TAKING SERIOUSLY THE GOAL OF BUILDING more inclusive rural communities also requires taking seriously the challenges facing people in these communities.Both rural and remote settler and Indigenous communities in western Canada are experiencing the negative effects of a growing development "gap" between the rural peripheries and urban centres, although the challenges they face are not identical. 1Indigenous communities, which have been marginalized and oppressed since the very early days of colonization, continue to deal with the havoc inflicted on their communities by colonial policies, such as the attempted destruction of their social capacity through the residential school system and the severe constraints placed on Indigenous economic autonomy by the Indian Act. 2 By contrast, settlers residing in agrarian-based rural communities and once-vibrant regional manufacturing centres are experiencing more recent losses of primary industries and employers due to globalization, the competitive pressure for economies of scale in agricultural production, and the fossil fuel industry downturn.All of these factors have resulted in increasing exclusion of rural settlers from the labour market as family farms give way to corporate agriculture, businesses shut down, and skills

Chinese cooperatives have developed fast after China passed the cooperative law in 2007. However, in most Chinese cooperatives, a small group of core members contribute most of the required capital and take control of the cooperatives, which fuels the discussion on the nature of the Chinese cooperatives and the cooperatives’ internal relationships. Using a qualitative study method, we discuss how the rural context and the social relations in rural China shaped the model of cooperatives. We conclude by summarizing our “social relations” perspective of the Chinese cooperative model and discussing its connections with and deviations from the cooperative theories in the west.

Economists have long been interested in why farmers decide to adopt new technologies. Modeling decision making requires modeling behavior; the key behavioral assumption is profit maximization. In addition, most empirical studies assume a binary decision-adopt or not. This paper argues that adoption should be understood as a process with multiple stages in which the final decision to use the new technology only occurs if the previous stages are completed. While profit considerations are clearly important, particularly in the later stages of the process, they need to be supplemented with other social and cognitive considerations, particularly in the early stages. Understood this way, profit maximization assumptions can provide predictions for the upper or lower bounds of adoption. The adoption rate suggested by profit maximization will be an upper bound if noneconomic factors are expected to either slow down or deter adoption, while that rate will be a lower bound if noneconomic factors are expected to encourage adoption. To capture these elements, econometric models need to pay attention to the timing of decisions and use techniques that condition later-stage decisions on previous stage outcomes. In addition, the paper suggests the use of expert systems that have economic, learning and social aspects explicitly built into them would be valuable.

Akerlof’s “Lemons” paper provides a seminal economic result suggesting that, in markets with asymmetric information where product quality is unobservable by consumers prior to purchase and use, the introduction of a low-quality product will drive its higher quality counterpart(s) out of the market. In this paper we identify some empirically relevant cases/conditions under which the introduction of a low-quality product does not drive its higher quality substitutes out of the market but, instead, ends-up coexisting with them.

This paper examines managerial corruption in cooperatives (co-ops) and investor-owned firms (IOFs), including its impact on prices and farmer welfare. Even when co-op managers have greater incentives to engage in corruption because of the co-op's larger production, the resulting corruption is not sufficient to offset the competitive effect that co-ops exert vis-a-vis IOFs. This conclusion holds regardless of the functional form of the production function, the farm input supply curve, and the demand curve for the processed product. In addition to showing the robustness of the competition effect, the paper provides a highly flexible modeling framework that can be used to examine other co-op behavior questions.

In Hotelling’s linear town model characteristics are implicitly assumed to be related in such a way that preferences for them can be mapped into a one-dimensional town. This results in perfectly correlated willingness to pay levels. Many differentiated products, however, embody characteristics that are functionally at least somewhat unrelated to other characteristics. This paper makes the implicit assumption of perfectly correlated preferences in the original Hotelling model explicit, and examine the implications of this assumption for the economics of competition. We develop a simple theoretical model to show that shape of the demand curve for differentiated products depends on distribution of consumers’ preferences, which is determined by the nature of the relationship between the corresponding characteristics. Misrepresentation of correlated preferences in differentiated product models impacts demand elasticity and can result in unreliable outcomes. This issue is particularly important in agricultural and food markets where many factors such as expectations about weather and information on social media can impact consumer ranking of one product versus another in ways that are not fully observable or measurable by the researcher.

