Browsing by Author "Winter-Nelson, Alex"

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    Impacts of prices and transactions costs on input usage in a liberalizing economy: evidence from Tanzanian coffee growers
    (2004-06-15) Winter-Nelson, Alex; Temu, Anna
    Despite improvements in production incentives, agricultural output in Africa remained sluggish through the 1990s. Low use of purchased inputs may be part of the cause of persistently low productivity in African agriculture. This article analyzes the roles of relative prices and transactions costs in explaining low use of chemical inputs among Tanzanian coffee growers. A sample selection model indicates that output prices exert great influence on input purchases and that both fixed and variable transactions costs affect input use decisions. Travel costs in input and output markets have distinct effects on input usage, implying distinct avenues for interventions to promote more intensive use of agricultural inputs.
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    Institutional adjustment and transaction costs: product and inputs markets in the Tanzanian coffee system
    (Elsevier Science Ltd, 2002) Winter-Nelson, Alex; Temu, Anna
    Commodity market liberalization can improve incentives for production of export crops by reducing the total costs of transforming products through space, form and time, or by reducing the costs of arranging and completing transactions. While liberalization often leads to reduced costs in output exchange, it can remove opportunities for linked input–output transactions that sometimes lowered the costs of providing finance in state-controlled markets. Assessments of liberalization that focus on output exchange alone obscure the impact of rising transaction costs in finance. This study of liberalization in the Tanzanian coffee market documents declining costs in output marketing, rising transaction costs for financing farm activities, and differential, but generally positive, net impacts on growers.