AJAE 2022年第104卷第5期目录及摘要
全文链接：
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14678276/2022/104/5
It's in the bag? The effect of plastic carryout bag bans on where and what people purchase to eat
Rebecca L. C. Taylor
Comparing effectiveness and return on investment of action- and results-based agri-environmental payments in Switzerland
David Wuepper, Robert Huber
Characterizing implied volatility functions from agricultural options markets
Andrew M. McKenzie, Michael R. Thomsen, Michael K. Adjemian
Efficiency and equity of input subsidies: Experimental evidence from Tanzania†
Xavier Giné, Shreena Patel, Bernardo Ribeiro, Ildrim Valley
Something fishy in seafood trade? The relation between tariff and non-tariff barriers
Kathy Baylis, Lia Nogueira, Linlin Fan, Kathryn Pace
Retailer heterogeneity and price transmission
Hao Lan, Tim A. Lloyd, Steve McCorriston, Christopher Wyn Morgan
Staying afloat: The effect of algae contamination on Lake Erie housing prices
David Wolf, Sathya Gopalakrishnan, H. Allen Klaiber
Are price limits cooling off agricultural futures markets?
Xinyue He, Teresa Serra
Market and welfare effects of quality misperception in food labels
Francisco Scott, Juan P. Sesmero
Dummy and effects coding variables in discrete choice analysis
Wuyang Hu, Shan Sun, Jerrod Penn, Ping Qing
It's in the bag? The effect of plastic carryout bag bans on where and what people purchase to eat
Rebecca L. C. Taylor
Abstract：This paper examines how banning the use of plastic carryout bags at grocery stores affects where and what people purchase to eat. Using quasi-random variation in local bag ban adoption across California and two data sources (retail scanner data and consumer survey data), I show that banning plastic carryout bags shifted some food sales away from regulated grocery stores toward unregulated grocery stores and restaurants. Specifically, I find that bag bans cause a 1.8% decline in food-at-home sales and a 1.9 percentage point increase in consumers' food-away-from-home expenditure share. The decline in food-at-home sales is larger in jurisdictions more likely to experience cross-border shopping, whereas the increase in food-away-from-home expenditures is larger farther from jurisdiction borders. Together these results suggest that a small share of consumers find a way to bypass the bag bans—either by cross-border shopping if near a border or by shifting to restaurants if not near a border. Heterogeneity analyses reveal the policy effects are strongest for those with higher incomes, those under 65 years, and those with young children, suggesting both income effects and time constraints as mechanisms behind the behavioral change. By quantifying consumer avoidance behaviors, these results enable policymakers to more accurately measure the impacts of their regulations and to understand the potential trade-offs between their environmental and public health objectives.
Comparing effectiveness and return on investment of action- and results-based agri-environmental payments in Switzerland
David Wuepper Robert Huber
Abstract：Agri-environmental schemes are an important policy tool to foster agricultural sustainability. We assess the effectiveness and return on investment of two different schemes designed to encourage biodiversity conservation in Switzerland: payments for actions and payments for results. Empirically, we exploit a major policy reform that created a natural experiment by abruptly and unevenly increasing both payments across farmers. Using difference in differences, we estimate the effect of the policy reform on farmers for whom only the action- or the results-based payments increased, as well as on those for whom both increased, compared to farmers for whom neither increased. Our findings are fourfold: First, higher payments increased the biodiversity conservation area. A payment raise by 1% increased conservation areas on average by 0.6% in the action based, and by 1% in the results-based scheme. Second, the combination of both schemes increased average effectiveness but also windfall gains. Third, using a benefit transfer approach, we estimate a positive return of investment for all payment increases. Finally, the estimated return on investment for the results-based payments is higher than for the action-based payments.
Characterizing implied volatility functions from agricultural options markets
Andrew M. McKenzie Michael R. Thomsen Michael K. Adjemian
Abstract：We provide the first comprehensive characterization and comparison of implied volatility functions for five major agricultural options markets—corn, soybeans, soft red winter wheat, live cattle, and feeder cattle—using intraday tick data. Our results show that cattle markets exhibit a distinct leftward skew, which is puzzling and indicates that out-of-the-money traded put options are theoretically overpriced. In contrast, we find that grain market implied volatility functions display a flatter, less pronounced smile pattern. We examine market sentiment induced short-term hedging pressures using Commodity Futures Trading Commission reports, and market uncertainty around Cattle on Feed reports, as potential causes of the cattle markets skew. However, our results show that the explanatory power of our short-term hedging pressure proxies are only helpful in isolated cases but overall cannot explain the large skews we observe in cattle markets.
Efficiency and equity of input subsidies: Experimental evidence from Tanzania†
Xavier Giné Shreena Patel Bernardo Ribeiro Ildrim Valley
Abstract：Input subsidy programs (ISP) often have two conflicting targeting goals: selecting individuals with the highest marginal return to inputs on efficiency grounds, or the poorest individuals on equity grounds, allowing for a secondary market to restore efficiency gains. To study this targeting dilemma, we implement a field experiment where beneficiaries of an ISP were selected via a lottery or a local committee. In lottery villages, we find evidence of displacement of private fertilizer and of a secondary market as beneficiaries are more likely to sell inputs to non-beneficiaries. In contrast, in non-lottery villages we find no evidence of displacement nor of elite capture. The impacts of the ISP on agricultural productivity and welfare are limited, suggesting that resources should be directed at complementary investments, such as improving soil quality and irrigation.
