Positive Mathematical Programming Approaches – Recent Developments in Literature and Applied Modelling

This paper reviews and discusses the more recent literature and application of Positive Mathematical Programming in the context of agricultural supply models. Specifically, advances in the empirical foundation of parameter specifications as well as the economic rationalisation of PMP models – both c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Thomas Heckelei, Wolfgang Britz, Yinan Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Firenze University Press 2012-03-01
Series:Bio-based and Applied Economics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/bae/article/view/3221
Description
Summary:This paper reviews and discusses the more recent literature and application of Positive Mathematical Programming in the context of agricultural supply models. Specifically, advances in the empirical foundation of parameter specifications as well as the economic rationalisation of PMP models – both criticized in earlier reviews – are investigated. Moreover, the paper provides an overview on a larger set of models with regular/repeated policy application that apply variants of PMP. Results show that most applications today avoid arbitrary parameter specifications and rely on exogenous information on supply responses to calibrate model parameters. However, only few approaches use multiple observations to estimate parameters, which is likely due to the still considerable technical challenges associated with it. Equally, we found only limited reflection on the behavioral or technological assumptions that could rationalise the PMP model structure while still keeping the model’s advantages.
ISSN:2280-6180
2280-6172