Agricultural Markets from Theory to Practice

In an era of globalization, private markets are expected to dominate the distribution of goods worldwide. Yet surprisingly little empirical work is conducted on them. The sensitive and secret nature of trading information, the complexity of real markets and the lack of official data other than that on price can all cause problems. This book seeks to overcome these in examining arguably the most difficult markets of all - agricultural markets under conditions of underdevelopment. Case-studies from nine countries covering all three underdeveloped continents offer a comprehensive overview of the lessons to be learnt from field experience.

Autorentext

LUCY ADRIAN Emeritus Fellow and Director of Studies, Newnham College, Cambridge, UK DEBORAH FAHY BRYCESON Africa Studies Centre, Leiden, Netherlands BERND CHRISTIANSEN Institute for Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, the Tropics University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany PAUL CLOUGH Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta, Malta BEN CROW Food Research Institute, University of Stanford, California, USA GEORGE JONES Emeritus Research Fellow, Agricultural Economics Unit, Oxford University, UK PRISCILLA MAGRATH Natural Resources Institute, UK JOS MOOIJ Department of Agrarian Law, Agricultural University, Wageningen, Netherlands WENDY OLSEN Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK MATTHIAS VON OPPEN Institute for Agricultural Economics and Social in the Tropics University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany THEODOSIOS PALASKAS Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, UK LUZ ALICIA JIMENEZ PORTUGAL Institute for Agricultural Economics and Social in the Tropics University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany ELSBETH ROBSON Department of Geography, Keele University, UK

Inhalt
Preface List of Contributors Introduction: Visible Hands; B. Harriss-White PART ONE: EXCHANGE Village Level Exchange: Lessons from South India; W. Olsen Social Stratification and Exchange in West African Conditions: A Participatory Approach to the Classification of Producers and Net Consumers of Marketed Surplus; B. Christiansen PART TWO: MARKETS AS SYSTEMS The Post Harvest System in Indonesia; P. Magrath Researching the System in Bangladesh; B. Crow Rapid Methods for Tracing Rapid Market Change: Urban Grain Supply Networks in Tanzania; D. F. Bryceson PART THREE: PRICE PERFORMANCE AND MARKET EFFICIENCY Unstandardised Measures and the Analysis of Price Efficiency: An Application in Benin; B. Christiansen The Use of Hedonic Price Analysis in Agricultural Research: Market Prices and the Quality Characteristics of Beans in Colombia; L. Portugal and M. Oppen Large Databases: The Nineteenth-Century English Com Returns: ` Not Worth the Paper that they are Written On'?; L. Adrian The Analysis of Integration: New Methodologies for Domestic Commodity Markets; T. Palaskas Testing Market Integration: Some Critical Comments; G. Jones PART FOUR: MARKETS AND INSTITUTIONS, MARKETS AS INSTITUTIONS Power in Peasant Markets; B. Harriss-White Gender, Markets and Fieldwork in Developing Countries: With Special Reference to West Africa; E. Robson The Relevance of Religion and Culture to Commercial Accumulation: Fieldwork on Muslim Hausa Exchange and Agricultural Trade in Northern Nigeria; P. Clough The Black Box of the State: Studying State Interventions in Food Markets; J. Mooij Epilogue: Best and Worst Practice. Surprises and Lessons; B Harriss-White Index