Hewlett - IATRC Fellows

Rodrigo Echeverria

	Rodrigo Echeverria
	Assistant Professor Agricultural Economics Institute Austral University of Chile Isla Teja s/n Valdivia Chile E-Mail:

Program Mentor:
Munisamy Gopinath
Oregon State University
Department of Argricultural & Resource Economics
200B Ballard Extension Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331-3601, USA
+1-541-737-1402
Fax: +1-541-737-2563
E-Mail:

Research Proposal: The rapid Chilean's economic openness of the last decades has forced traditional producers of the primary and food processing sectors to transform into more competitive export-oriented ones. However, these producers claim that geographic characteristics (e.g., weather, soil) limit the production of exportables, making this transformation not feasible. But, in the last years, some few farmers have been able to produce exportables in locations that were historically considered not apt for producing these products. This raises the question of how important are other factors, rather than the geographical ones, in limiting the production of exportables. Recent research has found that, in the manufacturing sector, firm-specific characteristics – mainly productivity – are important determinants of the export decision. Moreover, given that Chilean farms often do not export directly but marketing firms make the export decision, technical spillovers derived from the presence of these firms could have some effect on the export production decision of farmers. Thus, the objective of this research will be to analyze the export production decision of Chilean farms and to identify the relative importance of farm-specific characteristics (e.g., productivity) and geographic characteristics (natural advantages and locational spillovers) in this decision.