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Indexed Pricing: Sugarcane Price Guarantees in Colonial Taiwan, 1930–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Hui-Wen Koo  and
Chun-Chieh Wang
Hui-Wen Koo
Affiliation:
Hui-wen Koo is Professor, Department of Economics, National Taiwan University, 21 Hsu-Chou Road, Taipei 10020, Taiwan.
Chun-Chieh Wang
Affiliation:
Chun-chieh Wang is a graduate student in the Department of Economics, Pennsylvania State University, 603 Kern Graduate Building, University Park, PA 16802.
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Abstract

In Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period, sugarcane was typically purchased by Japanese-owned sugar mills at prices guaranteed long in advance of delivery. In some places, the future price was indexed to the price of rice in the following year. This study points out that indexing served to insure farmers' real incomes. But as an insurance against an aggregate risk, this arrangement threatened the mill's profits. We investigate why mills nevertheless offered the insurance.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , December 1999 , pp. 912 - 926
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1999

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