Los últimos episodios de volatilidad extrema de los precios en los mercados agrícolas mundiales presagian mayores y más frecuentes amenazas a la seguridad alimentaria mundial. Para reducir la vulnerabilidad de los países, las políticas deberían equiparlos para que puedan hacer frente a los efectos adversos de una volatilidad extrema, y mejorar el funcionamiento del mercado.

This study tests the hypothesis that an efficient rental market for cropland is a significant determinant of agricultural investment in the communal areas of KwaZulu-Natal. An efficient rental market creates an opportunity cost for under-utilisation, which tends to transfer resources to more effective users. The efficiency of a rental market is compromised by the presence of transaction costs that reduce returns for both lessees and lessors. Transaction costs include risk arising from a possible breach of the rental contract.

The objective of this article is to provide new empirical evidence on landlord-tenant choices of share versus cash-rent contracts in U.S. agriculture. The focus is on the contribution of explanatory variables that represent transaction costs, risk-sharing incentives, or both. An empirical model of contract choice is tested against the 1999 Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey (AELOS) and finds mixed evidence for low transaction cost and risk-sharing-incentive motives for landlord-tenant choices of a share versus cash-rent contract.

Most markets have evolved as buyers and sellers constantly search for ways to create value, however this has not occurred naturally in all areas of the economy – markets are missing for some goods, including the environment. In such cases, transaction costs linked to property rights, asymmetric and hidden information and packaging problems have often prevented otherwise valuable deals from being negotiated in relation to the environment.

The article analyses influences on the design of land rental contracts in Poland. Attention is paid to the effect of both the properties of the transaction as identified in Transaction Cost Economics (asset-specificity, uncertainty, frequency) and the features of the institutional environment (legal as well as customary rules) as studied by the Economics of Property Rights. The conclusion is that institutional influences have a very strong effect and should not be disregarded in the explanation of contract choice.

The paper analyses the governance choices in production quota with the Flemish nutrient production rights as a case. A static model of quota trade in the short run shows the inefficiency of discrete non-auctioned trade with fixed transaction costs. This model also shows that an obligation to quota sellers to stop their production stimulates structural change. A dynamic model of trade indicates that the measures taken to prevent speculative behaviour causes inefficiencies and stimulates overuse of quota if the penalties are too low.

This paper presents an analysis of agricultural contracts using a transaction costs approach. We contend that in a context of modern agriculture, with well defined property rights, agricultural contracts must balance costs and benefits, aligning tenant and landlord incentives towards a similar objective. The study debates the potential effects of tenancy status and duration of contracts, over soil conservation and input use.

In Canada, where public ownership of forestland is prevalent, a central decision facing policy makers is how to allocate timber resources to private forest companies. Debates tend to focus around what proportion of the annual harvest should be devoted to markets as opposed to long-term contracts. To give a guide to policy makers, we surveyed forest firms from New Zealand and Sweden where this decision is based purely on a commercial basis. On average, mills source fifty percent of their fibre from the market.

In Canada, where public ownership of forestland is prevalent, a central decision facing policy makers is how to allocate timber resources to private forest companies. Debates tend to focus around what proportion of the annual harvest should be devoted to markets opposed to long-term contracts. To give a guide to policy makers, we surveyed forest firms from New Zealand and Sweden where this decision is based purely on a commercial basis. On average, mills source fifty percent of their fibre from the market.

The emergence of markets for mitigation of climate change presents new opportunities for increasing economic and ecological returns to rangelands in developing countries. Improving rangeland management is a potentially significant source of mitigation from sequestration. It is appealing due to the likely links to sustainable agricultural development and poverty reduction. Many of the changes needed to sequester carbon are also associated with improved rangeland productivity and incomes.

There is little empirical evidence concerning the effects of intellectual property rights (IPR) on a technologically advanced developing country. Complete enumeration of the Mexican maize breeding industry showed that, contrary to the hypothesis that IPR would provide, in a technologically advanced developing country, incentives for R&D and innovation, IPR play no role for the industry in general, but that they are important for certain breeders' categories. The paper presents the theory on IPR and a short background on the Mexican maize breeding industry.