Special Issue - Call for Papers
Food safety standards and agri-food supply chains: Organization, strategies and welfare of stakeholders
Guest editors:
Yves Surry
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abdelhakim Hammoudi
INRA and ERMES-University of Paris II
Ruben Hoffmann
INRA and CECO-École Polytechnique
Context
In recent years there has been an increased focus on food safety in Europe and elsewhere. Public food safety standards have been enforced through legislation, and firms at different levels of the supply chain have developed various private standards. In order to comply with these new standards, farmers and agri-food firms have had to change their production process by, for example, implementing or modifying management systems involving more comprehensive record-keeping and testing, and to improve the coordination between different parts of the supply chain. Public and private standards influence not only how safe the final goods are but also how the supply chain is organized and, hence, they affect the allocation of market power and the distribution of profits along the supply chain and the welfare of all stakeholders. At the international level, formal and informal discussions have primarily focused on the economic legitimacy of standards and on the harmonization of standards.
Most of the existing literature on these issues is of a descriptive and empirical nature. Theoretical developments and empirical analysis based on quantitative methods have, however, to date received little attention. It is now necessary to use such alternative methodological approaches in order to further enhance the understanding on how markets functions and on how different stakeholders interact. The European Review of Agricultural Economics ERAE) is planning to publish a special issue on this theme in the fall of 2009 encouraging such alternative methodological approaches.
Special Issue Objectives
This special issue invites papers addressing issues of food safety that can enhance the understanding of how markets function. Specifically, contributions should include
i) theoretical models of industrial organization and/or international trade (micro-economic approaches),
and/or
ii) empirical analysis based on quantitative methods (econometrics and/or simulations).
Special attention will be paid to approaches which allow for a better understanding of the interactions between various stakeholders in the agri-food supply chain and, ultimately the functioning of markets.
Papers accepted for publication in this special issue must respect the editorial guidelines of the ERAE.
Potential topics
• Private standards
• Public standards and food safety regulation
• Vertical and horizontal co-ordination
/integration, supply chain organization
• Bargaining and/or market power
• Competition policy
• Product liability system and market competition
• Quantitative analysis of public and private food safety policy
• Contractual relations
• Product differentiation and market segmentation
• Entry and exit, market structures
• Information, uncertainty, risk
• Harmonization of standards
• Impact of public and private standards on developing countries
• Market access
Time schedule
February 4, 2008:
Announcement of the call for papers
Monday August 4, 2008:
Deadline for submission of papers
Please submit your paper via the website //mc.manuscriptcentral.com/erae. It is necessary to add, in the covering letter: This submission is in response to the call for papers for the Special Issue on Food Safety Standards and Agri-food Supply Chains.
July 30, 2009:
Completion of the review process
September 15, 2009:
Papers sent to ERAE
December, 2009:
Publication as 4th issue of Volume 36