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The agricultural and food sector is an ideal case for investigating the political economy of public policies. Many of the policy developments in this sector since the 1950s have been sudden and transformational, while others have been gradual but persistent. This paper reviews and synthesizes the literature on trends and fluctuations in market distortions and the political-economy explanations that have been advanced. Based on a rich global data set covering a half-century of evidence on commodities, countries, and policy instruments, the paper identifies hypotheses that have been explored in the literature on the extent of market distortions and the conditions under which reform may be feasible.

Agribusiness --- Agriculture --- Climate Change Economics --- Distortions to agricultural markets --- Economic Theory & Research --- Economics of farm and food politics --- Emerging Markets --- Population Policies --- Rural Development

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Farm-gate buying by small itinerant buyers is the dominant mode of primary marketing in Tanzania's maize market. This paper estimates the effect of household distance to market on maize farm-gate prices, and the extent to which seasonally determined search costs can explain price variations between the lean and the harvest seasons using data from the most recent Tanzania Household Budget Survey (2007). The author observes that greater distance to market depresses farm-gate prices but that it is a relatively modest effect, and that this effect is pro-cyclical in that it is stronger during the harvest season when prices are lowest. The paper discusses the latter result with reference to search costs as an explanatory factor. It also briefly places the findings in the context of Tanzania's food security patterns, making a link between food insecurity and high search costs. The main policy conclusion is that coordinating mechanisms such as village market places (in parallel with farm-gate buying) may reduce transaction costs in rural markets.

Access to Markets --- Agricultural Markets --- E-Business --- Farm-gate buying --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Food & Beverage Industry --- Maize --- Markets and Market Access --- Search costs --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning --- Tanzania

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An increasing number of tropical timber producing nations have enacted bans on export of logs. Proponents argue that a log export ban is a second-best policy tool for addressing environmental externalities; it also creates more jobs and improves scale efficiencies domestically. Theoretical arguments suggest that log export bans are largely incapable of achieving their objectives. However, little quantitative evidence exists. The authors maintain that eliminating log export bans in Costa Rica could generate economic gains as high as $14 million annually in addition to the environmental benefits.

Exports and Imports --- Taxation --- Agribusiness --- Environmental Economics --- Trade Policy --- International Trade Organizations --- Trade and Environment --- Renewable Resources and Conservation: Forestry --- Agricultural Markets and Marketing --- Cooperatives --- Environmental Economics: General --- Trade: General --- Agriculture, agribusiness & food production industries --- International economics --- Environmental economics --- Public finance & taxation --- Agroindustries --- Environment --- Trade barriers --- Exports --- Tariffs --- Economic sectors --- International trade --- Taxes --- Agricultural industries --- Environmental sciences --- Commercial policy --- Tariff --- Costa Rica

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Although few would doubt that very high inflation is bad for growth, there is much less agreement about moderate inflation’s effects. Using panel regressions and a nonlinear specification, this paper finds a statistically and economically significant negative relationship between inflation and growth. This relationship holds at all but the lowest inflation rates and is robust across various samples and specifications. The method of binary recursive trees identifies inflation as one the most important statistical determinants of growth. Finally, while there are short-run growth costs of disinflation, these are only relevant for the most severe disinflations, or when the initial inflation rate is well within the single-digit range.

Inflation --- Labor --- Public Finance --- Agribusiness --- Price Level --- Deflation --- Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity: General --- Human Capital --- Skills --- Occupational Choice --- Labor Productivity --- Agricultural Markets and Marketing --- Cooperatives --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Macroeconomics --- Labour --- income economics --- Agriculture, agribusiness & food production industries --- Public finance & taxation --- Disinflation --- Human capital --- Agroindustries --- Public expenditure review --- Prices --- Economic sectors --- Expenditure --- Agricultural industries --- Expenditures, Public --- United States

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This paper emphasizes the importance of total factor productivity (TFP) developments in the nontradables sector to quantitatively demonstrate that the time-honored Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis does not generally apply to episodes of economic growth. Though the Balassa- Samuelson hypothesis postulates that strong economic growth should, in general, be accompanied by a real appreciation in exchange rates, this paper does not find such systematic links. This is because some growth spurts are marked by equal TFP gains in both the tradables and nontradables sectors, and others by larger TFP gains in the nontradables sector.

Economic development. --- Electronic books. -- local. --- Foreign exchange rates. --- Foreign Exchange --- Macroeconomics --- Agribusiness --- Production and Operations Management --- Production --- Cost --- Capital and Total Factor Productivity --- Capacity --- Agricultural Markets and Marketing --- Cooperatives --- Macroeconomics: Production --- Labor Economics: General --- Agriculture, agribusiness & food production industries --- Currency --- Foreign exchange --- Labour --- income economics --- Total factor productivity --- Agroindustries --- Real exchange rates --- Productivity --- Labor --- Industrial productivity --- Agricultural industries --- Labor economics --- United States