Colin A Carter

• University of California, Davis

We study the trade effects of the 2021 supply chain disruptions on containerized agricultural exports from California ports. Our event studies show that port congestion and container shortages reduced agricultural exports by 22% from May to November 2021. The export losses exceed $3.2 billion and vary substantially across commodity groups, with Cal...

Over the past 20 years there has been a large inflow of investment capital into commodity futures markets, a phenomenon known as the financialization of commodities. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the behavior of commodity futures returns before and since financialization of the markets. In contrast with most of the literature that treat...

This article explores therelationship among farm‐level productivity growth, scale, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity during a time period of significant agricultural policy change affecting Ireland's dairy industry. Specifically, we focus on the 2015 EU milk quota abolition, which initiated major dairy expansion in Ireland. We use a repre...

Since January 2015, California has required that all shell eggs consumed in the state be produced cage free or by hens housed in enlarged cages defined under Assembly Bill 1437. This paper assesses the effects of California farm animal housing restrictions on egg prices and production practices inside and outside California, and on the volume of in...

This paper evaluates an instance of large-scale hedging misfortune in the Australian sugar industry. A single corporation, known as Queensland Sugar Limited (QSL), was responsible for selling the entire volume of sugar exported from Australia. In 2010, QSL incurred over $100 million (2010 AUD) in hedging losses when harvest volumes were below expec...

en For about 70 years, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) was one of the world's largest export “single desk” state traders in agriculture, until it was deregulated in 2012 and stripped of its marketing powers. One of the main crops controlled by the CWB was barley. We estimate the impact of the removal of the CWB's single desk on the spatial pattern o...

en We estimate the impact of the 2012 removal of the Canadian Wheat Board's (CWB) single‐desk on the spatial pattern of durum wheat acres in Western Canada. We analyze changes in durum seeded acres with a panel regression and Census Agricultural Region data from 2004 to 2016. Our results indicate that removal of the CWB single‐desk had a significan...

Under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican sugar producers were ultimately granted free access to the US sugar market, while all other suppliers, including US refiners, were subject to supply quotas. Following a surge in imports of Mexican sugar, the American Sugar Coalition initiated anti‐dumping and countervailing duty (ADCVD) pr...

In July 2016, Vermont became the first U.S. state to require mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically engineered (GE) ingredients. The introduction of the Vermont law serves as a quasi-natural experiment on the economic effects of mandatory GE labeling. We investigate the market response in the U.S. sugar market. Almost all beet sugar is...

The ultimate impact of climate change on human systems will depend on the natural resilience of ecosystems on which societies rely as well as on adaptation measures taken by agents, individually and collectively. No sector of the economy is more reliant on climate than agriculture. Evidence from the American settlement process suggests that societi...

WTI and Brent crude oil futures are competing pricing benchmarks and they jockey for the number one position as the leading futures market. The price spread between WTI and Brent is also an important benchmark itself as the spread affects international trade in oil, refiner margins, and the price of refined products globally. In addition, the shape...

Recent booms and busts in commodity prices have generated concerns that financial speculation causes excessive commodity-price comovement, driving prices away from levels implied by supply and demand under rational expectations. We develop a structural vector autoregression model of a commodity futures market and use it to explain two recent spikes...

Verticillium dahliae is a soilborne fungus that is introduced to the soil via infested spinach seeds and that causes lettuce to be afflicted with Verticillium wilt. This disease has spread rapidly through the Salinas Valley, the prime lettuce production region of California. Verticillium wilt can be prevented or controlled by the grower by fumigati...

Plant pathogens migrate to new regions through human activities such as trade, where they may establish themselves and cause disease on agriculturally important crops. Verticillium wilt of lettuce, caused by Verticillium dahliae, is a soilborne fungus that was introduced to coastal California via infested spinach seeds. It has caused significant lo...

China is one of the most heavily polluted nations and is also the largest agricultural producer. There are relatively few studies measuring the effects of pollution on crop yields in China, and most are based on experiments or simulation methods. We use observational data to study the impact of increased air pollution (surface ozone) on rice yields...

en Canada regulates its dairy and poultry industries through supply management. The supply‐management programs use target prices, production quotas and import tariff‐rate quotas to raise domestic prices. Canadian supply‐managed producers cannot export their output to world markets as exports would be considered subsidized under World Trade Organiza...

Transport costs and product quality have received increased attention in the international trade literature. Product quality is a particularly important factor in international trade of high-valued commodities. We observe that significant transport costs for a relatively high quality product represent a natural trade barrier. In this case, transpor...

