Hyunok Lee

International Trade Patterns and Policy for Ethanol in the United States

The US trade policy for ethanol affects imports and all aspects of ethanol production and use. The paper reviews U.S. trade policy for ethanol and then examines the pattern of imports of ethanol. Despite high tariff barriers the U.S. is a major ethanol importer and we document the pattern of ethanol imports over the past decades. We then show how ethanol imports have responded to market conditions. We find that the demand for imports is likely to have been very elastic in recent years. Our econometric estimates show how ethanol imports have responded to market conditions. We find a significant supply elasticity for imports into the U.S. of about 3.0. Finally we use the forgoing analysis to discuss potential impacts of trade policy changes under alternative market conditions that depend crucially on domestic biofuel policies.

Trade Policy and the Effects of Climate Forecasts on Agricultural Markets

damental to modeling the effects of a climate forecast on agricultural markets is the direct agronomic impacts of climate on commodity production, but also important are the endogenous responses of growers, traders, and others. This paper examines market responses to climate information in a simple framework that highlights the most important issues while abstracting from most complications. We emphasize how trade policy affects commodity market responses and the value of climate information.

Wine Markets in China: Assessing the Potential with Supermarket Survey Data

The emergence of grape wine as a mainstream alcoholic beverage in China is relatively new. However, rapidly increasing wine consumption in China provides a significant trade potential for the United States and other wine exporting countries. This paper investigates the Chinese wine market using retailer data with a focus on imported wines. Supermarkets are identified as major retail outlets for foreign wines, and this paper uses data from a recent supermarket wine survey in China. Our data indicate that about half of our sample stock foreign wines. On average, 21 percent of total wine shelf space is allocated to foreign wines and larger stores are associated with larger shares of shelf space for foreign wines. Among foreign wines, French wine dominates. Of 31 supermarkets that sell foreign wines, 26 stores carry French wine, and in all but two of these stores more than half of the foreign wine shelf space is devoted to French wine. Australia, Chile, Italy and the United States follow in terms of number of stores carrying wines. Supermarkets in our sample allocate most of their shelf space to red wine for both domestic (93%) and foreign (82%) wines. The average median price for foreign wines (94 yuans per bottle) was more than double the equivalent price for domestic wines (42 yuans). (JEL Classification: N55, Q13, Q19)

Implications of trade reform for agricultural markets in northeast Asia: a Korean example

Trade policy reform in the 1990s increased import access for agricultural products into Japan, South Korea and other countries of Asia. One of the most significant developments concerns rice markets in this region. Because of political sensitivity, Japan and South Korea were allowed to postpone tariffication on rice under the Uruguay Round (UR) GATT agreement. 4 In return, South Korea provided more than the expected tariff reductions for some other commodities, while Japan agreed to accelerate quantitative access for rice. In recent decades, northeast Asian markets have been comparatively open to wheat, feed grains and cotton imports, but mostly closed for rice. With no

Implications of Disaster Assistance Reform for Non-insured Crops

With recent crop insurance reform, disaster aid to producers of crops for which federal crop insurance was not available has changed significantly. A newly created Non-insured Assistance Program (NAP) is a standing disaster aid program for non-insured crops including most vegetables and some tree crops. To receive a payment, a farmer has to meet NAPs “area” triggered loss in addition to usual individual loss criteria. In this paper we examine the implications of these two-tiered criteria for NAP payments in the context of California agriculture. Our analysis indicates that the area loss requirement likely results in a sharp reduction in disaster payments for non-insured crops. Copyright 1997, Oxford University Press.

Economics of downscaled climate-induced changes in cropland, with projections to 2050: evidence from Yolo County California

This article establishes quantitative relationships between the evolution of climate and cropland using daily climate data for a century and data on allocation of land across crops for six decades in a specific agro-climatic region of California. These relationships are applied to project how climate scenarios reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would drive cropland patterns into 2050. Projections of warmer winters, particularly from 2035 to 2050, cause lower wheat area and more alfalfa and tomato area. Only marginal changes in area were projected for tree and vine crops, in part because although lower, chill hours remain above critical values.

The Economic Value of Wine Names That Reference Place in the US Market: Analysis of ‘Champagne’ and Sparkling Wine

Place names or geographic indicators used to identify wines (or other products) have long been raised as major marketing and policy issues, but these have become even more important and more complex with increased globalisation. The issues arise especially for food and beverage products where characteristics of particular regions are most likely to imbue products with special characteristics that are difficult or impossible to duplicate outside the region of origin. With the spread of people and product styles, however, some place names have become used without clear association with geographic regions of origin. So, for example, one sees apartment buildings in Beijing, China, with the names Sonoma or Seville and one sees mustards with the name Dijon, even though neither the apartments nor the mustard has any connection to a place other than, perhaps, an approximation of a broad style.

Pollination Markets and the Coupled Futures of Almonds and Honey Bees: Simulating Impacts of Shifts in Demands and Costs

Abstract Honey bees have garnered much attention in recent years. Concerns about long‐term sustainability of pollinator populations have been coupled with concerns about implications for food supplies. We use a novel formulation of a multiple input, multiple output, two season equilibrium simulation model to explore economic linkages across the markets of buyers and sellers of pollination services and honey. We specify and calibrate in a tractable way the empirical relationships between pollinators and the crops they pollinate, especially almonds. Our model highlights the sequential nature of the pollination season and implication for revenue from pollination and honey production. We demonstrate how shifts in almond supply and demand and the much‐discussed honey bee hive health problems cause price and quantity adjustments in horizontally and vertically related markets and quantify these effects. We show that the economic fortunes of the almond industry, including demand growth, cost concerns, and the potential for new almond varieties that use fewer bees, crucially affect the returns to beekeeping and the number of hives. These drivers of almond economics also have substantial effects on the cost of pollination for crops that are pollinated later.