Food-grain market integration in northern Nigeria: implications for subregional equity concerns
1985
Delgado, C.L.
Difficulties of the environment and an increasingly severe production problem in the West African semi-arid tropics are likely to lead to policies emphasizing production increases in the relatively high-potential microregions, to the possible detriment of nearby low-potential areas. It is argued herein that differential rates of technological progress will tend to produce greater income inequalities among microregions, in the medium run at least, the greater the degree of market integration among them. Furthermore, the type of equity-oriented production policy that might usefully be proposed for the lower potential areas also depends on the functioning of regional markets. Analysts frequently do not have the detailed survey data at hand to directly evaluate market integration through examination of marketing margins. Where such data exist in the West African SAT, they cover only a few markets. This has led to widespread use of correlation coefficient literature to have severe drawbacks. This paper proposes an alternative method to correlation coefficient analysis of price series to measure market integrations, a practice that has been shown in previous literature to have severe drawbacks. This paper proposes an alternative method to correlation analysis, which nevertheless uses only price series data and some elementary knowledge of the seasonality of production. Weekly primary price series for millet and sorghum in 22 villages, and monthly secondary series for 15 major market centers in northern Nigeria, are emphasized in a case-study context. The conclusions show additional reasons for rejecting correlation coefficient analysis, support the position that useful (albeit second best) results can be had from the analysis of price series alone, and present evidence of millet and sorghum market integration in northern Nigeria. At best the evidence is mixed, and may be indicative of a number of useful policy directions for equity concerns
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Este registro bibliográfico ha sido proporcionado por International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics