Food Standards are Good – for Middle-Class Farmers

TY - JOUR

T1 - Food Standards are Good – for Middle-Class Farmers

AU - Hansen, Henrik

AU - Trifkovic, Neda

PY - 2014/4

Y1 - 2014/4

N2 - We estimate the causal effect of food standards on Vietnamese pangasius farmers’ wellbeing measured by per capita consumption expenditure. We estimate both the average effects and the local average treatment effects on poorer and richer farmers by instrumental variable quantile regression. Our results indicate that large returns can be accrued from food standards, but only for the upper middle-class farmers, i.e., those between the 50% and 85% quantiles of the expenditure distribution. Overall, our result points to an exclusionary impact of standards for the poorest farmers while the richest do not apply standards because the added gain is too small.

AB - We estimate the causal effect of food standards on Vietnamese pangasius farmers’ wellbeing measured by per capita consumption expenditure. We estimate both the average effects and the local average treatment effects on poorer and richer farmers by instrumental variable quantile regression. Our results indicate that large returns can be accrued from food standards, but only for the upper middle-class farmers, i.e., those between the 50% and 85% quantiles of the expenditure distribution. Overall, our result points to an exclusionary impact of standards for the poorest farmers while the richest do not apply standards because the added gain is too small.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Food standards

KW - pangasius

KW - instrumental variable

KW - Vietnam

KW - Asia

U2 - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.10.027.

DO - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.10.027.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0305-750X

VL - 56

SP - 226

EP - 242

JO - World Development

JF - World Development

ER -