Agricultural Economics Department

 

Date of this Version

Summer 7-27-2015

Citation

Villamil, E. (2015); Export Taxes and Their Effects on Farmers' Profitability and Risk in Argentina; Ag. Econ. Department, University of Nebraska; United States; 2015.

Comments

A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science, Major: Agricultural Economics, Under the Supervision of Professor Fabio L. Mattos. Lincoln, Nebraska: July, 2015

Copyright (c) 2015 Ezequiel María Villamil

Abstract

This main objective of this thesis is to analyze the effects of export taxes on the risk faced by farmers in different regions of Argentina in their cropping operations for wheat, sunflower, soybeans and corn. In the first chapter we introduce the variables and explain the agricultural environment in Argentina. A set of three profit function models with different export tax policies were specified in a Monte Carlo simulation template using data from 1985 to the present. A set of risk measures for the upper and lower partial moments along with the overall probability distribution statistics are used to asses profit risk on each simulation output for the three models. It was found that the model with variable-rate export tax modestly reduces the downside risk while increasing the upside dispersion offering larger profit opportunities. For the fixed-rate export tax model the probability of low partial moment about zero has more mass, especially in the marginal regions. The model without export tax shows overall positive means and more mass on the upside of the distribution as expected. Comparison of results with normal distributions for the input variables with those from distributions that fit the data the best showed that there is not a clear pattern, however the differences could be significant given that the probability mass could shift to the other side of the benchmark established at zero profits and therefore could affect farmers’ management strategies.

Adviser: Fabio L. Mattos

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