agricultural economics – Pamela J. Smith

This paper examines the supply-side determinants of international trade in crops that are intensive in genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The theoretical framework is a variant of the Heckscher-Ohlin model which we estimate using cross-country data for 1995 and 2010 to examine soybeans, maize, and cotton trade. The data include measures of country land endowments which we disaggregate into GMO and non-GMO components, as well as recently released measures of GMO regulations. Findings show land endowments are a primary source of comparative advantage in GMO intensive industries before and after the advent of GMOs. Further, an increase in a country’s allocation of land to GMO crops has a positive effect on her net exports in GMO intensive industries. This positive effect occurs both across countries and time. Finally, a country’s GMO regulations have a negligible effect as a supply-side determinant of comparative advantage. However, a country’s decision about whether to adopt GMO technologies does matter to trade. These findings are robust with respect to a variety of considerations.

Citation:

Smith, Pamela J., Bolormaa Jamiyansuren, Akinori Kitsuki, Jooyoung Yang and Jaeseok Lee. 2018. Determinants of comparative advantage in GMO-intensive industries. The World Economy 17 (3): 427-449.

This paper examines the implications of patents for farmers’ decisions to use genetically modified (GM) seed versus traditional non-GM seed. We consider a game theoretic approach employing the replicator equation to assess the conditions for farmers’ adoption decisions. The results show that farmers may choose GM seeds even when this decision leads to lower profits than using traditional seeds. This result emerges because of the self-replicating characteristic of the technology of seeds and their dispersion via acts of nature and/or intentional infringement. This result is robust across our baseline model and extended model that includes the option for farmers to intentionally infringe upon the GM seed technology. This result is also robust with respect to a wide range of initial conditions and parameter values representing economic conditions including the dispersal of the GM technology, monitoring effort, payoffs of GM seed relative to traditional seed, cost of patent infringement, cost of contamination, and added cost of legally using GM seed.

Citation:

Smith, Pamela J., and Andrew R. Tilman. 2020. Patents for self-replicating technologies: Game theoretic analysis of genetically modified seed. Journal of World Intellectual Property Rights 23 (3-4): 166-184.