University of East Anglia, UK.
J Dev Stud. 2011;47(2):207-30. doi: 10.1080/00220381003599378.
Strategic interaction between public and private actors is increasingly recognised as an important determinant of agricultural market performance in Africa and elsewhere. Trust and consultation tends to positively affect private activity while uncertainty of government behaviour impedes it. This paper reports on a laboratory experiment based on a stylised model of the Zambian maize market. The experiment facilitates a comparison between discretionary interventionism and a rules-based policy in which the government pre-commits itself to a future course of action. A simple precommitment rule can, in theory, overcome the prevailing strategic dilemma by encouraging private sector participation. Although this result is also borne out in the economic experiment, the improvement in private sector activity is surprisingly small and not statistically significant due to irrationally cautious choices by experimental governments. Encouragingly, a rules-based policy promotes a much more stable market outcome thereby substantially reducing the risk of severe food shortages. These results underscore the importance of predictable and transparent rules for the state's involvement in agricultural markets.
公共和私人行为者之间的战略互动越来越被认为是非洲和其他地区农业市场绩效的重要决定因素。信任和协商往往会对私人活动产生积极影响，而政府行为的不确定性则会阻碍私人活动。本文报告了一个基于赞比亚玉米市场的模拟模型的实验室实验。该实验有助于在自由裁量干预主义和基于规则的政策之间进行比较，在后者中，政府预先承诺未来的行动方案。从理论上讲，一个简单的预先承诺规则可以通过鼓励私营部门参与来克服普遍存在的战略困境。尽管这一结果在经济实验中也得到了证实，但由于实验政府的非理性谨慎选择，私营部门活动的改善非常小，且在统计上并不显著。令人鼓舞的是，基于规则的政策促进了市场结果更加稳定，从而大大降低了严重粮食短缺的风险。这些结果强调了可预测和透明的规则对于国家参与农业市场的重要性。