Something fishy in seafood trade? The relation between tariff and non-tariff barriers
Kathy Baylis Lia Nogueira Linlin Fan Kathryn Pace
Abstract：As importing countries honor trade agreements to lower tariff rates, traditional tariff barriers may be replaced with non-tariff barriers. Previous literature has found that the implementation of food safety standards, specifically the use of import notifications and rejections, has acted as a significant barrier to trade in both the EU and the US. This article estimates the relation between a change in tariff rates and the use of non-tariff barriers, measured by a count of EU seafood import notifications. We find that when trade agreements generate a decrease in tariffs, we observe an increase in the number of import notifications, holding trade volume constant. This effect is strongest for those products that are rejected at the border for less threatening health reasons. Although we see clear evidence that non-tariff barriers are responding to health risks, they also appear to be correlated with demand for protection.
Retailer heterogeneity and price transmission
Hao Lan Tim A. Lloyd Steve McCorriston Christopher Wyn Morgan
Abstract：Differences in price dynamics across retail chains, even for identical products, offer the opportunity to provide new insights into the determinants of price transmission. Specifically, we highlight the role of strategic complementarity and mark-up elasticities as the factors underpinning price transmission. Using supermarket data on a sample of orange juice and coffee products from the seven largest retail chains in the UK, the results show that ignoring strategic complementarity exerts a positive bias on the estimation of price transmission and hence overstates the importance of input costs in price setting. In contrast to recent research, private label products are found to exhibit consistently lower levels of price transmission (higher mark-up elasticity) than national brands, likely reflecting the context of competition in UK food retailing. The focus on mark-up elasticities points to links between the frequency of price adjustment and competition as determinants of price transmission.
Staying afloat: The effect of algae contamination on Lake Erie housing prices
David Wolf Sathya Gopalakrishnan H. Allen Klaiber
Abstract：Lake Erie has experienced unprecedented harmful algal blooms since the early 2000s, prompting the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada, which aims to reduce lake-wide phosphorous loadings by 40%. Little is known about the economic benefits from this agreement, especially to near lake homeowners. We provide key information on the benefits of harmful algal bloom cleanup by linking housing transactions in 2003 to 2015 from seven Ohio counties bordering Lake Erie with measures of water quality using remote-sensing images. We further control for endogenous algae production using instrumental variables derived from hydrological processes that link Maumee River runoff to nutrient concentrations in Lake Erie. Using a semiparametric approach, we find the impact of harmful algal blooms on housing prices is spatially limited to properties within 1.2 km of Lake Erie. For the average near lake homeowner, a 1 μg/L increase in algae concentrations is expected to decrease property values by 1.7% ($2205). In aggregate, fulfilling the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement will provide a yearly benefit of up to $42.9 million, fully covering the current annual expenditure on water quality improvement.
Are price limits cooling off agricultural futures markets?
Xinyue He Teresa Serra
Abstract：In the past few years, the lean hog and live cattle futures markets have experienced significantly heightened volatility and frequent limit moves. In this paper, we study whether price limits help resolve uncertainty and facilitate liquidity provision in the two markets and how they affect trading in the limit-free options market. In contrast to previous literature that is based on daily data, we use intraday futures and options data from 2014 to 2019 that allows for a better characterization of market behavior around limit moves. Consistent with microstructure theories, we find that price limits neither reduce volatility nor improve liquidity. Instead, they add to the high uncertainty that precedes the limit move, leading to significantly higher volatility and lower liquidity when trading resumes. Further, contrary to the notion that trading migrates to the limit-free options market, options volume drops and liquidity drains during limit moves. The options-implied futures price is only a biased, inefficient, and highly noisy estimate of the equilibrium futures price on locked-limit days. Overall, the findings suggest that rather than allowing the markets to cool off, price limits adversely affect market quality in presence of large price movements.
Market and welfare effects of quality misperception in food labels
Francisco Scott Juan P. Sesmero
Abstract：Information-based policies, most prominently labels, reveal credence attributes of food products and, presumably, help consumers make better choices by reducing their misperception of product quality. However, much remains unexamined regarding how firms' strategic reactions to consumers' misperception of quality influence the benefits of information-based policies. We consider an oligopoly model where heterogeneous consumers can over- or underestimate the quality of products in the market, and firms choose quality and prices conditional on consumers' perception of quality. We find that, under empirically prevalent conditions, misperception can increase efficiency in relation to the perfect information case; it does so if (1) it strengthens firms' incentives to provide higher quality, countervailing the chronic underprovision of quality that prevails under perfect information, or (2) it galvanizes competition, reversing another deleterious effect of product differentiation, namely high quality-adjusted markups that restrain commerce. Our results imply that information-based policies aimed at curbing misperception, such as requiring or allowing (under voluntary certification) additional information, nudging, and changes in label format, can have deleterious effects on efficiency and, perhaps more importantly, hurt the very consumers they mean to protect.
Dummy and effects coding variables in discrete choice analysis
Wuyang Hu Shan Sun Jerrod Penn Ping Qing
Abstract：Discrete choice models typically incorporate product/service attributes, many of which are categorical. Researchers code these attributes in one of two ways: dummy coding and effects coding. Whereas previous studies favor effects coding citing that it resolves confounding between attributes, our analysis demonstrates that such confounding does not exist in either method, even when a choice model contains alternative specific constants. Furthermore, we show that because of the lack of understanding of the equivalence between the two coding methods, a sizeable number of previously published articles have misinterpreted effects coded results. The misinterpretation generates conflicting preference ordering and renders t-statistics, marginal willingness to pay, as well as consumer surplus/compensating variation estimates invalid. We show that severe misinterpretation occurs for any categorical attribute that contains more than two discrete levels. The frequency of two-level attributes used in discrete choice analyses may have led some past studies to overlook this error. Given its equivalence and lower likelihood of misinterpretation, we recommend dummy coding.
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