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Assessing the effects of seasonal tariff-rate quotas on vegetable prices in Switzerland

BP2-STS

    01.10.2020
agricultural trade policies
price volatility
Swiss agriculture
seasonal production
vegetable production
price stability
stabilisation policies
tariff-rate quotas
difference-in-differences
inverse probability weighting
English Causal estimation of the short-term effects of tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on vegetable producer prices is hampered by the large variety and different growing seasons of vegetables and is therefore rarely performed. We quantify the effects of Swiss seasonal TRQs on domestic producer prices of a variety of vegetables based on a difference-indifferences estimation using a novel dataset of weekly producer prices for Switzerland and neighbouring countries. We find that TRQs increase prices of most vegetables by more than 20% above the prices in neighbouring countries during the main harvest time for most vegetables and even more than 50% for some vegetables. The effects are stronger for more perishable vegetables and for conventionally produced ones compared with organic vegetables. However, we do not find clear-cut effects of TRQs on the week-to-week price volatility of vegetables although the overall lower price volatility in Switzerland compared with neighbouring countries might be a result of the TRQ system in place.
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Faculty
Faculté des sciences économiques et sociales et du management
Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
Other electronic version

Faculté SES

Series statement
  • Working Papers SES ; 521
License
License undefined
Identifiers
  • RERO DOC 330139
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/309182
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