Elasticities of substitution, often called Armington elasticities, reflect incomplete substitutability because of perceived product characteristics. This study divides the determinants of the Japanese demand for beef imports into two factors: (i) substitution elasticity and (ii) country-of-origin bias, and demonstrate how these measurements are associated with trade policy and food scare events. The Japanese beef industry serves as a case study to evaluate the multifold impact of import liberalisation and a series of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreaks. A time-varying parameter model is used to shed light on the dynamic effects of the import liberalisation and BSE outbreaks on the measurements. The estimation results reveal that the estimated substitutability and country-of-origin bias are very sensitive to the BSE cases, but not to the process of trade liberalisation. The results also confirm that as a result of the BSE outbreaks, the major factor of the Japanese demand for beef imports has changed from relative prices to the country-of-origin effect, thereby emphasising the importance of a traceability system and promotional activities, which would help in the formation of the country-of-origin effect.
[1] The depletion of water storage worldwide as a consequence of reservoir sedimentation is a growing problem. Effective sediment management is needed to enhance dam productivity and to extend storage life, thereby avoiding various economic and environmental losses. This paper analyzes reservoir level sediment management from a benefit-cost perspective and suggests desirable management strategies. Dynamic programming simulation has been used to analyze the long-term consequences of dam management decisions regarding reservoir sedimentation. The results indicate that doing nothing is likely to lead to inefficiencies and reduce the social welfare in the long run. Alternatively, introducing reservoir level sediment management can mitigate the economic loss due to reservoir sedimentation. Technical innovations that improve sediment removal capabilities and their cost would be vital for conserving the reservoir water storage.
This article assesses the emergency stockpiling of food and drinking water at the household level and identifies the socioeconomic factors affecting households' decision making in this regard. The results show that only 30% of the respondents stock both food and drinking water as recommended. Further, around 65% of the respondents are projected to be food insecure when essential utilities become unavailable. Our probit regression results reject the moral hazard hypothesis in disaster preparedness and show that emergency food stockpiles are treated as luxury goods despite their importance. The policy implications of our results are discussed with the view of strengthening community-based disaster management.
<strong>ABSTRACT</strong><br /><br />This paper analyzes poverty-related data in Indonesia at regency and city level. First, poverty mapping is carried out at disaggregated levels by regency or city to visually identify the prevalence of poverty. Second, the relationship between consumption-based poverty and capability-based poverty is examined using principal component regression. This approach clarifies the influence of basic needs availability and other poverty characteristics on consumption-based poverty. Poverty rate, poverty gap and severity poverty are scattered in all regencies and cities, showing the tendency that poverty indices are higher and more severe in eastern islands of the country compared to other regions. In addition to food expenditure, the basic needs and working sector are closely related to consumption-based poverty. The toilet availability, access to safe water and public health services and education, often measured as the dimensions of capability based poverty, are very important to have bearing on consumption-based poverty. To reduce severity of poverty, safe water access is especially the most important factor among other public health variables. Severity poverty also turns out to be correlated with education variables. Completion of elementary and higher education is negatively correlated with severity poverty and more important than food expenditures.
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