Linde Götz

Regional Price Effects of Extreme Weather Events and Wheat Export Controls in Russia and Ukraine

This paper further builds on the price transmission model framework of existing studies to identify domestic wheat price effects of wheat export controls. We explicitly take the fact into account that a harvest failure causes domestic price effects as well. Moreover, the analysis at the regional level provides further evidence of the functioning of export controls in a large country. Results suggest a pronounced regional heterogeneity in the strength of domestic price effects of the 2010/11 export ban in Russia. The wheat price dampening effects amount to up to 67 % and are strongest in the major wheat exporting region with direct access to the world market. This effect is transmitted to other regions by increased and reversed interregional trade flows. Contrasting, regional variation of export controls´ domestic price effects in Ukraine is rather small.

Determinants of productivity and efficiency of wheat production in Kazakhstan

Agriculture plays an important role for Kazakhstan not only because of rural employment, but also because of the diversity it brings to its oil dependent economy. A considerable increase in grain exports was achieved during the recent years, however, there still is a large room for increasing productivity and efficiency to boost the agricultural potential of the country further. The government of Kazakhstan has introduced several policy packages in the past to boost productivity and efficiency, however, the impact of these reforms has not been yet analyzed quantitatively. Micro level data collected from 200 farms in northern Kazakhstan in 2015 is used in the analysis, in order to fill this research gap. A mixture of evidences is found in terms of policy effect on productivity and efficiency. The results of the analysis showed that direct subsidy access reduced the efficiency, while access to supply chain infrastructure had the opposite effect and increased the efficiency. Therefore, the study concludes that the government should divert its policy support from direct subsidy payments to the improvement of agricultural infrastructure. This will influence positively not only productivity and efficiency, but also Kazakhstans commitments towards international and regional trade agreements.