This paper examines the relationship between the price for Canadian wheat and the price for U.S. wheat. While a great deal of the variation in the Canadian series can be attributed to oscillations in either the exchange rate or the U.S. price of wheat, changing technologies, shifting market power, the marketing strategies of major market participants, and domestic market conditions are also seen to play a role in the price determination process and should be considered when making longer‐term forecasts. The fact that the most encompassing price linkage specifications identified in this study differ significanty from the specification in a number of forecasting models in use today should be a point of particular concern. Since many of the decision equations (area seeded, inputs purchased, etc.) in place in these models essentially are driven off the Canada U.S. price linkage equation, the observed misspecification may have a detrimental impact on all forecasted series. Les auteurs examinent les rapports existants entre les prix canadiens et les prix américains du blé. Si une grande portion de la variabilité observée dans la série de donnée canadienne peut s'expliquer par les taux de change ou par le prix américain du blé, l'évolution des techniques, les déplacements des marchés, les stratégies de commercialisation des grands intervenants commerciaux et les conditions du marché intérieur jouent apparemment aussi un rôle dans la formation des prix. Ces facteurs devraient done être pris en compte dans les prévisions à long terme. Le fait que les spécifications de liaisons de prix les plus complètes dégagées dans cette étude s'técartent significativement de celles en usage dans plusieurs modèles de prévision mérite qu'on s'y arrête. Comme un bon nombre d'équations de décision (superficies emblavées, agrofournitures, etc.) utilisées dans ces modèles s'éloignent de l'équation de liaison de prix canado‐américaine, cet écart pourrait avoir un impact défavorable sur toutes les séries de prévisions.
This paper examines recent demand systems literature from a methodological standpoint. A survey of the empirical demand systems literature has been assembled that includes 66 articles from 19 separate journals. The paper classifies empirical demand studies according to different methodological paradigms to ascertain if there is a pattern in the demand systems literature and to determine the implications of that classification. The results indicate that the bulk (67%) of demand systems research is implicitly falsificationist (for at least part of the research program). The remainder of the research program follows a conventionalist doctrine. Nous passons en revue la bibliographie récente sur les systèmes empiriques de demandes au point de vue méthodologie. Ce survol couvre 66 articles provenant de 19 différentes revues. Nous classifions les études empiriques sur la demande selon différents paradigmes méthodologiques dans le but de voir si ces publications suivent une tendance déterminée et aussi de dégager les incidences de cette classification. Il se dégage de cet examen que le gros, c.-à-d. 67 %, des recherches sur les systèmes de demande sont, du moins, en partie implicitement de type falsifiable. Le reste des recherches suit une doctrine de type conventionnaliste.
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge […] Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. (Charles Haddon Spurgeon) Wisdom is not a trait that is easily or quickly gained. It is a process that takes time and living. But we can acquire wisdom and become wiser if we open our minds to the insights of others. This is how I regard Zhang-Yue Zhou's latest effort.Zhou's Achieving Food Security in China: The Challenges Ahead is ostensibly about China's efforts to achieve food security. However, it is also about sharing a lifetime of acquired experience, analysis, knowledge and wisdom as to the circumstances, policies, processes, institutions and incentive systems which either contributed to or undermined the achievement of that goal. To some extent, this book also serves as a warning of the "never again" variety in the sense that the stories and insights are shared to avoid similar follies elsewhere and in future.In the first part of Chapter 1, Professor Zhou provides a brief account of his early life and experiences with food shortages in China. His insights are of the hard-earned variety, first gained as a toddler during the zenith of Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and then as a teenager during the "Cultural Revolution." From his early memories, Zhou moves on to present an overview of evolving food availability between the 1950s and the 2010s. His experiences and observations drove him to explore the underlying causes behind the location, incidence and magnitude of manifestations of abundance and of shortages.The remainder of Chapter 1 sets out the framework, terminology, metrics and sequence with which the remainder of this treatise proceeds. For the sake of discussion and analytical consistency, Zhou embraces concepts related to Food Security first broached at the World Food Conference in 1974 and refined at the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS):Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.Access to food: adds proximity all people…have physical and economic access to…food.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of agri-biotech to play a role in meeting the world’s food, feed, fiber and fuel needs. Using case studies, policy developments in the key Asian countries of China, India and Japan are also scrutinized to determine the extent to which they enable or obstruct biotech’s potential. Design/methodology/approach The authors first examine some key challenges facing the agriculture and agri-food sector and the potential role biotech can play in addressing them. These challenges include feeding the world’s growing population, improving nutrition worldwide, dealing with allergen risks, reducing nutrient and chemical loading in watersheds, addressing water scarcity issues, and reducing waste in the food system. The authors then turn their attention to the agri-biotech systems in three Asian giants, including China’s centralized governance approach, India’s central-local policy and regulations, and Japan’s pragmatic and evidence-based regulatory framework. Findings Each nation has evolved its own system of governance based on the different challenges facing the society, the recognized potential of different biotech interventions, and citizens’ collective perceptions regarding both the potential and the risks that biotech innovations embody. Systems that are less evidence-based appear to be more discretionary and therefore are less predictable in their outcomes. This increases risks to prospective exporting firms and importing firms, driving up system costs and effectively serving as barriers to entry and to trade. It also dampens and distorts entrepreneurial and innovation incentives. Research limitations/implications From the review and observations the authors then discuss ways and means of establishing priorities through a risk assessment framework in which key risks are enumerated and assessed in terms of their likelihoods and their conceivable consequences. Such an approach would allow challenges to be met with a degree of foresight and adaptability. Practical implications The sometimes disjointed, sometimes strategic use of biotech regulations have fragmented markets and created fiefdoms which undermine the potential of novel technologies to address the challenges facing society. Social implications For illustrative purposes, the authors touch on land and water governance, regulatory and institutional bottlenecks and reforms and the potential for agri-biotech to play an elevated role if vested interests and obstructions can be overcome. Originality/value This study draws on research and literature from several disciplines. It also includes discussions relating to bureaucratic and administrative behavior which erodes the extent to which markets can be contested. This results in balkanized markets and non-cooperative behavior that undermines and distorts incentives for entrepreneurial effort and innovation. That such behavior takes place in markets and disciplines that are fundamental to assuring food security, nutrition and health, as well as good governance of scarce water and land resources is of considerable concern.
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