Food consumption changes during transition are analysed using a resource-based cereal equivalent measure to identify three defining turning points: (1) the initial drop in food consumption (experienced by all countries except Romania); (2) stabilisation of food consumption at the new, lower level (reached by CEECs and the Baltic States but not by the former USSR as a whole); (3) achievement of market consumption levels consistent with levels of real income (reached by Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia). Country agricultural self-sufficiency measures are calculated yielding policy implications as accession to the European Union is contemplated by many transitional countries. Comparative Economic Studies (2004) 46, 542–569. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100050
Economists have long recognized that output‐share leases result in inefficiencies in variable resource use. Cost‐share leases have been suggested as a way of overcoming this inefficiency. Only in rare cases, however, has cost sharing become a part of share leasing in less‐developed countries. It is argued in this article that in less‐developed countries landowners generally make more net income by not adopting cost‐share leases. The societal loss due to output‐share leasing, and several policy alternatives, in addition to cost‐sharing, which might help resolve this inefficiency problem, are discussed.
Competitiveness in world markets is the foundation upon which the GATT negotiations and the New Economic Order are built. In this article the changing competitiveness in world soybean markets is evaluated relative to government policy and natural resources. The landed cost of soybeans at Rotterdam and Japan favors Argentina and Brazil over the US. For soybeans and soybean products combined, the US has steadily lost export market share from about 95% in the early 1970s to 45% in 1990. The Brazilian share has grown to 30% and the Argentine share to 16% in this same period. A fundamental shift from the export of soybeans to more soybean product exports has occurred largely because of policies favoring product exports from Argentina and Brazil.Competitiveness in world markets is the foundation upon which the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations and the post-cold-war New Economic Order are built. For the United States, agricultural exports are an important component of this new economic order, and lack of progress on agricultural issues the principal reason for failure of the Uruguay round of GATT.' Soybeans and soybean products are one of the most important export commodities accounting for almost one-fifth of US agricultural exports.Slow growth of world agricultural markets in the 1980s was related to a number of noncompetitive market factors including increased interest payments on foreign debt, especially among large debtor countries; significant export subsidization, especially by the European Economic Community (EEC); quota and tariff protection for a number of inefficient domestically produced products, repreThe authors thank Allan Lines and the two anonymous journal reviewers for their constructive comments and Susan Sheller and Janice DiCamlis for their editorial and graphic art assistance.
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