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established in 1975 to mitigate major oil supply disruptions and to deter the use of energy as a geopolitical “weapon.” However, policies towards the utilization of strategic oil stocks have varied under different presidencies and the SPR has often not been used in sufficient quantity or soon enough to...

n 2008, wheat futures prices spiked and then crashed along with prices for other agricultural and non-agricultural commodities. This study uses an econometric model to explain the influence of various factors, incuding passive speculation by large traders, on wheat prices. Findings show that market-specific shocks related to supply and demand for w...

Legislation passed in 2007 by the U.S. Congress increased by about 1.3 billion bushels the net amount of corn required to be processed annually into ethanol for motor-fuel use. We estimate that corn prices were about 30% higher from 2006 to 2014 than they would have been without this demand increase. We develop a partially identified structural vec...

The United States and Brazil are key players in the international market for orange juice, mainly frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ). The U.S. orange juice industry benefits from one of the highest levels of import protection in U.S. agriculture. Additional trade protection was recently added with a U.S. industry victory in an antidumping trad...

In the past thirty years, China has made great strides in terms of boosting food production while simultaneously reducing the number of its rural poor. This success was largely accomplished through agricultural policy and trade reform, food market liberalization, and public investment in agricultural infrastructure and agricultural research. Howeve...

Significant gaps remain in the U.S. regulatory system regarding accidental contamination from both regulated and deregulated genetically modified (GM) crops. First, costly blunders have been associated with confined field trials of regulated GM crops. Second, recent court cases have found that, in some cases during the USDA approval process, the U....

This paper studies the effect of electronic trade on the quality of market price discovery, using the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) cotton futures market as a laboratory to measure market quality under periods of floor trade, parallel floor and electronic trade, and electronic-only trade. Using random-walk decomposition methods pioneered by Hasbr...

This study used a static, partial budgeting approach to estimate the potential net benefits of the adoption of herbicide-tolerant transgenic rice in California. Scenarios were developed based on average cost figures across the state using actual pesticide use data and assuming a rice-only rotation, as well as a three-year field study of efficacy of...

Periodically, the global economy experiences great commodity booms and busts, characterized by a broad and sharp comovement of commodity prices. There have been two such episodes since the Korean War. The first event peaked in 1974 and the second in 2008, 34 years apart. Both created major economic and political shocks, including fallen governments...

With economic growth, the share of backyard hog production has declined in China over the past two decades. However, as backyard hog production fell in the rich, coastal regions, the backyard hog production from less wealthy, inland provinces has increased. In this paper, we illustrate the linkage between market development and patterns of househol...

Abstract We study U.S. agricultural antidumping and countervailing duty cases from 1980 to 2005, and gauge the effectiveness of trade remedy law as a form of protection. The purpose is to measure the resulting investigation and trade diversion effects. Previous research on trade in manufactured products has shown that the domestic protection offere...

This study presents an empirical analysis of the import demand for Brazilian ethanol by its six major foreign buyers. The primary objectives of this study were to identify the economic factors affecting the demand for ethanol imports and to derive long-run price and income elasticities of import demand. These elasticities could be used to analyze t...

This paper revives the seminal work of Jack Kenneth (J.K.) Eastham, an economist from the Dundee School of Economics, who in the 1930s wrote on the theoretical aspects of storable commodity markets. First, we present Eastham's contribution and show that despite using a graphical analysis, Eastham's model anticipated the modern competitive storage m...

Many countries have adopted labeling policies for genetically modified (GM) food, and the regulations vary considerably across countries. We evaluate the importance of political-economic factors implicit in the choice of GM food labeling regulations. Using an analytical model, we show that production and trade-related interests play a prominent rol...

Development of Chinese Agriculture since WTO Accession This article discusses the main agricultural impacts of China’s WTO accession and the associated challenges. We elaborate on four issues – agricultural production and trade, food security and self‐sufficiency, farmers’ incomes, and rural land reform. After more than seven years of WTO accession...

China’s Role in the 2007–2008 Global Food Price Boom and Bust The 2007–2008 agricultural commodity price boom was short‐lived, just like past agricultural commodity price spikes. Grain prices doubled or even tripled from 2006 to 2008, while accompanying food prices rose sharply. But prices then fell steeply in the latter part of 2008. Some internat...

The utilization of tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for enhancing market access is a key component of global agricultural trade negotiations. We identify factors affecting the performance of TRQs in terms of improving market access. The analysis covers individual TRQs notified by 28 WTO member countries from 1995 through 2000. Our results show that reduci...

With China’s accession to the WTO, concerns have arisen over the possible negative welfare impacts on domestic agricultural producers. The broad concern is that China’s domestic agricultural prices will be pushed down even further, leading to a greater widening of the gap between rural and urban incomes. It is widely believed that declining price r...

