Anneleen Vandeplas

Rich consumers and poor producers: quality and rent distribution in global value chains

Quality standards are rapidly gaining importance as a result of increasingly globalized trade. Rich country quality requirements are said to have detrimental effects on poor producers in developing countries because they would introduce new trade barriers, prevent small and poor producers from participating in high quality supply chains, and allow multinationals to extract rents. We analyze under which conditions the introduction of quality standards in global value chains may benefit poor producers in developing countries, taking explicitly into account key characteristics of these value chains. We investigate the effects of competition and development and discuss a series of policy implications.

Multinationals vs. Cooperatives: The Income and Efficiency Effects of Supply Chain Governance in India

The impact of multinational firms on the domestic agricultural sector in developing countries is controversial, in particular in India. Relying on a unique set of household-level data from the state of Punjab, we study the biggest dairy company in the world (Nestle) in India and compare its vertical spillover effects on upstream suppliers to other market channels (informal sector and cooperatives). We find that farmers that supply informal channels are less efficient and earn less profits per dairy animal than farmers supplying the cooperative and the multinational sector. Further, we find that farmers in the multinational channel are more efficient than farmers in the cooperative channel, but equally profitable. Hence, we do not find that supplying the cooperative channel is more beneficial for local dairy farmers than supplying the multinational channel. Overall, however, dairy productivity and profitability levels are still dramatically low, with tremendous scope for dairy development.

Quality standards, value chains, and international development : economic and political theory

1. Introduction 2. Modelling standards 3. Efficiency and equity effects of standards 4. The political economy of standards and development 5. International trade and standards 6. Risks, externalities and the nature of standards 7. Endogenous private and public standards in value chains 8. Butterflies and political economy dynamics in standard setting 9. The political economy of standards and inclusion in value chains 10. Standards, production structure and inclusion in value chains 11. Standards, market imperfections and vertical coordination in value chains 12. Market power and vertical coordination in value chains 13. Price transmission in value chains 14. Commodity characteristics and value chain governance 15. Economic liberalisation, value chains and development 16. Standards and value chains with contracting costs: towards a general model 17. General equilibrium effects of standards in value chains.

Quality, Efficiency Premia, and Development

Improving quality is an important element of the transfer of production to low wage countries. Higher quality requirements are part of complex contracting arrangements in global supply chains. This paper analyzes how weak contract enforcement institutions and imperfect factor markets are affecting contracting for quality products; what the implications are for growth and equity; and how this changes with development.

Revisiting the “Cotton Problem”—A Comparative Analysis of Cotton Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa

The cotton sector has been among the most regulated in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and still largely is in West and Central Africa (WCA), despite repeated reform recommendations by international donors. On the other hand, orthodox reforms in East and Southern Africa (ESA) have not always yielded the expected results. This paper uses a stylized contracting model to investigate the link between market structure and equity and efficiency in SSA cotton sectors; explain the outcomes of reforms in ESA; and analyze the potential consequences of reforms in WCA. We illustrate our arguments with empirical observations on cotton sector performance.

Governance and Surplus Distribution in Commodity Value Chains in Africa

The governance of food markets is a crucial element for efficiency and distributional effects. In this paper, we use a conceptual model to show that this governance itself is endogenous in an environment of weak contract enforcement and imperfect markets, and importantly depends on the value in the chain. We relate the predictions of the theory to empirical evidence on differences in supply chain governance in Africa across different commodity types. In doing so we offer an explanation as why private sector governance systems with interlinked market transactions have emerged for higher value crops but not for staple food crops. We discuss the efficiency and equity effects and the implications for policy.

Liberalization with Endogenous Institutions: A Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Reform in Africa, Asia and Europe

Thirty years ago, a vast share of the poor and middle income countries were heavily state-controlled. The effects of the liberalizations in the 1980s and 1990s differed strongly between regions in Africa, Asia and Europe. This paper first documents these differences in reform effects in a comparative framework and then develops a model to formally analyze how liberalization affects production and income distribution when institutions that govern production and exchange are also affected. We derive hypotheses on how the endogenous institutional adjustments affect the supply response to the liberalizations. We use these insights to forward a series of explanations on the differences in performance across countries following liberalization.

Price Transmission and Market Power in Modern Agricultural Value Chains

“Modern” agricultural markets are characterized by, among other things, quality requirements and vertical coordination. The nature of the industrial organization of the value chain depends on a variety of factors, such as local institutions, economic growth, demand, institutional infrastructure etc. In this paper we present a conceptual framework to explicitly integrate key characteristics of these “modern” agricultural markets and derive implications for price transmission and market power in these markets and value chains.

Regulations, brokers, and interlinkages: The institutional organization of wholesale markets in India

There is a vigorous debate on the liberalization of heavily regulated agricultural markets in India. A crucial institutional characteristic is the role of state regulated brokers in wholesale markets. Relying on data from a unique survey in Uttarakhand, a state in North-India, we find that regulations on margins are ineffective as most brokers charge rates that significantly exceed the regulated ones. We also find that a majority of farmers self-select into long-term relationships with brokers. These relationships allow some of the farmers to interlink credit and insurance markets to the agricultural output market. This interlinkage does however not appear to be an instrument for farmer exploitation (as it does not lead to worse inputs, high interest rates, or lower implicit output prices), but is seemingly an extra service by brokers as to establish farmer loyalty to him and thus to ensure future supplies.

Lower in Rank, but Happier: The Complex Relationship between Status and Happiness

Case studies across the social sciences have established a positive relationship between social status and happiness. In observational data, however, identification challenges remain severe. This study exploits the fact that in India people are assigned a caste from birth. In data on 1000 individuals living in the Punjab, a state with a large income gap between middle and high castes in spite of similar education levels, we find that those in the middle are the least happy. Our findings resemble those described by the famous paradox of unhappy Olympic silver medal winners, which finds a V-shaped relation between status and happiness. The same trend is much less pronounced in data on 1000 individuals living in the state of Andhra Pradesh with much smaller economic differences between castes. We hypothesize that these patterns reflect the relatively high weight of upward comparisons for middle caste groups in Punjab, based on their stronger similarity in ability attributes with castes higher up in the hierarchy.