El valor económico de la predicción del fenómeno El Niño Oscilación del Sur (ENOS) en el sector azucarero colombiano

Abstract

The present article develops a stochastic model of the economic excedent, and estimates the economic value of the improvement in predicting the occurrence of the ENOS through a system of Early Alert for the Colombian sugar sector. The results show an average aggregated reduction of the agricultural yields of sugar in 6,5% and 4,3 % as a result of the occurrence of the event "El Niño" and "La Niña" respectively, in relation to the normal phase. It was found that a perfect prediction of ENOS generates an annual increment of society's benefit of approximately US$ 9,59 million under normal circumstances, and of US$10,77 million when the frequency of ENOS is affected by the projections of global warming gases. The economic benefits for the perfect prediction of the ENOS event are of 1% of the GNP of the sugar sector for the year 2000.