Decision Styles and Organization Behaviour: Implication for Academia in Research Institutes

Abstract

High cost of importation in recent years has highlighted the desire by the government to encourage import
substitution by encouraging increased local production after some positive import liberalization developments
in Nigeria in late 2008 that resulted in increased rice exports in Nigeria. The Country has experienced a fairly
dramatic increase in price of imported rice in past years. The effect of the reduction in import tariffs and
liberalization of marketing channels on price transmission between agricultural commodity markets in Nigeria
has been a source of a national trade conflict since the mid 1980s. The conflict is based on the view that import
trade liberalization destroyed the domestic markets of import substitutes and one of Nigeria's import substitutes
whose marketability, price and production are believed to be adversely affected by import liberalization is rice.
To understand what role liberalization plays in this regard, the transmission of price signals between imported
and local rice prices from 2004 to 2013 in Southwest Nigeria was examine. The results reveal the existence of
long-run equilibrium relationships and complete transmission of price shocks from imported to local rice
prices, but local rice dominate prices of the imported rice. Thus, banning rice imports is not an option to
consider but rather encouraging quality improvement of local rice through improved processing techniques to
enhance competitiveness between the two grades of rice should be a key concern of government.