Increasingly, agricultural markets are vertically coordinated. Often a thinning spot market coexists with coordinated transactions, raising the question of how private coordination affects the market as a whole. One of the greatest challenges when analyzing such market-level effects is obtaining information on private transactions. We utilize publi...

This case study on the former Rice Growers Association (RGA) analyzes the effects of a variety of business decisions and market changes, relative to the ongoing Farmers’ Rice Cooperative (FRC). Interview and survey findings reveal that many respondents felt RGA’s Board of Directors was passive and, despite its large size, lacked the necessary e...

The 2007-2008 agricultural commodity price boom was short-lived, just like past agricultural commodity price spikes. Grain prices doubled or even tripled from 2006 to 2008, while accompanying food prices rose sharply. But prices then fell steeply in the latter part of 2008. Some international agencies argued that the high prices in 2008 were going...

Export constraints have an important effect on the domestic pricing of feed grains since they increase the supplies of feed grain available for domestic consumption. This paper examines and quantifies the welfare effects of “physical” and “institutional” export constraints before and after the adoption of the Domestic Feed Grains Policy (1974). Les...

Canada's wheat grading system is largely based on visual criteria and it is based on relatively high quality standards. A strict varieties licensing system exists to maintain the integrity of the grade standards. One of the consequences of the licensing system is that higher yielding, lower or different quality wheats have not been grown in Canada...

Faced with divergent opinions among consumers on the use of genetically modified (GM) foods, Canada has adopted a voluntary labelling approach for non-GM foods, whereas the European Union has a mandatory labelling policy for GM foods. Interestingly, both labelling systems have resulted in very little, if any, additional consumer choice. Using an an...

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange hog futures contract was revamped in 1997 and it is one of the largest futures markets for a nonstorable commodity. The literature is divided on whether or not futures prices for nonstorables provide reliable forecasts of cash prices. We find that from 1998 to 2004, the hog futures market was an unbiased predictor of...

This paper investigates optimal trade-related policies for managing import risk arising from invasive species. We find analytical evidence that when a cleaning technology is available for foreign exporters and the optimal level of import inspections is strictly positive, a penalty imposed on contaminated imports is likely to be superior to a simple...

In agriculture, relatively few efficacious control measures may be available for an invasive pest. In the case of a new insect pest, insecticide use decisions are affected by regulations associated with its registration, insect population dynamics, and seasonal market price cycles. We assess the costs and benefits of environmental regulations desig...

I n July 2008, the world found itself in the middle of a food crisis, with sharp food price increases raising concerns about increased hunger and political instability in poor countries and worries over inflation in China and elsewhere. Figure 1 shows that prices of the four major food com-modities (corn, rice, soybeans, and wheat) approximately tr...

There remains controversy over whether the empirical curve relating intertemporal commodity price spreads and stocks, originally drawn by Holbrook Working in 1933 (i.e., the Working curve), is a valid stylized fact in commodity markets. The core of the controversy is the portion of the curve representing commodity stocks under backwardation. In thi...

In 2000, a genetically modified corn variety called StarLink that was not approved for human consumption was discovered in the food-corn supply. To estimate the price impact of this event on the U.S. corn market, we develop the relative price of a substitute method. This method applies not only to the StarLink event but also to rare events in other...

This paper draws on the theory of product differentiation in a trade context and uses three case studies to highlight the conditions necessary for a successful geographical-origin branding strategy for farm produce in the United States. In so doing, the U.S. country-of-origin labeling (COOL) scheme as a branding strategy for produce is assessed. Th...

Canada has stringent regulations covering the release and marketing of new wheat varieties, while its major global competitor, the United States, has virtually no regulations in this area. Monsanto Co. developed genetically modified (GM) spring wheat for North America, and made a commitment to the U.S. industry to release this new cost saving techn...

No abstract available.

Canada has stringent regulations covering the release of new wheat varieties, but the United States has virtually no regulations in this area. Monsanto Co. developed genetically modified (GM) spring wheat for North America, and made a commitment to the U.S. industry to release this new technology simultaneously in both Canada and the United States,...

We review the approval and labeling regulations covering genetically modified (GM) foods in the United States, the European Union (EU), Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We divide these countries into three groups according to their regulatory approach. At one extreme, the United States and Canada use pragmatic and science-based regulation...

Changes in production conditions associated with biological invasions can be complex. As a result, modeling invasive species management decisions can be difficult. Modeling these decisions is further compounded by externalities associated with spatial relationships among growers. In order to calculate optimal management decisions, an accurate bioec...

This reply is in response to comments made in the November 1993 issue of this Journal [CJAE 41: 271-81] in the invited paper series on the economics of a continental barley market. At that time, the editors regretfully did not allow authors of invited papers to review or respond to the invited comments.

