Question 1:
Agricultural Development Concepts and Theory [25 Points]
a) Achieving economic growth is not synonymous to achieving economic development. Do you agree or disagree and why? [5 points]
b) How does the Lewis two-sector model explain the process of economic development? What are some of the critiques of this model? [5 points]
c) In the simplest and most concise way possible, and use a diagram if you can, explain why most economists argue that free trade is good for economic welfare. [5 points]
d) What is the agricultural household model and why is it useful? [5 points]
e) A researcher observed that an increase in the price of rice did not induce rice farmers to increase production and supply to the market. What is the main reason subsistence households do not participate in markets? Would they be better off if they did? [5 points]
Question 2:
Impact Evaluation of Agricultural Intervention Programs [25 Points]
The Government of Utopia (GoU) wants to hire a consultant to help it evaluate the impact of a donor funded program to promote the use of commercial fertilizer in maize production among its smallholder producers. The program that started 7 years ago purposively selected 1000 households to participate in field demonstration trials and most of those initial participants are now adopters of commercial fertilizer use.
Another consultant from a private consulting firm has advised the GoU that for the purpose of demonstrating the impact of the program it is essential that a random sample of non-adopters be surveyed in addition to the adopters. The Director of Public Service has decided to hire you to advise the Government on how to evaluate the impact of the donor funded program.
a) Do you agree with the consultant or not? What are some of the data considerations that you would advise the government to pay attention to when collecting data and why? [5 points]
b) What factors would you advise the Government to consider in investigating the key determinants of fertilizer adoption and why? [5 points]
c) What are some of the outcome of interest (indicators) that you would recommend when evaluating the impact and why? [5 points]
d) What econometric model would you recommend using to estimate the fertilizer adoption function (i.e., probability of being an adopter or not) and why? [5 points]
e) The Minister of Agriculture does not see the need for an elaborate study. He has suggested that computing and comparing the averages of the outcomes of interest for the adopters and non-adopters of fertilizer is enough to determine the projectâs impact. Do you agree or disagree with his approach and why? [5 points]
Question 3:
Domestic and International Agricultural Policy and Instruments [25 Points]
Vietnam has pursued a policy of self-sufficiency in food production by promoting the use of chemical fertilizer to increase its agricultural output. Fertilizer was introduced in the country in the 1960s and since then the country has heavily relied on fertilizer imports to meet the local demand. Following the market liberalization move in the 1980s, some private players have been allowed to set up fertilizer production facilities in the country. The main stable food in the country is rice
Due to high volatility of fertilizer prices in the international market the Government of Vietnam is considering policy measures to protect the local fertilizer industry from foreign competition while keeping fertilizer prices affordable to the farmers. There have been concerns that without free trade domestic fertilizer is more expensive than imported fertilizer.
The Minister of Agriculture would like to address this problem and is considering three policy interventions:
- Impose a per unit import tariff (t) on imported fertilizer
- Impose a per unit production subsidy (s) equal to the import tariff
- Impose a per unit import tariff followed by a production subsidy where t = s.
You have been hired as a consultant to help the Minister of Agriculture evaluate the welfare implications of the three options. The Minister is particularly interested in the welfare effect of the policies to fertilizer producers, farmers, and taxpayers.
a. With the use of appropriate partial equilibrium diagrams (for each option) summarize and briefly explain to the Minister the welfare effects of the 3 policy options. Vietnam is a small country considering that its demand of fertilizer in the international market is negligible. [20 points]
b. Now compare the 3 options and provide overall recommendations of which option to pursue and why. [5 points]
Sample Solution
There were a few measurable markers that agents used to attach Gacy to the homicides. A portion of these include fiber investigation, dental and radiology records, utilizing the disintegration procedure of the human body, and facial recreation in recognizing the people in question. Examiners discovered filaments that took after human hair in both Gacy’s vehicle and close to the slither space where the bodies were covered. Notwithstanding these hair tests, examiners additionally discovered filaments that contained hints of Gacy’s blood and semen in a similar region. Blood having a place with the casualties was found on a portion of the strands, which would later legitimately attach Gacy to the violations. The strands in Gacy’s vehicle were broke down by criminological researchers and coordinated Piest’s hair tests. Moreover, the pursuit hounds that confirmed that Piest had been in Gacy’s vehicle showed this by a “demise response”, which told specialists that Piest’s dead body had been within Gacy’s vehicle. Out of Gacy’s 33 known casualties, just 25 were ever convincingly distinguished. A significant number of Gacy’s casualties had comparative physical portrayals and were in this way difficult to recognize by simply asking the general population. To recognize the people in question, specialists went to Betty Pat Gatliff, a pioneer in criminological science and facial reproduction. Facial reproduction is the way toward reproducing the facial highlights of a person by utilizing their remaining