Spatial heterogeneity in price (dis)incentives: evidence from the Ugandan maize value chain

Impact assessments of policy interventions on agricultural commodity prices are carried out by international organizations using nationwide measures which overlook the effects of spatial heterogeneity in incomplete markets. We introduce a multi-step methodology to build spatially-disaggregated nominal rates of protection in a data-scarce environment and test it along the maize value chain in Uganda. Results confirm that the spatial dispersion of farmers plays a key role in determining heterogeneity in nominal rates of protection. This finding has far-reaching policy implications: i) the assumption of a nationally representative market pathway is unrealistic; ii) pan-national interventions may exacerbate, rather than reduce, price distortions.