This paper explores how the elimination of Madagascar's Vanilla Marketing Board (VMB) in 1993 affected prices paid to farmers, incentives and indicators of poverty and inequality using household survey data and simulation analysis. Following the reforms, margins between FOB and farmgate prices have narrowed down, and the analysis of changes in poverty and inequality based on household surveys suggests a reduction in poverty and a muted supply response. A counterfactual analysis based on the observed reduction in intermediation margins shows that, however limited, increase in competition among intermediaries has contributed to raise purchase prices and the cash income of vanilla farmers. After taking into account the reduction in Madagascar's monopoly power on the world vanilla market implied by the elimination of the VMB, the induced rise in producer prices is estimated to have lifted about 20,000 individuals out of poverty.

This paper explores how the elimination of Madagascar's Marketing Board (MB) in 1995 affected prices paid to farmers, incentives, and regional indicators of poverty and inequality. After steadily losing market share, Madagascar has been able to regain some of the lost ground since the mid-1990s. Margins between FOB and farmgate prices have spectacularly narrowed down, but this effect is dwarfed by that of world-price volatility. A counterfactual analysis based on a model of Cournot competition between vanilla traders suggests that whatever limited competition there is among them has contributed to raise purchase prices and the cash income of vanilla farmers. However the effect on farmers' consumption remains small because a large part of it is self-consumed. The effect on aggregate measures of poverty and inequality is even smaller, even at the regional level. After taking into account the reduction in Madagascar's monopoly power on the world vanilla market implied by the elimination of the MB, the induced rise in producer prices is estimated to have lifted about 20,000 individuals out of poverty.

The main objective of this paper is to provide estimates of the cost of moving out of subsistence for Madagascar's farmers. The analysis is based on a simple asset-return model of occupational choice. Estimates suggest that the entry (sunk) cost associated with moving out of subsistence can be quite large-somewhere between 124 and 153 percent of a subsistence farmer's annual production. Our results make it possible to identify farm characteristics likely to generate large gains if moved out of subsistence, yielding useful information for the targeting of trade-adjustment assistance programs.

En este trabajo se propone un nuevo método para testear el modelo de Grossman-Helpman sobre protección endógena y la formación de grupos de interés (lobbies), que no requiere de datos respecto a la formación de los grupos de interés o de sus contribuciones. Identifica a las industrias políticamente organizadas a partir de datos de producción y comercio que son de acceso común, así como las estimaciones de los parámetros estructurales del modelo. Aplicado a la India, produce resultados que son cualitativamente consistentes con las predicciones del modelo, y que parecen cuantitativamente más plausibles que las estimaciones para los EE.UU obtenidas por métodos alternativos. Nuestras estimaciones implican que la importancia que el gobierno de la India asigna a las contribuciones de los sectores políticamente organizados es una tercera parte de la importancia que le asigna al bienestar social (bruto), muy por encima de las estimaciones existentes para los Estados Unidos.

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