In a static setting, willingness to pay for an environmental improvement is equal to compensating variation. However, in a dynamic setting characterized by uncertainty, irreversibility, and the potential for learning, willingness to pay may also contain an option value. In this paper, we...

China's economic reforms, which began in 1978, resulted in remarkable income growth, and urban Chinese consumers have responded by dramatically increasing their consumption of meat, other livestock products, and fruits and by decreasing consumption of grain-based foods. Economic prosperity, a...

The recent ban on pork exports from Taiwan resulting from an outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in March 1997 will significantly alter future world trade patterns in pork. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the price and trade effects of this export ban. The analysis uses the Food...

The authors analyze the impact of China's accession to the World Trade Organization on major crop and livestock markets using the FAPRI modeling framework. They incorporate expected changes in consumer income, textile production, and trade policies as exogenous shocks to the baseline model....

In this paper we use 2001-2002 urban survey data we collected to analyze demographics, cultural factors, and purchasing behaviors influencing the consumption of fresh milk, yogurt, ice cream, and powered milk in urban areas of China. The data include frequency of consumption by product, location...

This study advances, and experimentally tests, a new explanation for the disparity between willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA)—a dynamic neoclassical theory based on the presence of commitment costs. While to date neoclassical models have not explained the observed...

This paper analyzes the effect on dairy markets of the Berlin Accord and the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms. It also investigates the consequences of the EU enlargement to include three Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), the Czech Republic, Hungary, and...

The authors present a dynamic model of an agent's decision to purchase or sell a good under the following conditions: uncertainty, irreversibility, and learning over time. As the authors show, an agent's willingness-to-pay (WTP) is influenced by both the intrinsic value of the good and the...

In an attempt to understand better Brazil's future role in agricultural markets, the authors of this report traveled to Brazil on a fact-finding mission in September 2003. The goal was to get a first-hand impression of Brazil's agricultural sector and especially its future potential. In this...

Over the past two decades, trade in high-value (or value-added) agricultural products (HVPs) has been the fastest growing component of world agricultural trade. This study addresses some of the issues raised by promotion of HVP exports by considering the effects of various exogenous price shocks...