Despite its huge agricultural potential, Albania has a sharp trade deficit with agricultural commodities. The main focus of this study is to analyse key determinants of its agricultural export. Here we employ baseline gravity model considering conventional gravity variables for Albanian export flows for the period 1996-2013. The Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) regression is used for stepwise estimations of the augmented gravity model, including effects of Albanian Diaspora, exchange rate and price stability, trade liberalization and institutional distance. Main findings suggest that agricultural export flow increases with increasing economic size, revealing higher impact of importer's absorbing potential comparatively to Albania's productive potential. On the other hand, growth in domestic demand, resulting from increase in population, leads to reduction of agricultural export. Moreover, agricultural export flows are determined by low transportation costs (distance), adjacency proximity (sharing common border) and linguistic similarities. Presence of Albanian Diaspora residing in the importing countries facilitates export flows. Results of this study reveal that exchange rate variability has a positive impact, while bilateral institutional distance has diminishing effects on Albanian agricultural exports.
We analyse the link between diet diversity, (which is a proxy of diet quality) and health outcomes measured by body-mass index (BMI) in a representative sample of Kosovar adults using household expenditure micro-data. Building on a household model of health production we devise a two-stage empirical strategy to estimate the determinants of diet diversity and its effect on BMI. Economic factors and demographic characteristics play an important role in the choice of balanced diets. Results from the BMI analysis support the hypothesis that diet diversity is associated with optimal BMI. One standard deviation increase in diet diversity leads to 2.3% increase in BMI of the underweight individuals and to 1.5% reduction in BMI of the obese individuals. The findings have important implications for food security policies aiming at enhancing the public health in Kosovo.
This study is focused on the analysis of spatial price transmission and market integration of Kosovo agricultural markets with world and EU markets. The paper employs asymmetric error correction model to quantify the extent, speed and nature of price adjustment for the long-run relationship between Kosovo, world and EU agricultural commodity prices. Monthly price data for key cereals (wheat, maize, barley) and beef meat covering the period 2004-2016 are used. Main findings of the study suggest that Kosovo is vulnerable to price transmitting signals from world and EU markets. Empirical results reveal evidence of asymmetry between Kosovo and world prices and signify stronger long-run relationship with the EU prices. Kosovo agricultural markets reacts to positive and negative price deviations, while world and EU prices do not respond on Kosovo price shocks. Kosovo as a price taker and as a country heavily reliant on agricultural and food imports has limited policy instruments to mitigate transmission of global price vulnerability. Under the current liberal trade regime with the regional and EU countries, any trade restrictive actions would have harming welfare effects on domestic consumers. Findings of this study contribute to agricultural and trade policymakers dealing with food prices and food security.
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