LEAP joint Seminar: Rocco Macchiavello, LSE
LEAP and the Ettore Bocconi Department of Economics would like to invite you to the upcoming Seminar with ROCCO MACCHIAVELLO (London School of Economics)
Monday 18th November 2019
12:30 (Röntgen building, 5th floor room 5-E4-SR04)
"Upgrading Exports: The Sustainable Quality Program in the Colombia Coffee Chain"
Rocco Macchiavello (London School of Economics)
Joint work with Pepita Miquel-Florensa (Toulouse School of Economics)
ABSTRACT:
This paper studies the Sustainable Quality Program in Colombia – a quality upgrading program implemented on behalf of a multinational coffee buyer. The Program is a bundle of contractual arrangements involving farmers, intermediaries, exporters and the multinational buyer. We tackle three questions. First, we investigate the impact of the Program on the supply of quality coffee. Eligible farmers upgraded their plantations, expanded land under coffee cultivation, increased quality and received higher farm gate prices. Second, we quantify how the Program gains are shared between farmers and intermediaries along the chain. In regions in which the Program was rolled out surplus along the chain increased by 30%. Eligible farmers kept at least half of the gains and their welfare increased by 20%. Finally, we examine how the Program works conducting counterfactual exercises and comparing the Program price premia along the chain against two prominent non-buyer driven certifications. The Program achieved a better transmission of the export gate price premium for quality to the farm gate and curbed market failures that stifled quality upgrading. Contractual arrangements at the export gate significantly contributed to higher farmers welfare in rural areas.
SPEAKER:
Rocco Macchiavello is an associate professor of management at the London School of Economics. His research interests lie at the intersection of development, organizational, and industrial economics, often focusing on the coffee, flowers, dairy, and garment industries. In his work, Rocco has collaborated with numerous government agencies, international organizations, social enterprises and large companies. His current research studies industrial zones and policy in emerging markets; markets, and firms in weakly institutionalized environments, organized crime, and international drug trafficking. Rocco received his PhD from the London School of Economics.