Emmanuelle Chevassus-Lozza

Retailer Supply Chain and Market Access: Evidence From French Agri-food Firms Certified with Private Standards

This paper explores an original data set identifying French agri‐food firms certified with two European private standards: the International Food Standard and/or the British Retail Consortium standard (BRC). Certified firms complying with such requirements are able to supply some European retailers with products sold under their retailers own private label. Our analysis revealed that certified firms were among the biggest and most productive firms in the sample. Then, based on recent developments in international economics, we propose a modification of Chaneys model and estimations to test for the hypothesis that entering retailer networks reduces export costs faced by certified firms to access European union (EU) markets. After controlling for size and productivity effects, model estimations show that French firms who adopt BRC and enter the corresponding network benefit from better access through a significant decrease in their entry costs to certain EU markets.

Regional Production Adjustment to Import Competition: Evidence from the French Agro-Industry

This paper aims at evaluating the impact of increasing imports on the reallocation of agrifood production across regions within countries. From French data for the period 1995-2002, we show that regional agri-food production adjusts differently to increasing imports according to the region where the agri-food firms are located. More precisely, even though proximity to consumers significantly shapes the spatial distribution of agri-food production, an increase in agri-food imports does not make regions with a high demand more attractive but makes low-wage regions more attractive. In addition, an increase in imports of agricultural products processed by agri-food firms leads to the reallocation of agri-food production from regions with good access to agricultural products towards those withlimited access.