Are middlemen facilitators or barriers to improve smallholders' welfare in rural economies? Empirical evidence from Ethiopia
Are middlemen facilitators or barriers to improve smallholders' welfare in rural economies? Empirical evidence from Ethiopia
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jrurstud.2015.12.004
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发表时间：
2016-02-01
影响因子：
5.1
通讯作者：
Royer, Annie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Abebe, Gumataw K.;Bijman, Jos;Royer, Annie
中间商发挥着重要作用，将农民与贸易商和最终市场联系起来。发展中国家的情况尤其如此，在这些国家，市场失灵无处不在，食物链仍然由许多阶段组成。本文分析了影响农户选择中间商交易的因素，以及这种选择对农户收入和商品化的影响。我们将中间人概念化为一种经济机构和一种社会网络结构。在埃塞俄比亚的345个农民的数据的基础上，我们发现，几个社会经济变量，特别是年龄，教育，农场规模，财富和位置和社会网络变量，特别是种族和宗教关系对农民的销售安排的选择有影响。在收入影响方面，没有中介的农民的毛利润高出225%。这可能是因为后者的农民能够获得质量更好的投入、更好的合同规格以及产品价格更高。然而，大多数农民继续通过中间商进行贸易。我们对这一结果提出三种解释。首先，批发商似乎更愿意与中间商合作，以保证最低数量和质量，并降低测量质量的成本。其次，个性化的关系可能会锁定小农通过中间商进行交易，而不管收入损失如何。第三，通过中间商进行贸易，可以将资源禀赋低的农民与贸易商和最终市场联系起来，从而加强小农的商业化。然而，与批发商的直接贸易似乎对资源禀赋相对较好的农民有利。(C)2015爱思唯尔有限公司版权所有。
Middlemen play an important role by linking farmers to traders and final markets. This is particularly the case in developing countries, where market failure is ubiquitous and food chains still consist of many stages. This paper analyzes the factors affecting the farmers' decision to trade through middlemen and the impact of this choice on income and commercialization. We conceptualize middlemen both as an economic institution and as a social network structure. On the basis of data from 345 farmers in Ethiopia we found that several socioeconomic variables particularly age, education, farm size, wealth and location and social network variables notably ethnic and religious ties have an influence on farmers' choice of sales arrangement. Regarding income effects, gross profit was 225% higher for farmers without intermediation. This could be explained by the latter farmers having access to better quality inputs, better contract specifications and receiving higher prices for their products. Nonetheless, the majority of farmers continue trading via middlemen. We suggest three explanations for this outcome. First, wholesalers seem to prefer to work with middlemen to guarantee minimum quantity and quality, and to reduce the cost of measuring quality. Second, personalized relationships might lock-in smallholders into trading through middlemen regardless of income losses. Third, trading via middlemen can enhance smallholder commercialization by linking low resource endowed farmers to traders and final markets. However, direct trading with wholesalers seemed beneficial for relatively better-resource endowed farmers. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.