IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8998.html

Market Distortions and Political Rent: The Case of Fertilizer Price Divergence in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Shimeles, Abebe

    (University of Cape Town)

  • Gurara, Daniel Zerfu

    (International Monetary Fund)

  • Birhanu Tessema, Dawit

    (African Development Bank)

Abstract

We examine the fertilizer retail-import price gap in 14 African countries between 2002 and 2013. This price differential is large and remains persistent even after accounting for changes in the cost of domestic transportation. We hypothesize that these persistent deviations may be indicative of market power by importers/suppliers granted to them by governments that are prepared to bar competition in exchange for political rent. Our results show that the retail-import price differential is negatively correlated with government effectiveness. Quality of institutions both in terms of executing public policy and delivering services is, on average, likely to affect retail-import price gaps. Overall, our understanding of market imperfections is enhanced by a closer examination of the role of governance and regulation. The study illustrates this by establishing a link between retail-import price differentials and market efficiency and the quality of regulatory environment in Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Shimeles, Abebe & Gurara, Daniel Zerfu & Birhanu Tessema, Dawit, 2015. "Market Distortions and Political Rent: The Case of Fertilizer Price Divergence in Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 8998, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8998
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8998.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baldwin, Robert E & Magee, Christopher S, 2000. "Is Trade Policy for Sale? Congressional Voting on Recent Trade Bills," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(1-2), pages 79-101, October.
    2. Jeffrey Frankel & David Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 2012. "Slow Pass-through Around the World: A New Import for Developing Countries?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 213-251, April.
    3. Manuel A. Hernandez & Maximo Torero, 2013. "Market concentration and pricing behavior in the fertilizer industry: a global approach," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 44(6), pages 723-734, November.
    4. repec:wbk:wbpubs:6650 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, December.
    6. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    7. Michael M. Knetter, 1994. "Why are Retail Prices in Japan so High?: Evidence from German Export Prices," NBER Working Papers 4894, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Demeke, Mulat & Kelly, Valerie A. & Jayne, Thomas S. & Said, Ali & Le Vallee, Jean-Charles & Chen, H., 1998. "Agricultural Market Performance and Determinants of Fertilizer Use in Ethiopia," Food Security Collaborative Working Papers 55599, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jayne, T.S. & Mason, Nicole M. & Burke, William J. & Ariga, Joshua, "undated". "Agricultural Input Subsidy Programs In Africa: An Assessment Of Recent Evidence," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 259509, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    2. Abay, Kibrom A. & Chamberlin, Jordan & Chivenge, Pauline & Spielman, David J., 2025. "Fertilizer, soil health, and economic shocks: A synthesis of recent evidence," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:wbk:wbpubs:11881 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Frankel, Jeffrey, 2010. "Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1439-1520, Elsevier.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Janvier D. Nkurunziza, 2005. "Reputation and Credit without Collateral in Africa`s Formal Banking," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2005-02, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Cowling, Marc, 2010. "The role of loan guarantee schemes in alleviating credit rationing in the UK," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 36-44, April.
    6. Jiao Wang & Lima Zhao & Arnd Huchzermeier, 2021. "Operations‐Finance Interface in Risk Management: Research Evolution and Opportunities," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(2), pages 355-389, February.
    7. Djimoudjiel, Djekonbe & T. Rostand, Dany Dombu & MBATINA NODJI, NDILENGAR, 2024. "What lessons does the COVID-19 pandemic teach us about banking liquidity and information share in the CEMAC zone?," MPRA Paper 119666, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Jan 2024.
    8. Muellbauer, John & Sinclair, Peter & Aron, Janine & Farrell, Greg, 2010. "Exchange Rate Pass-through and Monetary Policy in South Africa," CEPR Discussion Papers 8153, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    9. Bryan Caplan & Edward Stringham, 2005. "Mises, bastiat, public opinion, and public choice," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 79-105.
    10. Cowling, Marc & Ughetto, Elisa & Lee, Neil, 2018. "The innovation debt penalty: Cost of debt, loan default, and the effects of a public loan guarantee on high-tech firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 166-176.
    11. Kong, Dongmin & Pan, Yue & Tian, Gary Gang & Zhang, Pengdong, 2020. "CEOs' hometown connections and access to trade credit: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    12. Soedarmono, Wahyoe & Machrouh, Fouad & Tarazi, Amine, 2013. "Bank competition, crisis and risk taking: Evidence from emerging markets in Asia," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 196-221.
    13. Nahapetyan Yervand, 2019. "The benefits of the Velvet Revolution in Armenia: Estimation of the short-term economic gains using deep neural networks," Central European Economic Journal, Paradigm, vol. 6(53), pages 286-303, January.
    14. Fei Lan & Shiqi Lan & Yukai Gong, 2025. "Open government data and firm value: A quasi‐natural experiment from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 65(3), pages 2281-2305, September.
    15. Charles A.E. Goodhart & Dimitrios P. Tsomocos & Xuan Wang, 2023. "Support for small businesses amid COVID‐19," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(358), pages 612-652, April.
    16. Richard K. Green & Susan M. Wachter, 2005. "The American Mortgage in Historical and International Context," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 93-114, Fall.
    17. Chan-Jane Lin & Tawei Wang & Chao-Jung Pan, 2016. "Financial reporting quality and investment decisions for family firms," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 499-532, June.
    18. Djedjiga Kachenoura & David Chetboun & Marine Lagarde & Laurent Mélère & Damien Serra, 2024. "Les politiques financières et réglementaires face aux enjeux climatiques," Post-Print hal-05421553, HAL.
    19. LaDue, Eddy L. & Allen, Sandra, 1993. "Regulatory, Efficiency, and Management Issues Affecting Rural Financial Markets," Staff Papers 121348, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    20. N/A, 2007. "Real Convergence, Price Level Convergence and Inflation in Europe," Bruegel Working Papers 267, Bruegel.
    21. Myint Moe Chit, 2018. "Political openness and the growth of small and medium enterprises: empirical evidence from transition economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 781-804, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8998. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.