Koen Deconinck

When Are Private Standards More Stringent than Public Standards

Retailers’ private standards are increasingly important in addressing consumer concerns about safety, quality and social and environmental issues. Empirical evidence shows that these private standards are frequently more stringent than their public counterparts. This article develops a political economy model that may contribute to explaining this stylized fact. We show that if producers exercise their political power to persuade the government to impose a lower public standard, retailers may apply their market power to install a private standard at a higher level than the public one, depending on several factors.

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.

The Economics of Planting Rights in Wine Production

Almost half of the world’s vineyards are in the EU and the EU produces around 60% of the world’s wine. The EU is also the world’s most regulated wine market. In 2007, the European Union decided on a major reform of its wine policy, the so-called Common Market Organization (CMO) for wine. A crucial element was the abolishment of a system of planting rights to regulate planting of vineyards in the EU. However, before its implementation opponents of the liberalization of planting rights are lobbying EU governments to reverse the decision. Our paper provides the first theoretical analysis of the economic effects and the welfare implications of planting rights. Our model integrates the markets for land, planting rights and wine to analyze the efficiency and distributional effects. We analyze the impact of enforcement problems, trade restrictions, and the use of government reserves in the planting rights system.

The Political Economy of Geographical Indications

In this article we study the political process that governs the creation and size of new Geographical Indications (GIs). Producers can choose to apply for a GI and subsequently go through a bargaining process with the government. We derive the optimal GI area from the point of view of consumers, producers, social welfare, and the government; and we show how bargaining leads to a GI size in between the applicant’s optimum and the government’s optimum. Under the assumption that the non-GI good is a commodity, any GI implemented through the political process is welfare-enhancing, but not all welfare-enhancing GIs will be proposed by producers.

Tied Houses: Why They Are So Common and Why Breweries Charge Them High Prices for Their Beer

Pubs with exclusivity contracts with breweries or drinks distributors are known as “tied houses.” Often, the building in which the pub is located is property of the brewery or is being rented by the brewery from a third party on behalf of the publican. In other cases, the brewery has made financial or material investments in the pub, e.g. by giving loans or providing furniture. In return, publicans agree to exclusively buy products from the brewery.1

How beer created Belgium (and the Netherlands): the contribution of beer taxes to war finance during the Dutch Revolt

ABSTRACT The present-day border between Belgium and the Netherlands can be traced back to the separation of the Low Countries after the Dutch Revolt (1566–1648) against Spanish rule. The capacity to finance the escalating cost of war determined the outcome of this conflict. As Spain struggled to provide regular pay to its troops, its war efforts were often plagued by mutiny. In contrast, the Dutch Republic managed to raise large sums for its war budgets. As we show in this article, excise taxes on beer consumption were one of the largest income sources in Holland, the leading province of the Dutch Republic. Over the course of the Revolt, Dutch beer taxes brought in the equivalent of 29% of Spanish tax revenues on silver from America. Beer taxes thus played a crucial role in financing the Dutch Revolt which led to the separation of the Low Countries and, eventually, the creation of Belgium.

Voodoo, vaccines and bed nets

We provide the first quantitative analysis to scrutinize the ample ethnographic evidence that magico-religious beliefs affect the demand for conventional health care in sub-Saharan Africa. We rely on the unique case of Benin, where Voodoo adherence is freely reported and varies greatly within villages and even within households yet can be traced to historic events that are arguably exogenous to present-day health-care behavior. These features allow us to account for confounding village and household factors and address self-selection into Voodoo. We find that Voodoo adherence of the mother is associated with lower uptake of preventive health-care measures and worse child health outcomes.

War, Taxes, and Borders:How Beer Created Belgium

The present-day border between Belgium and the Netherlands traces back to the separation of the Low Countries after the Dutch Revolt (1566-1648) against Spanish rule. The capacity to finance war expenditures played a central role in the outcome of this conflict. Excise taxes on beer consumption were the single largest income source in Holland, the leading province of the Dutch Republic. Beer taxes thus played a crucial role in financing the Dutch Revolt which led to the separation of the Low Countries and, eventually, the creation of Belgium.

Peer Effects in Alcohol Consumption: Evidence from Russia's Beer Boom

Starting around 1996, Russia witnessed a strong growth in beer consumption, leading to a fivefold growth in average beer consumption and making beer the most important alcoholic drink today. We use survey data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to analyze individual determinants of beer drinking. Using both lagged and simultaneous measures to establish lower and upper bounds on the peer effect, we show that the decision to drink beer is strongly influenced by the average behavior of the individuals peer group. We find that this peer effect may account for one-third to one-half of the rise of beer in Russia.