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A SIMULATION APPROACH TO THE ANALYSIS OF STABILISATION POLICIES IN AGRICULTURAL MARKETS: A CASE STUDY *
Author(s) -
Agarwala R.
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.157
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1477-9552
pISSN - 0021-857X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-9552.1971.tb01399.x
Subject(s) - economics , subsidy , profit (economics) , short run , agriculture , market price , control (management) , market share , microeconomics , finance , market economy , ecology , management , biology
Agricultural markets are very often susceptible to year‐to‐year fluctuations in price and output and it is generally agreed that it would be desirable to control these fluctuations by intelligent market support operations. In this paper we develop a simulation model to assess the efficacy of market support operations in the case of egg market in the U.K. during the period 1958‐68. We argue that for this problem a simulation approach is more effective than either a geometric or an algebraic approach. On the basis of our analysis, we find that in the absence of the market support operations of the British Egg Marketing Board during the period 1958‐68, the long‐run average return to the egg producer would have been only marginally different from the actual but the instability of the market would have been substantially greater. We also found that because of the nature of the subsidy arrangements, there were severe limits to the Egg Board's capacity to increase producer price even in the short run in spite of the inelastic demand curve. More generally, we conclude that marketing Boards in situations similar to the Egg Board's should aim at keeping close to the long‐run producer price rather than short‐run profit maximisation.