Does Market Liberalisation Jeopardise Export Quality? Cameroonian Cocoa, 1988--2000

A frequently encountered argument against the liberalisation of markets for tropical crop commodities is that this may jeopardise export quality. We look at this argument in the specific case of Cameroonian cocoa export, where it is widely supposed that liberalisation has resulted in a decline in quality. That claim is not supported by examination of the unit value of cocoa imports into the European Union, which demonstrates constant relativities over time in the unit value of cocoa imports from major West African producers. We argue that, in a liberalised environment, export quality is determined by market participants and that increased competition from cocoa buyers has resulted in a transfer of some processing functions from farmers to intermediaries. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.