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This report shows that Ghana's economic decline of agricultural prices cannot be attributed solely to government price intervention. But intervention in the workings of the cocoa sector contributed heavly to the country's inability to achieve prosperity and stability after 1957. During the decades since independence in 1957, direct intervention in Ghana's all-important cocoa sector has been in the hands of a Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB), which sets annual producer prices, purchases the crop from domestic producers and markets it to foreign buyers. Although the chief reason for creating the CMB was to assure Ghana's cocoa farmers a stable and decent income, the agency's direct intervention helped to keep producer prices lower than they might have been otherwise. The government's direct and indirect intervention in the cocoa market, according to the study, far outweighed its incentives to cocoa producers. Moreover, most of the benefits of these incentives went to large producers rather than the far more numerous smallholders. Another important finding of this study is that government regulation of the cocoa sector had the serious negative long-term effect of deferring the replacement of old coffee trees with new ones.
Movements in exchange rates can change the prices of goods faced by producers and consumers and thereby affect incentives to produce, consume, and trade goods. Exchange rate changes, however, might not be completely transmitted (passed through) to domestic prices. Price and exchange rate transmission for ag. products is low in most developing economies, partly because of trade policies but also because of inadequate infrastructure and other market deficiencies. During the last 20 years, developed and developing countries have moved away from support policies that impede price and exchange rate transmission toward trade policies that allow transmission, such as tariffs. However, market deficiencies remain as a cause of incomplete transmission. Illus.
The paper estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model for Ghana. Regression results show that most of the REER's long-run behavior can be explained by real GDP growth, real interest rate differentials (both relative to trading-partner countries), and the real world prices of Ghana's main export commodities. On the basis of these fundamentals, the REER in late 2006 was found to be very close to its estimated equilibrium level. The results also suggest, that deviations from the equilibrium path are eliminated within two to three years.
Examines the effects of trade and exchange rate policies on Cameroon' s agriculture during the period from 1971 to 1993.