Special Topics in Agricultural Economics

iCampus

Micro-economics (e.g., LBIR1242 Principes d'économie), introduction to econometrics (e.g., LECGE1316 or LINGE1221 Econométrie).

Topics are from research and studies recently published in the theoretical or empirical scientific literature but close to the domain covered by agricultural and natural resource economics. Depending on the instructors, the topics can cover issues in agricultural, rural, food, regional, trade and environmental policy as well as issues related to rural development, poverty and management of natural resources as land, water and space.

So far as possible, topics are accompanied by initiation to quantitative methods as econometric estimations and mathematical programming.

With respect to the learning outcomes of the Bio-engineering in agricultural sciences, this course contributes to the following main learning outcomes:

2.2 - 2.4: being exposed to focused state-of-the-art pieces of scientific work

6.1: reading and explaining published scientific papers

6.2 & 6.4, 6.5, 6.9: presenting published scientific papers

By the end of the course, students are able to:

-       better understand the scientific approach in economics, in particular in agricultural and natural resource economics,

-       apply such approach to analyse a specific socio-economic issue of interest,

-       understand journal articles in that research domain,

-       assess the potential but also the limits of such approach.

This course is a good preparation for a thesis in agricultural and natural resource economics.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Written examination, mainly syntheses and exercises, and an oral presentation on a topic of the student choice

Teaching in class room and student participation in presentations.

Illustration from 2012-13.

1. Estimation of Flexible Cost Functions
2. Ex-postevaluations of policy
3. Economic Model Calibration:  Positive Mathematical Programming
4. Economic Model Calibration:  Maximum Entropy
5. Ex-anteevaluations of policy scenarios
6. Tariff Equivalent of Non-Tariff Measures
7. Evaluation des impacts de l'utilisation de biocarburants de seconde génération sur les usages des sols: une analyse en équilibre général calculable
8. Strategic bride prices and family relationships
9. Risk as an impediment to privatisation: the role of collective fields in extended family farms
10. Trade Effects of Non-Tariff Measures
11. Fundamental difficulties in estimating production-related parameters
12. The Global Market for Wine: Policy Issues
13. The impact of index-based insurance on pre-existing risk-sharing networks
14. Evaluation of the EU proposed Farm Income Stabilisation Tool
15. The role of EU harmonization in explaining the export-productivity premium of food processing firms
16. Farm and residential land values in Belgium

Teaching support: slides, overheads, textbooks, journal articles

Course taught in English with most material in English and some in French.