Agricultural research and development (R&D) investment has become an increasingly important policy issue as food prices increased and food security problems emerged over the last decade. An important source of agricultural R&D funding is the producer check-off, which is increasingly being used to fund applied agricultural research. Existing studies of producer-funded agricultural R&D indicate there are high private rates of return to agricultural R&D investment by farmers, and thus farmers are underinvesting in R&D. Since a farmer's time horizon is typically less than the period of time over which the benefits of agricultural R&D take place, the horizon problem has been identified as a possible factor in this underinvestment. This paper shows that the horizon problem is unlikely to be the only cause of the underinvestment when the internal rate of return is large. Instead, shortened producer horizons only emerge as the main source of underinvestment when the internal rate of return is low. As a result, other factors, including behavioral determinants, need to be looked at as contributors to the underfunding of agricultural R&D. Les investissements en recherche et développement agricoles sont devenus un important enjeu politique étant donné l'augmentation des prix des aliments et les problèmes de sécurité alimentaire de la dernière décennie. Une importante source de financement pour la recherche et le développement dans le domaine agricole sont les programmes de contribution des producteurs, ces derniers étant de plus en plus sollicités pour financer la recherche agricole appliquée. Certaines études portant sur la recherche et le développement agricoles financés par les producteurs indiquent un haut taux de rendement privé des investissements en recherche et développement agricoles par les producteurs. Ces derniers y investissent donc moins. Puisque l'échéancier de l'agriculteur est typiquement moins long que celui pendant lequel les avantages liés à la recherche et au développement dans le domaine agricole s'échelonnent, le problème de l'horizon a été identifié comme facteur potentiel au sous-investissement. Il est probable, selon cet article, que le problème de l'horizon ne soit pas la seule cause du sous-investissement lorsque le taux interne de rendement s'avère grand. Plutôt, les échéanciers réduits des agriculteurs apparaissent seulement comme les sources principales de sous-investissement lorsque le taux de rendement interne est bas. Il en résulte que d'autres facteurs, incluant les déterminants comportementaux, doivent être examinés à titre de contributeurs au sous-investissement de la recherche et du développement en agriculture.

Agricultural research and development (R&D) investment has become an increasingly important policy issue as food prices increased and food security problems emerged over the last decade. An important source of agricultural R&D funding is the producer check-off, which is increasingly being used to fund applied agricultural research. Existing studies of producer-funded agricultural R&D indicate there are high private rates of return to agricultural R&D investment by farmers, and thus farmers are underinvesting in R&D. Since a farmer's time horizon is typically less than the period of time over which the benefits of agricultural R&D take place, the horizon problem has been identified as a possible factor in this underinvestment. This paper shows that the horizon problem is unlikely to be the only cause of the underinvestment when the internal rate of return is large. Instead, shortened producer horizons only emerge as the main source of underinvestment when the internal rate of return is low. As a result, other factors, including behavioral determinants, need to be looked at as contributors to the underfunding of agricultural R&D.

Abstract In this paper, we use a unique data set of the prices paid to farmers in Argentina for grapes to examine the prices paid by non-varietal wine processing cooperatives and investor-oriented firms (IOFs). Motivated by contrasting theoretical predictions of cooperative price effects generated by the yardstick of competition and property rights theories, we apply a multilevel regression model to identify price differences at the transaction level and the departmental level. On average, farmers selling to cooperatives receive a 3.4 % lower price than farmers selling to IOFs. However, we find cooperatives pay approximately 2.4 % more in departments where cooperatives have larger market shares. We suggest that the inability of cooperatives to pay a price equal to or greater than the one paid by IOFs can be explained by the market structure for non-varietal wine in Argentina. Specifically, there is evidence that cooperative members differ from other farmers in terms of size, assets and the cost of accessing the market. We conclude that the analysis of cooperative pricing cannot solely focus on the price differential between cooperatives and IOFs, but instead must consider other factors that are important to the members.

Hiring is a critical determinant of organizational performance and has received considerable attention in economics where the focus is on identifying who is the best person for the job (an adverse selection problem) and ensuring that the person hired has incentives to behave in a desirable manner (a moral hazard problem). The implicit assumption in this literature is that everyone agrees on what constitutes the "best candidate." In this paper we show that the economics literature fails to recognize that people will generally disagree over "what is best?" Answering this question requires people to make inferences about the environment the organization expects to experience in the future and to match this environment with leader characteristics. Given the idiosyncratic nature of inference, there will be disagreement on the "best person for the job," even when everyone shares the same goals. The purpose of this paper is to outline why conflict regarding the most desirable person for the job emerges in rapidly changing environments and how this conflict is different from conflict that arises from self-interest and the presence of decision-making biases. The paper shows that conflict from inference, if properly dealt with, can actually improve decision-making, and what can be done to create the right conditions for this to occur. The paper also shows why hiring always involves an element of luck.

Purpose - To understand the political economy of export restrictions for grain commodities in Vietnam and India.Methodology/approach - Two theoretical models were developed (one for each country) to analyze government policies for export restrictions in Vietnam and India based on price fluctuations. In Vietnam, there was one choice variable - export tariffs. In India, there were two choice variables - export tariffs and procurements. In both cases, the elite were assumed to maximize expected rents.Findings - Export restrictions have become an important feature of trade policy in Vietnam and India and are unlikely to be eliminated in the foreseeable future because to do so would be costly both politically and economically to local elites. The impact of food price increases can be particularly large given the importance of loss aversion.Practical implications - Understanding export restrictions as the outcome of a political-economic calculation is important because it suggests that efforts to limit export restrictions in countries like Vietnam and India are unlikely to be successful.