parts. Certain facial highlights, for example, facial structures, nasal structure, and generally face shape can be valuable in distinguishing a casualty even long in the afterlife. By utilizing these highlights, and with the assistance of program, criminological agents can make a picture of an individual’s face, which is instrumental in recognizing casualties after their bodies have rotted. Facial recreation should be possible in a few measurements. Two-dimensional facial reproductions is utilized with skull radiographs and depend on pre-passing photos and data. Be that as it may, this can’t perfect on the grounds that cranial highlights are not constantly obvious or at the correct scale (Downing). So as to get a sensible and progressively precise delineation of the casualty’s face, a craftsman and a scientific anthropologist are normally essential (Downing). Three-dimensional facial remaking is finished by figures or high goals, three-dimensional pictures. PC programs can make facial reproductions by controlling filtered photos of the remaining parts and use approximations to reproduce facial highlights. These will in general produce results that don’t look counterfeit (Reichs and Craig 491). Here and there, specialists will utilize a strategy called superimposition as a procedure for facial recreation. Tragically, it’s anything but a regularly utilized technique, as it expects examiners to have some information about the personality of the remaining parts they are managing. By superimposing a photo of a person over the skeletal remains, specialists can check whether the facial highlights line up with the anatomical highlights, permitting them to distinguish a casualty. On account of John Wayne Gacy’s casualties, specialists had the option to utilize facial reproduction to distinguish nine of the bodies found in the slither space. The accompanying realistic shows the facial recreations of these nine casualties: Since facial recreation was insufficient to distinguish the entirety of the people in question, examiners got DNA profiles from every one of the unidentified casualties and effectively searched out DNA tests from guys over the United States who had been accounted for missing somewhere in the range of 1970 and 1979 (Cook County Sheriff’s Office 3).>
There were a few measurable markers that agents used to attach Gacy to the homicides. A portion of these include fiber investigation, dental and radiology records, utilizing the disintegration procedure of the human body, and facial recreation in recognizing the people in question. Examiners discovered filaments that took after human hair in both Gacy’s vehicle and close to the slither space where the bodies were covered. Notwithstanding these hair tests, examiners additionally discovered filaments that contained hints of Gacy’s blood and semen in a similar region. Blood having a place with the casualties was found on a portion of the strands, which would later legitimately attach Gacy to the violations. The strands in Gacy’s vehicle were broke down by criminological researchers and coordinated Piest’s hair tests. Moreover, the pursuit hounds that confirmed that Piest had been in Gacy’s vehicle showed this by a “demise response”, which told specialists that Piest’s dead body had been within Gacy’s vehicle. Out of Gacy’s 33 known casualties, just 25 were ever convincingly distinguished. A significant number of Gacy’s casualties had comparative physical portrayals and were in this way difficult to recognize by simply asking the general population. To recognize the people in question, specialists went to Betty Pat Gatliff, a pioneer in criminological science and facial reproduction. Facial reproduction is the way toward reproducing the facial highlights of a person by utilizing their remaining parts. Certain facial highlights, for example, facial structures, nasal structure, and generally face shape can be valuable in distinguishing a casualty even long in the afterlife. By utilizing these highlights, and with the assistance of program, criminological agents can make a picture of an individual’s face, which is instrumental in recognizing casualties after their bodies have rotted. Facial recreation should be possible in a few measurements. Two-dimensional facial reproductions is utilized with skull radiographs and depend on pre-passing photos and data. Be that as it may, this can’t perfect on the grounds that cranial highlights are not constantly obvious or at the correct scale (Downing). So as to get a sensible and progressively precise delineation of the casualty’s face, a craftsman and a scientific anthropologist are normally essential (Downing). Three-dimensional facial remaking is finished by figures or high goals, three-dimensional pictures. PC programs can make facial reproductions by controlling filtered photos of the remaining parts and use approximations to reproduce facial highlights. These will in general produce results that don’t look counterfeit (Reichs and Craig 491). Here and there, specialists will utilize a strategy called superimposition as a procedure for facial recreation. Tragically, it’s anything but a regularly utilized technique, as it expects examiners to have some information about the personality of the remaining parts they are managing. By superimposing a photo of a person over the skeletal remains, specialists can check whether the facial highlights line up with the anatomical highlights, permitting them to distinguish a casualty. On account of John Wayne Gacy’s casualties, specialists had the option to utilize facial reproduction to distinguish nine of the bodies found in the slither space. The accompanying realistic shows the facial recreations of these nine casualties: Since facial recreation was insufficient to distinguish the entirety of the people in question, examiners got DNA profiles from every one of the unidentified casualties and effectively searched out DNA tests from guys over the United States who had been accounted for missing somewhere in the range of 1970 and 1979 (Cook County Sheriff’s Office 3).>
