“From Bilateral Trade to Centralized Markets: A Search Model for Commodity Exchanges in Africa,” with Pellegrina, H. S., (2021).
Several African countries have recently centralized their agricultural markets by launching a commodity exchange. What will be the impact of such a move? Who will be the winners and the losers? We develop a simple search model to study the impact of introducing a commodity exchange in a village economy where traders and farmers exchange on a bilateral basis. We study the efficiency gains from moving from the status quo to a trading regime where farmers have the option of selling their produce to a commodity exchange. We describe how the gains from trade are distributed between farmers, traders and the commodity exchange itself. We show that a dual economy where farmers sell both to the bilateral and the commodity exchange can exist in equilibrium, and that forcing all farmers to sell into the commodity exchange can make some farmers worse off.
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“Price Information, Inter-Village Networks, and 'Bargaining Spillovers': Experimental Evidence from Ghana,” with Hildebrandt, N., Romagnoli, G., and Soldani, E., (2020).
Through a randomized experiment and detailed data on communications among farmers, we identify the impact of text-messages-based commodity price information on rural farmers’ revenues. The intervention affected prices received by farmers in two ways: (1) a long-lasting increase (9%) for treated farmers, and (2) substantial indirect benefits for certain control group farmers, which cannot be explained by classical informational spillovers. We discuss a novel mechanism of bargaining spillovers which can explain such positive externalities, even in the absence of information sharing between the treatment and control groups. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for longer-run spillovers and the potential of ICT interventions in emerging markets.
Keren Neza, Yaw Nyarko, Angela Orozco. “Digital Trading and Market Platforms: Ghana Case Study” in Madon T., Anderson R.J., Casaburi L., Lee K., Rezaee A., Gadgil A.J. (eds.), An Introduction to Development Engineering, Springer, 2021.
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Nyarko, Y. (edited by). (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018). Africa Tourism Monitor. Published by the African Development Bank.
The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is delighted to present the 5th edition of Africa Tourism Monitor, which highlights travel and tourism as one of the fastest-growing and most interconnected sectors in the global economy.
5. Minten, B., Tamru, S., Kuma, T., & Nyarko, Y. (2014). Structure and Performance of Ethiopia’s Coffee Export Sector. Intl Food Policy Res Inst., (66).
We study the structure and performance of the coffee export sector in Ethiopia, Africa's most important coffee producer, over the period 2003 to 2013.
Nyarko, Y. (2011). Africa and the Indian Ocean: Trade, Investments, Global Partnerships, and Lessons. Journal of African Development, 13(1), 9-15.
The relationships between African and the Indian Ocean span millennia. Between nations in Africa and those on the Indian Ocean there are opportunities for greater trade, for increased investments and for enhanced geo-political cooperation.
Melitsko, S., & Nyarko, Y. (2010). Africa and the Arab Gulf: A New Economic and Political Alliance? Journal of African Development, 12(1), 10-19.
Does the relationship between the Arab Gulf and Africa hold the promise of greatly enhanced and mutually beneficial trade and investment?