This paper develops a model of heterogeneous individuals to analyze the interacting horizon and free-rider problems faced by cooperative organizations. Analytical results identify the conditions under which a cooperative will form despite these property rights problems and show that (i) differences in members' time horizons need not necessarily lead to short-term cooperative investments and (ii) free riding is not always a problem for cooperatives. The analysis also shows how a cooperative can use a membership fee to address these property rights problems and provides additional insights into the relationship between a cooperative's cost structure and membership fees.

This paper provides a framework for thinking about agricultural policy, why and how it is introduced, and how it changes over time. This framework suggests that agricultural policy will be influenced by both concerns for efficiency and lobbying. While agricultural policy will not always be effective, it will be relatively stable, at least in terms of its broad outlines. Underlying this broad stability, however, will be considerable small-scale change as program and policy details shift in response to a changing environment. When policy changes in a major way, which it almost always will, the shift will be abrupt—a punctuation. These abrupt changes come as attention is eventually paid to areas and/or issues that are increasingly understood to be not working. While there is considerable room for economic analysis in the policy process, it will not be the main driver; this role belongs to politics—the ability to change the discourse around a policy issue in such a way that different evaluations and interpretations of the policy and its impact are created. Based on the analysis in this paper, it is argued that supply management is more likely to see significant change than business risk management programs, since more attention seems to be currently directed at the former issue. It is also argued that although proponents of local food, organic production, and urban agriculture have had some success at getting attention focused on these issues, this success will not translate into any major policy changes, in part because markets for these products are developing and appear to be working reasonably well.

This article develops a political economy model of the board-manager relationship in consumer-owned enterprises (COEs), illustrating how the governance structure plays a key role in determining managerial power. The key conclusion of the article is that managerial remuneration and the resources devoted to governance are strategic choices for the COE and that their determination involves a trade-off. This trade-off depends on factors external to the COE, such as the COE's time horizon (as captured in the discount rate) and the manager's opportunity cost outside the COE (e.g. the remuneration paid in investor-owned firms). The trade-off also is influenced by the degree of complementarity between remuneration and governance resources, and by the sensitivity of managerial utility to financial remuneration and to governance.

This article argues that the structure of the Vietnamese rice export system is, in political economy terms, a rational response to the volatility present in the international rice market. In particular, it is argued that the Vietnamese Food Agency, along with VINAFOOD-1 and VINAFOOD-2, have been structured so that they can benefit from the domestic demands for export restrictions anticipated to occur as a consequence of international price volatility and the psychological demand of consumers for price stability. In turn, the actions of these agencies also contribute to international price volatility and the resulting demand for export restrictions. Since the political and economic elite in Vietnam obtain both political and economic power from this system, it is unlikely to be replaced with more effective and efficient policies to combat domestic price volatility. Thus, continued volatility in the price of rice can be expected.

This paper provides a framework for thinking about agricultural policy, why and how it is introduced, and how it changes over time. This framework suggests that agricultural policy will be influenced by both concerns for efficiency and lobbying. While agricultural policy will not always be effective, it will be relatively stable, at least in terms of its broad outlines. Underlying this broad stability, however, will be considerable small‐scale change as program and policy details shift in response to a changing environment. When policy changes in a major way, which it almost always will, the shift will be abrupt—a punctuation. These abrupt changes come as attention is eventually paid to areas and/or issues that are increasingly understood to be not working. While there is considerable room for economic analysis in the policy process, it will not be the main driver; this role belongs to politics—the ability to change the discourse around a policy issue in such a way that different evaluations and interpretations of the policy and its impact are created. Based on the analysis in this paper, it is argued that supply management is more likely to see significant change than business risk management programs, since more attention seems to be currently directed at the former issue. It is also argued that although proponents of local food, organic production, and urban agriculture have had some success at getting attention focused on these issues, this success will not translate into any major policy changes, in part because markets for these products are developing and appear to be working reasonably well.

Despite their continuing popularity and value-creation potential, strategic alliances fail as often as they succeed. Alliance failure is often attributed to opportunistic behavior by one or more of the partners. This paper draws upon empirical evidence from a successful alliance - a federated cooperative marketing system - to shed light on some of the economic and behavioral strategies and mechanisms that alliances can use to promote effective cooperation among alliance partners. The paper also shows how the alliance management body can generate the resources needed to develop and implement such mechanisms, and make alliance partners buy into these mechanisms.

Despite their continuing popularity and value-creation potential, strategic alliances fail as often as they succeed. Alliance failure is often attributed to opportunistic behavior by one or more of the partners. This paper draws upon empirical evidence from a successful alliance – a federated cooperative marketing system – to shed light on some of the economic and behavioral strategies and mechanisms that alliances can use to promote effective cooperation among alliance partners. The paper also shows how the alliance management body can generate the resources needed to develop and implement such mechanisms, and make alliance partners buy into these mechanisms.