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Category: Micro

Published August 28, 2012

How Can I Do Well in My Econ Course?

“I have studied a lot for this test, but I didn’t do well. How can I do better next time?”

This is a question I hear a lot. Because I teach the core undergraduate microeconomics course in a public policy school, where not all students like economics, it is a question I probably hear more often than my colleagues who teach microeconomics in an economics department.

Instead of saying the same thing over and over again to different students, I thought I should write down my thoughts about how one can maximize the chances one will do well in one’s core economics classes (e.g., micro, macro, or econometrics). You can download my handout on the topic here: How to (Maximize the Likelihood That You Will) Do Well in Your Economics Class.

Published May 8, 2012

As You Sow, So Shall You Reap: The Welfare Impacts of Contract Farming

My article on contract farming titled “As You Sow, So Shall You Reap: The Welfare Impacts of Contract Farming” is finally out in World Development. Here is the abstract:

Contract farming is widely perceived as a means of increasing welfare in developing countries. Because of smallholder self-selection in contract farming, however, it is not clear whether contract farming actually increases grower welfare. In an effort to improve upon existing estimates of the welfare impacts of contract farming, this paper uses the results of a contingent-valuation experiment to control for unobserved heterogeneity among smallholders. Using data across several regions, firms, and crops in Madagascar, results indicate that a 1-percent increase in the likelihood of participating in contract farming is associated with a 0.5-percent increase in household income, among other positive impacts.

If I had to summarize the paper’s contribution informally, I’d say the estimates it presents of the welfare impacts of contract farming have better internal and external validity than those found in previous studies.

Click here for an ungated, older version (link opens a .pdf document), but note that the results in the ungated version had not undergone peer review, so they are not as solid.

Published March 13, 2012

Do Food Prices Track Oil Prices?

Not necessarily, argues Kay McDonald on the basis of a recent OECD report:

While it is partly true in the industrial agricultural system that “food equals oil,” there are many other factors which affect food prices, including the definition of “food” used in making the comparison. Below, I’ve listed some of them.

  • The dollar’s value compared to currencies of other food exporting and importing nations.
  • Supply and demand.
  • Amount of food used for biofuel production.
  • Available infrastructure in transport and storage of food.
  • The price of natural gas.
  • Economic health of each nation.
  • The amount of global meat consumption.
  • Weather.
  • Population growth.
  • The percent of food wasted.
  • Transport prices (not always the same as oil prices, as, for example, currently we have excess bulk shipping capacity which has lowered shipping rates).
  • Government Ag policies and price support programs.
  • Trade agreements.
  • Geopolitics.

In her post, Kay also discusses how the OECD report finds no support for the claim that food price volatility has increased  significantly over the last few years when compared to the last 50 years.

More generally, if you have any interest in food policy, Kay’s blog, Big Picture Agriculture, is a must-follow.