General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was notable in largely excluding agriculture whereas the World Trade Organization (WTO) brought agriculture into the world trade rules. This article aims to evaluate the impacts of trade on agriculture production and productivity, especially the changes between the GATT and WTO periods. Using a panel of 126 countries from 1962-2014, this article derives not only spillover effects that were overlooked, but also provides more accurate productivity than was estimated with bias in literature for both periods. We find that trade hindered agriculture production and productivity in the GATT period but improved agriculture production and productivity in the WTO period.

Farmer cooperatives in China have been developing a hybrid form of governance with features that are seldom observed in other countries. The Beizhijiang vegetable cooperative (hereafter BZJ cooperative), which was founded in 2009, is a case in point. The chairperson of the BZJ cooperative has dominant control over the decision-making and income rights of the cooperative and is also president of the Pangu corporation, a downstream buyer of BZJ products. The purpose of this case study is to allow students to understand the special form of the cooperative in a Chinese context and to compare it to the International Cooperative Association principles regarding cooperatives. This article is aimed at senior undergraduate and graduate students in agribusiness management and agricultural economics and has practical value for agricultural enterprises and related governmental departments.

Farmers’ collective action via cooperatives is critical to achieving a wide range of economic and social benefits that lead to sustainable development and enhance the welfare of rural communities. Adopting a qualitative case study method, the paper compares the development and governance attributes of two cooperatives and seeks to identify how non-economic conditions explain their differences. The cases are selected from the United Kingdom and China, representing different cultural and legislation contexts, to explore the role of culture and legislation in formulating the governance of farmer cooperatives. The results demonstrate that: (1) the formation of member groups due to considerable member heterogeneity may lead to the skewed allocation of control rights and income rights; (2) legislation play an important role in formulating the governance of cooperatives; and (3) national culture potentially has influence on cooperative governance, but direct evidence is in insufficient.

A segmented labor market between rural and urban is an impediment to social transformation in China. Our empirical analysis indicates that marital stability via working at the same firm or city with their husbands is the main purpose pursued by MFMWs by virtue of job mobility, young and educated migrant women with low wages and labor-intensive jobs are more likely to change jobs. The majority of MFMWs employed in informal sector change jobs because of mismatch, which is reflected by shorter job tenure, the gap between real and expected wages, and occupations poorly matched with skill requirements of job openings. The segmentedlabor market in transitional China augments the intention of job mobility due to the weak connection between match quality and job experience and lack of job ladders.