Raúl Serrano

Causes of world trade growth in agricultural and food products, 1951–2000: a demand function approach

The objective of the present study is to analyse the causes of the growth of international agricultural and food trade in volume terms from 1951 to 2000. The results suggest that income growth has been the principal reason for this expansion, while exchange rate stability and the real price of agricultural products played only a minor role. Multilateral trade liberalization and trade costs, given their long-term stability, are not elements that could have stimulated their growth. Finally, the intensive liberalization of trade which took place in various economic regions, especially in Europe, became a key factor in promoting agricultural trade among the countries participating in regional trade agreements. The study results also indicate that the determinants of trade growth for these goods were different to those for other goods and other periods.

The terms of trade for agricultural and food products, 1951-2000

This study aims to answer whether empirical records confirm the existence of a secular decline in the terms of trade affecting primary producers (the Singer–Prebisch hypothesis). The paper analyses the evolution of the terms of trade for agricultural and food products in the second half of the 20 th century. We obtain sixty new real price indices for internationally traded agricultural products. We conclude, from a long-term perspective, that the deterioration in the terms of trade for agricultural and food products was strong and clear in the second half of the last century. In general, less processed products suffered a very heavy fall in their real prices. However, there was no continuous and persistent deterioration in the terms of trade either as a whole or for the great majority of the agricultural and food product groups (with the exception of natural rubber, textile fibres and other raw materials). Rather, this deterioration occurred in stages.

Expected quality in European football attendance: market value and uncertainty reconsidered

The aim of this article was to deepen the study of the determinants of the sporting event’s demand. Specifically, this study is focused on the relationship between the expected quality of the event and attendance at the European football stadiums. The study explores the Rottemberg Hypothesis (1956), which states the existence of a positive effect of the outcome uncertainty on attendance demand and approximates with dynamic indexes the outcome uncertainty and the quality of the contestant teams. From the estimation of the attendance equation using quantile regression (which takes into account the heterogeneity of the demand) highlights the fact that the attractive aspect of the event, approximated by the market value of the players taking the field, has a positive and significant impact whatever typology of venue. In addition, this study provides empirical support to the assumption that game day demand is more related to the quality of contestant teams than to outcome uncertainty level.

The world periphery in Global Agricultural and Food Trade, 1900-2000

In the last two hundred years, agricultural trade has grown at a remarkably rapid rate. In the first globalizing wave, international trade was based on the exchange of primary products for manufactured goods. This provided important opportunities for complementarity in certain countries on the periphery that took advantage of the opportunity to base their economic development on the growth of their exports and the linkages between them and the rest of the economy. However, most of the agricultural exporting countries, obtained few benefits from this model of development. In the second wave of globalisation, an intra-industrial trade increasingly replaced this pattern of trade. In addition, the more developed countries tended to protect their agricultural production, which have been a major obstacle to agricultural trade.