Export state trading enterprises (STEs) play an important role in global agricultural trade. STE behavior has significant implications for world food markets, irrespective of whether or not these markets are inherently competitive. Previous literature has suggested that STEs have market power and can earn oligopolistic rents. We find there is no co...

California strawberry production accounts for 18% of total methyl bromide use in U.S. agriculture. Under the Montreal Protocol, methyl bromide was slated to be banned in the United States in 2005. A critical use exemption was obtained for U.S. agriculture for 2005 and 2006, but the phaseout of methyl bromide continues. We examine the ban's effects...

Government policy in China supports urban wages at the expense of returns to farm labour. A model is developed to estimate how WTO accession and complementary labour market reform will influence factor returns in China. With WTO membership, a larger cut in manufacturing tariffs compared to agriculture will improve agriculture's terms of trade and w...

We study the impacts of the implementation of agricultural tariff rate quotas on market access. A doble-censored Tobit model is specified to examine factors that affect the performance of tariff rate quotas. The results show that both in-quota tariff rates and administrative methods restrict market access and lower quota fill rate. The effect of ov...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors wish to thank Donna Mitten from Bayer CropScience for her cooperation. ©2005 by the Regents of the University of California Division of Natural Resources All rights reserved. Nopart of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, ph...

This paper models the interaction of working (also called pipeline) and speculative commodity stocks. We model working inventories (i.e., raw material inventories carried by processors) based on Ramey's (1989) model of inventories as factors of production, which allows us to represent storage under inter-temporal price backwardation, observed in co...

The paper presents some results from a stated-preference study that compares three samples of urban consumers of extra-virgin olive oil from three representative Italian cities: Naples (South), Rome (Centre) and Milan (North). A series of multinomial logit models are estimated from choice experiments responses and tested for unobserved heterogeneit...

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) restricts pesticide use to reduce negative impacts on human health and the environment. The DPR implemented methyl bromide use regulations in 2001. Our study demonstrates that the estimated 2001 costs of these regulations for the California strawberry industry were quite substantial (more than...

Disaggregated trade data are used to examine changing trade patterns for five developed economic regions: the USA, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Japan. This study covers the 1980-1997 time period, during which international trade for most goods faced less border protection. Changing trade patterns are found for the USA, Japan, and the E...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/13/04.

This empirical study investigates a large California cooperative’'s closure and identifies lessons learned that might be useful to other cooperatives. It was found that the cooperative'’s directors failed to effectively supervise management. In turn, management fell short of expectations to fully evaluate complex business decisions.

Environmental regulation of agriculture is becoming increasingly important, and growers are increasingly concerned about the effects of regulations on their profitability. Regulations governing the use of a pesticide affect its economic value. Further, growers often face a choice among pesticide alternatives, each with its own set of regulatory res...

The paper presents some results from a stated-preference study that compares three samples of urban consumers of extra-virgin olive oil from three representative Italian cities: Naples (South), Rome (Centre) and Milan (North). A series of multinomial logit models are estimated from choice experiments responses and tested for unobserved heterogeneit...

This paper gives estimates of the potential profitability of herbi- cide-tolerant (HT) rice cultivation in the Sacramento Valley region of California. We estimate first-year returns for the aver- age producer and use both deterministic and stochastic meth- ods to perform sensitivity analysis to account for heterogeneity and uncertainty with respect...

We measure agricultural productivity growth in China using alternative data sets: farm level data for Jiangsu province, national data, and provincial aggregate data for Jiangsu. For all three data sets, productivity growth was estimated to be strong during the immediate post-reform 1978–1987 period. According to the farm level data, productivity gr...

Labeling requirements for genetically modified (GM) foods vary dramatically across nations. The European Union (EU) has stringent labeling laws, whereas the United States does not require GM labeling. Developing countries are caught in the middle and some have adopted the EU approach to maintain market access in Europe. With an analytical model, we...

Trade remedy law is viewed as a major vehicle for protection in U.S. agriculture. The objective of this paper is to summarize the use of trade remedy law by U.S. agriculture and to highlight examples of where the use of these laws conflicts with free trade agreements such as NAFTA. Empirical evidence is presented of the effects of U.S. trade remedy...

The United States accounts for two thirds of bioengineered crops produced globally. Other major suppliers include Argentina, Canada, and China. More than 20% of the global crop acreage of soybeans, corn, cotton, and canola is now bio- tech varieties (International Service for the Acquisi- tion of Agri-biotech Applications, 2003). In addition, biote...

The mandatory labeling of genetically modified (GM) food aims to provide consumer choice. However, in the European Union and elsewhere, GM food with mandatory labeling has disappeared from the retail shelves. Food processors' economic incentives may explain why mandatory labeling has so far failed to provide consumer choice.