Inter-temporal and spatial price dispersion patterns and the well-being of maize producers in Southern Tanzania

Van Campenhout, Bjorn, Lecoutere, Els and D'Exelle, Ben ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9332-5223 (2015) Inter-temporal and spatial price dispersion patterns and the well-being of maize producers in Southern Tanzania. Journal of African Economies, 24 (2). pp. 230-253. ISSN 0963-8024

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Abstract

We revisit a methodology to gauge the short-term effect of price changes on smallholder farmer's welfare that is popular amongst policy makers and academia. Realising that farmers face substantial seasonal price volatility over the course of an agricultural year, we pay particular attention to the timing of sales and purchases. In addition we depart from the implicit assumption that all farmers scattered across rural areas face the same prices when interacting with markets. Using maize marketing during the 2007–2008 agricultural season in a sample of smallholders in Tanzania as an illustration, we find that especially poor farmers face greater losses than what a standard analysis would suggest. We also relate our methodology to factors that are likely to affect potential benefits or costs from inter-temporal and spatial price dispersion, such as means of transport, access to price information and credit.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	spatial price dispersion,inter-temporal price variation,price changes,market participation,maize,tanzania
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Experimental Economics (former - to 2017) Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	09 Mar 2015 07:27
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2024 17:24
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/52310
DOI:	10.1093/jae/ejv002

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