IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/midasp/11620.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Privatizing Markets For Heterogenous, Experience Goods: Coffee In Northwest Cameroon

Author

Listed:
  • Wessen, Paul D.
  • Oehmke, James F.

Abstract

Reform and privatization of administratively controlled marketing parastatals is always a thorny issue. Reform of public coffee parastatals is one of the most fascinating and trickiest exercises in free-market development. Coffee, a heterogenous, experience good, undergoes several processing stages with imperfect quality control, leading to agency problems. Successful privatization must address these problems. This paper analyzes the reform and partial privatization of the North West Cooperative Association (NWCA) parastatal in Cameroon. A conceptual, principal-agent framework informs the analysis. In an interesting twist, the reforms structured the marketing chain so that farmers are the residual claimants to profits from international sales, in effect making them the principals. As is suggested by the conceptual framework, empirical work confirms that farmers as principals have reinvested in coffee quality. However, the evidence also shows that agency problems still exist at later stages of the marketing chain. This is consistent with the principal-agent framework, since incentive-compatible contracts are not used in this marketing chain. The paper concludes by drawing more general lessons about how incomplete information and incentive structure issues arising from imperfect markets might be handled within the context of market liberalization.

Suggested Citation

  • Wessen, Paul D. & Oehmke, James F., 2001. "Privatizing Markets For Heterogenous, Experience Goods: Coffee In Northwest Cameroon," Staff Paper Series 11620, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:midasp:11620
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.11620
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/11620/files/sp01-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.11620?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. Robert H. Bates, 2005. "Political Reform," CID Working Papers 114, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    2. Delorme Robert, 1991. "State and economic development (the)," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 9102, CEPREMAP.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Wessen, Paul D. & Oehmke, James F., 2001. "Privatizing Markets For Heterogeneous, Experience Goods: Coffee In Northwest Cameroon," Staff Paper Series 11640, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    2. Phillip LeBel, 2008. "Managing Risk in Africa Through Institutional Reform," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 36(2), pages 165-181, June.
    3. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2011. "Dictators And Their Viziers: Endogenizing The Loyalty–Competence Trade‐Off," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(5), pages 903-930, October.
    4. John Lodewijks, 1994. "Anthropologists and economists: conflict or cooperation?," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 81-104.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2005. "Los orígenes coloniales del desarrollo comparativo: una investigación empírica," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 7(13), pages 17-67, July-Dece.
    6. Ugo Panizza, 2023. "State-owned commercial banks," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 44-66, January.
    7. Mondino, Guillermo & Sturzenegger, Federico & Tommasi, Mariano, 1996. "Recurrent High Inflation and Stabilization: A Dynamic Game," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(4), pages 981-996, November.
    8. Baland, Jean-Marie & Moene, Karl Ove & Robinson, James A., 2010. "Governance and Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4597-4656, Elsevier.
    9. Banerjee, Abhijit V. & Pande, Rohini, 2007. "Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption," Working Paper Series rwp07-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    11. C. Martinelli & M. Tommasi, 1997. "Sequencing of Economic Reforms in the Presence of Political Constraints," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 115-131, July.
    12. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James & Thaicharoen, Yunyong, 2003. "Institutional causes, macroeconomic symptoms: volatility, crises and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 49-123, January.
    13. Nguyen,Ha Minh, 2015. "Demand-driven propagation : evidence from the great recession," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7456, The World Bank.
    14. Jean-Paul Azam, 2006. "The Paradox of Power Reconsidered: A Theory of Political Regimes in Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(1), pages 26-58, March.
    15. Choucri, Nazli & Madnick, Stuart & Siegel, Michael & Wang, Richard, 2004. "Improving National and Homeland Security through a proposed Laboratory for Information Globalization and Harmonization Technologies (LIGHT)," Working papers 544243, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    16. Ostrom, Elinor, 1996. "Crossing the great divide: Coproduction, synergy, and development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1073-1087, June.
    17. Joan Oriol Prats, 2007. "Revisión crítica de los aportes del institucionalismo a la teoría y la práctica del desarrollo," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 9(16), pages 121-148, January-J.
    18. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    19. Choucri, Nazli & Madnick, Stuart & Siegel, Michael & Wang, Richard, 2004. "Improving National and Homeland Security through a proposed Laboratory for nformation Globalization and Harmonization Technologies (LIGHT)," Working papers 4488-04, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    20. Popov, Vladimir, 2001. "Currency crises in Russia and other transition economies," MPRA Paper 28117, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marketing;

    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:midasp:11620. 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/damsuus.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.