative. Such models have been used extensively, even in advanced economies, to offer valuable insights on the impact of alternative policy options. This paper shows the use of such a partial equilibrium, multi-market, synthetic-type model as a tool for agricultural policy analysis in a country in transition. The model is applied for Albania, a predominantly agricultural country that, after a period of centralism and autarky, aims to re-join the international economic system. The model, albeit its many limitations, offers some useful insights on the impact of alternative options available for agricultural price and trade policy.
Differentiation as a Precondition for Efficient EU Enlargement. The Case of Slovenia /доклад на 10 конгрессе ЕААЕ, Exploring Diversity in the European Agri-Food System, Zaragoza, Spain, 28-31 August 2002
This paper's aim is an assessment of economic effects of Slovenia’s accession to the EU in the field of agriculture and a discussion about some key dilemmas about the introduction of CAP in the new member states. For the purpose of assessing economic effects, a new sectoral model of Slovenian agriculture APAS-PAM has been compiled which allows assessment of market and income effects for ten key agricultural products with regard to various accession scenarios. The accession under the scenario of equal treatment of new member states would bring significant improvements in the aggregate income levels. On the other hand, discrimination of the candidate countries in the field of direct payments (“phasing in” process) would result in a fall of aggregate income level by an eighth. Moreover, noncompetitive production structures in the food-processing sector would deteriorate the economic situation of agricultural production by up to further 40 %. The positive effects of different accession scenarios are expected in the sugar beet and - under assumption of eligibility for direct payments - also in coarse grains, beef and sheep meat production. The economic situation in milk production is not expected to change significantly. The negative accession effects can be expected in pigmeat, cereal, egg and, potentially, poultry production. The results reveal a great significance of the equal treatment and differentiation approach to negotiation process for the preservation of the economic situation of Slovenian agriculture after accession. This holds especially for cereal, beef and sheep meat production.
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.