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Deregulation and regional specialization: Evidence from Canadian agriculture
Author(s) -
Carter Colin A.,
Ferguson Shon M.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
canadian journal of economics/revue canadienne d'économique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1540-5982
pISSN - 0008-4085
DOI - 10.1111/caje.12411
Subject(s) - deregulation , desk , agriculture , production (economics) , agricultural economics , cropping , economics , business , agricultural science , market economy , geography , engineering , environmental science , microeconomics , archaeology , mechanical engineering
For about 70 years, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) was one of the world's largest export “single desk” state traders in agriculture, until it was deregulated in 2012 and stripped of its marketing powers. One of the main crops controlled by the CWB was barley. We estimate the impact of the removal of the CWB's single desk on the spatial pattern of malting barley production in Western Canada. We find that deregulation encouraged growers located closer to malt barley processing plants to increase production relative to growers located further from the plants. This change in cropping patterns after deregulation can be explained by efficiency gains, combined with transportation and handling cost savings.