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Abstract
Price response of maize acreage in Benin was estimated with a particular emphasis on
whether the prices were producer prices in rural markets or retail prices in urban markets.
A second difference between prices was examined through a price adjustment model which
takes into account the distortions caused by local units on maize price when one is
concerned with the pricing system in the private marketing network relating rural and urban
areas. Urban market price specification appeared to be the most relevant statistically in
explaining acreage decisions in Mono province. Price elasticity of acreage was 0.445 in this
area while its value, around 0.10, was not significant for Benin as a whole. The use of
adjusted urban prices enabled an increase of 5.6% of the elasticity in Mono province.
The urban vs. rural difference was apparent, but the coefficients of the price variable
were not significant in equations with rural prices. The latter were not as reliable as those of
the urban market of Dantokpa (in Cotonou city) collected by the Institute of Statistics
(INSAE) and the GTZ project.