Publications (4)5.23 Total impact
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Article: Markets, climate change, and food security in West Africa.
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ABSTRACT: Food price fluctuations, which will be exacerbated by climate change, make West African food security even more tenuous.Environmental Science and Technology 11/2009; 43(21):8016-20. · 5.23 Impact Factor -
Article: A Model of West African Millet Prices in Rural Markets
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ABSTRACT: In this article we specify a model of millet prices in the three West African countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Using data obtained from USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) we present a unique regional cereal price forecasting model that takes advantage of the panel nature of our data, and accounts for the flow of millet across markets. Another novel aspect of our analysis is our use of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to detect and control for variation in conditions for productivity. The average absolute out-of-sample prediction error for 4-month-ahead millet prices is about 20 %.CEPE Center for Energy Policy and Economics, ETH Zürich, CEPE Working paper series. 01/2009; -
Article: The Effective Use of Limited Information: Do Bid Maximums Reduce Procurement Cost in Asymmetric Auctions.
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ABSTRACT: Conservation programs faced with limited budgets often use a competitive enrollment mechanism. Goals of enrollment might include minimizing program expenditures, encouraging broad participation, and inducing adoption of enhanced environmental practices. We use experimental methods to evaluate an auction mechanism that incorporates bid maximums and quality adjustments. We examine this mechanism’s performance characteristics when opportunity costs are heterogeneous across potential participants, and when costs are only approximately known by the purchaser. We find that overly stringent maximums can increase overall expenditures, and that when quality of offers is important, substantial increases in offer maximums can yield a better quality-adjusted result. -
Article: Using Quotas to Enhance Competition in Asymmetric Auctions: A Comparison of Theoretical and Experimental Outcomes
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ABSTRACT: We study multiple-unit asymmetric procurement auctions wherein sellers from two classes draw costs from different distributions. When sellers are asymmetric, a cost-minimizing buyer discriminates among classes of sellers to enhance competition [1]. Establishing a quota—a limit on the number of offers that can be accepted from any one class—discriminates simply and effectively. The quota increases demand scarcity from the perspective of low-cost sellers, which causes them to lower their offers. To solve for approximate equilibrium strategies of asymmetric auctions with and without a quota, we develop a new method that is similar but distinctly different from the constrained strategic equilibrium (CSE) approach [2]. The new method finds the constrained strategies that minimize the expected gain from a randomly chosen seller unilaterally deviating from the constrained strategy. We find quota can enhance competition and lower total procurement cost. We subject the same auctions to laboratory testing and find savings from quota in excess of that predicted by the approximate equilibrium strategies. This study is first to combine theory and experimental evidence of auctions with quotas, though similar mechanisms are widely used in practice. Because the mechanism is widely used to promote social goals and can also lead to better outcomes for the buyer, our findings have both positive and normative implications. One potentially interesting application of quota auctions would be for large-scale procurement of ecosystem services like carbon sequestration.
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2009
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NASA
Washington, WV, USA
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