World Perspectives

Farm or Be Taxed in Africa

A dead economist’s ideas are alive and well in ag policy debate.   Many policy ideas, especially related to taxation, are attributed to “dead economists.” One of the pioneers in tax theory fitting this mold is Arthur Pigou, an unlikely influencer on agricultural and food policy. That point was driven home yesterday by a speech at Iowa State University given by African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, the former agriculture minister of Nigeria who will be presented with the 2017 World Food Prize this week at the Iowa Hunger Summit. First, however, who was Pigou? He was a British economist who followed up on his Cambridge professor’s work in defining “externalities,” or what introductory...

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From WPI Consulting

Forecasting developments in production agriculture

On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.

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