IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/iaae15/210964.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can agricultural traders be trusted? Evidence from Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Assefa, Thomas
  • Minten, Bart J.

Abstract

Traditional food marketing systems in developing countries are presumed to suffer from a number of deficiencies. Policy makers therefore often try to regulate them and modern private market arrangements are increasingly emerging to help deal with some of the deficiencies. However, it is unclear if and to what extent regulation and modernization affects governance of these markets. We look in this paper at the case of coffee in urban markets in Ethiopia. We find no significant cheating with weights but there is illegal trade, with significant non-allowed trade of export quality coffee in local markets, and a consistent pattern of mis-representation of not easily verifiable quality characteristics. We further find that modernizing marketing formats, including modern retail, and branded and packaged products, deliver higher quality (at a high price) but they are not more trustworthy than traditional ones along these three dimensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Assefa, Thomas & Minten, Bart J., 2015. "Can agricultural traders be trusted? Evidence from Ethiopia," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 210964, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:210964
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.210964
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/210964/files/Assefa-Can%20agricultural%20traders%20be%20trusted-442.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.210964?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dic Lo, 2010. "China and World Development beyond the Crisis," Working Papers 167, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    2. Pingali, Prabhu, 2007. "Westernization of Asian diets and the transformation of food systems: Implications for research and policy," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 281-298, June.
    3. Osborne, Theresa, 2005. "Imperfect competition in agricultural markets: evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 405-428, April.
    4. Rashid, Shahidur & Cummings Jr., Ralph & Gulati, Ashok, 2007. "Grain Marketing Parastatals in Asia: Results from Six Case Studies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 1872-1888, November.
    5. Kherallah, Mylène & Delgado, Christopher L. & Gabre-Madhin, Eleni Z. & Minot, Nicholas & Johnson, Michael, 2000. "The road half traveled," Issue briefs 2, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
      • Kherallah, Mylène & Delgado, Christopher L. & Gabre-Madhin, Eleni Z. & Minot, Nicholas. & Johnson, Michael., 2000. "The road half traveled," Food policy reports 10, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ebata, Ayako & Hüttel, Silke, 2015. "Do development projects link smallholders to markets?," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 204326, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    2. Gelaw, F., 2018. "Impacts of Trademarking on Export and Producer Prices in Ethiopian Coffee," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277290, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Tröster, Bernhard, 2015. "Global commodity chains, financial markets, and local market structures: Price risks in the coffee sector in Ethiopia," Working Papers 56, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    4. Ebata, Ayako & Huttel, Silke, 2015. "Do development projects link smallholdrs to markets?," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211583, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Assefa, Thomas Woldu & Minten, Bart, 2015. "Can agricultural traders be trusted? Evidence from urban coffee markets in Ethiopia:," ESSP working papers 72, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Minten, Bart & Assefa, Thomas & Hirvonen, Kalle, 2017. "Can Agricultural Traders be Trusted? Evidence from Coffee in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 77-88.
    3. Gómez, Miguel I. & Ricketts, Katie D., 2013. "Food value chain transformations in developing countries: Selected hypotheses on nutritional implications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 139-150.
    4. Virna Estefania Moran-Rodas & Verena Preusse & Christine Wachendorf, 2022. "Agricultural Management Practices and Decision-Making in View of Soil Organic Matter in the Urbanizing Region of Bangalore," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-27, May.
    5. Dietrich, Jan Philipp & Schmitz, Christoph & Müller, Christoph & Fader, Marianela & Lotze-Campen, Hermann & Popp, Alexander, 2012. "Measuring agricultural land-use intensity – A global analysis using a model-assisted approach," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 109-118.
    6. Nin Pratt, Alejandro & Yu, Bingxin, 2008. "An updated look at the recovery of agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa:," IFPRI discussion papers 787, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Dorward, Andrew & Kydd, Jonathan & Poulton, Colin, 2004. "Market and Coordination Failures in Poor Rural Economies: Policy Implications for Agricultural and Rural Development," 2004 Inaugural Symposium, December 6-8, 2004, Nairobi, Kenya 9535, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    8. Minten, Bart & Singh, K.M. & Sutradhar, Rajib, 2011. "Branding in food retail of high value crops in Asia: Case of Makhana from Bihar (India)," MPRA Paper 54334, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Jan 2011.
    9. Delpeuch, Claire & Vandeplas, Anneleen, 2013. "Revisiting the “Cotton Problem”—A Comparative Analysis of Cotton Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 209-221.
    10. Malin Falkenmark & Charlotte de Fraiture & Margaret J. Vick, 2009. "Global change in four semi‐arid transnational river basins: Analysis of institutional water sharing preparedness," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(4), pages 310-319, November.
    11. Porteous, Obie C., 2015. "High Trade Costs and Their Consequences: An Estimated Model of African Agricultural Storage and Trade," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205776, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Kornher, Lukas & Kalkuhl, Matthias, 2013. "Food Price Volatility in Developing Countries and its Determinants," Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Humboldt-Universitaat zu Berlin, vol. 52(4), pages 1-32, November.
    13. Vani S. Kulkarni, 2014. "Global middle class and dietary patterns: a sociological perspective," Chapters, in: Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Anil B. Deolalikar (ed.), Handbook on Food, chapter 20, pages 515-538, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Davis, Christopher G. & Cessna, Jerry, 2020. "Prospects for Growth in U.S. Dairy Exports to Southeast Asia," Agricultural Economic Reports 307713, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    15. Hanjra, Munir A. & Qureshi, M. Ejaz, 2010. "Global water crisis and future food security in an era of climate change," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 365-377, October.
    16. Fang Xia & Lingling Hou & Songqing Jin & Dongqing Li, 2020. "Land size and productivity in the livestock sector: evidence from pastoral areas in China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(3), pages 867-888, July.
    17. Andi Syah Putra & Guangji Tong & Didit Okta Pribadi, 2020. "Spatial Analysis of Socio-Economic Driving Factors of Food Expenditure Variation between Provinces in Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-18, February.
    18. Fekadu Gelaw & Stijn Speelman & Guido Huylenbroeck, 2017. "Impacts of Institutional Intervention on Price Transmissions: The Case of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 88-106, November.
    19. Kostas G. Stamoulis & Prabhu Pingali & Prakash Shetty1, 2004. "Emerging Challenges for Food and Nutrition Policy in Developing Countries," The Electronic Journal of Agricultural and Development Economics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, vol. 1(2), pages 154-167.
    20. Rob Vos, 2018. "Agricultural and rural transformations in Asian development," WIDER Working Paper Series 87, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agribusiness; Agricultural Finance; Crop Production/Industries; Marketing;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:210964. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.