Yann Duval

Trade costs in the developing world : 1995 - 2010

The authors use newly collected data on trade and production in 178 countries to infer estimates of trade costs in agriculture and manufactured goods for the 1995-2010 period. The data show that trade costs are strongly declining in per capita income. Moreover, the rate of change of trade costs is largely unfavorable to the developing world: trade costs are falling noticeably faster in developed countries than in developing ones, which serves to increase the relative isolation of the latter. In particular, Sub-Saharan African countries and low-income countries remain subject to very high levels of trade costs. In terms of policy implications, the analysis finds that maritime transport connectivity and logistics performance are very important determinants of bilateral trade costs: in some specifications, their combined effect is comparable to that of geographical distance. Traditional and non-traditional trade policies more generally, including market entry barriers and regional integration agreements, play a significant role in shaping the trade costs landscape.

Interactivity and Soft Computing in Portfolio Management: Should Farmers Own Food and Agribusiness Stocks?

This article proposes a fully integrated and interactive elicitation-optimization procedure for portfolio management. A soft computing approach based on fuzzy logic is developed as an alternative to the traditional mean variance model and compromise programming approach. The models are applied to farmers to examine whether they should buy publicly traded food and agribusiness firms stocks rather than invest in a broader market stock portfolio. Results suggest that investments in publicly traded food and agribusiness stocks allow farmers to capture additional benefits beyond those of simply diversifying in the broader market. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

Facilitating participation of SMEs in trade: Financing and communication technology as key enablers

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key contributors to economic development, both in developed and developing countries. Kushnir and others (2010) find that formal SMEs contribute up to 45 per cent of the world’s employment on average; and up to 33 per cent of employment in developing countries. The fact that countries in higher income groups typically have higher SME employment highlights the need to support the development of such enterprises in lower income developing countries (figure 1).