Sectoral gender wage gap in Vietnam

Abstract

Price forecasting systems are of considerable importance to food security management by governments’ and non‐governmental organizations. Sparse data availability in low‐income economies, however, generally necessitates reliance on reduced form forecasting methods. Relatively recent innovations in heteroscedasticity‐consistent time series techniques offer price forecasting tools that are feasible given available data and analysis technologies in low‐income economies. Moreover, extended GARCH models exhibit superior out‐of‐sample forecast accuracy using monthly food price data from Madagascar. These techniques also permit cost reduction in food security operations by more precise estimation of the risk of hitting a critical price level.     

Promoting GHG mitigation policies for agriculture and forestry: A case study in Guadeloupe,French West Indies

Climate change is now accepted as self-evident. It is time to find new production methods, set up new organizations and introduce new policies and new incentives to enable our economies and societies to face this issue. Innovation is required at all levels, from farming practices to government policy. Agricultural and forestry systems are strongly linked to their local environment and are often interdependent (economically, socially, etc.). This paper discusses how a landscape scale approach can help to mitigate climate change in forestry and agriculture. It describes the French Climagri^® approach, which is based on a GHG inventory and scenario analysis at sub-national scale in order to promote innovation. It discusses the strengths (transversal approach, GHG hot spot identification, impact of non-climate policies) and weaknesses (data collection, uncertainties, incentives) of such an approach based on a case study in Guadeloupe. This paper suggests ideas for tools to help in drawing up new efficient GHG policies and helps to explain landscape scale GHG inventories and data interpretation in a tropical context.     

Estimating multiproduct and product‐specific scale economies for agricultural cooperatives

This article estimates multiproduct and product‐specific scale economies, scope economies, and cost efficiency with single and annual cost frontiers using a nonparametric approach. Multiproduct scale and scope economies are found that suggests increasing scale and product diversification can reduce cost for agricultural cooperatives. Many agricultural cooperatives experience economies of scale indicating that variable returns to scale as opposed to constant returns to scale is the appropriate technology for modeling agricultural cooperatives. Product‐specific scale economies for all outputs are close to one indicating that individual outputs are operating close to constant returns to scale. Annual frontier estimates show that cooperatives have become less cost efficient over time, but scale and scope economies remain relatively consistent across years. Further, results show that economic measures obtained from the single frontier are statistically different from those measures calculated from annual frontiers, suggesting that the cost frontier has shifted over time. The trade‐off between cost efficiency and multiproduct scale economies indicates that smaller cooperatives can reduce a higher percentage of cost by increasing the scale of operations rather than just becoming cost efficient. Because larger incentives exist for small cooperatives to increase scale, mergers will likely continue until economies of scale are exhausted in the industry.     

The Moral Setting for Governance in Keonjhar: The Cultural Framing of Public Episodes and Development Processes in Northern Orissa,India

A discussion of the theory of technology and economic growth suggests potentially negative implications for the impact of the Internet on developing countries. Technology in general is undoubtedly central to the growth process, but economists define technology in very broad terms. The impact of any particular, invented, technology is likely to be small. This theoretical perspective is supported by the empirical evidence on the limited impact of past "information revolutions" on less-developed countries (LDCs) and the present impact of the Internet on advanced economies. Furthermore, LDCs appear ill-prepared to benefit from the opportunities that the Internet does present--they lack the physical and human capital, along with the institutions required, to exploit the e-economy. Finally, even optimistic forecasts of the Internet's global economic impact are small in scale compared with the challenge of development. This has significant implications for development policy.     

Dynamic Area Allocation and Economies of Scale and Scope

This article applies the adjustment cost framework to the case of area allocation by simultaneously determining the levels of input demand and output supply. Dynamic measures of economies of scale and scope are defined for output‐specific areas. An application to a rotating sample of Dutch cash crops reveals that farmers have a strong incentive for specialisation, but that large adjustment costs for area allocation resulting in small adjustments toward the optimal level prevent them from doing so.     

Can mining countries take advantage of their mining rents? A question of abundance,concentration and institutions

ABSTRACT

A common puzzle in economics is whether natural resources are a ‘curse’ or a ‘blessing’ for economic development. Previous studies have suggested that resource booms can promote growth, but private rent-seeking can turn these booms into a curse if institutions are weak. We argue that private incentives differ depending on whether rents are diversified across different commodities or concentrated in a few of them, because greater diversification implies higher appropriation costs. By using SITC-4 level of export disaggregation to measure within-sector concentration in 131 countries during 1991–2015, we show that the effect of mining rents on economic growth is conditional on the level of concentration within the mining sector. Mining rents enhance growth for economies with low concentration and strong institutions but reduce growth for economies with high-concentration and extremely weak institutions.     

The office development cycle in London

Summary

The paper examines the main features of the office market and the office development process in London, which is not only the largest office centre in the UK, but also in Europe as a whole. The discussion starts with the main factors which have contributed to the growth of London as a national and international office centre, concentrating in particular upon the main sources of demand for new office building. The cyclical nature of post‐war office development in London is described, illustrated by an examination of the relative trends in investment and development returns from new offices. The impact of the supply cycle upon the organization and funding of development, and upon its scale and location are then discussed, followed by a brief review of the impact of planning policy upon the office market. Finally, there is a review of the current situation at the end of the third post‐war cycle, and an assessment of the likely impact of new office technologies upon the demand for office space in the next development cycle during the late 1980s.     

The impact of biotechnologies and protection on the world sugar market

Abstract

Over the last decade, biotechnologies have become a major challenge to the world's agricultural markets. By considering the sugar market, this paper demonstrates the influence of national policy interventions on the process of market introduction of these technologies. The results suggest that protectionism in industrialised countries has promoted the development of substitutes and depressed the competitiveness of new technologies in the field of sugar plant production. Techniques of bioprocessing have reached the stage of technical maturity due to strong public support. The costs of these changes are largely borne by consumers and taxpayers in richer countries and by Third World exporters.     

Telecommunications and the future of cities∗

Summary

This article examines the impact of new telecommunications technologies on urban growth and development. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the author argues that new technologies are strengthening large ‘world cities’ that are centres for international finance and information services. The author describes the emerging telecommunications infrastructure in the US and analyses the distinctive roles of government and business in the planning and development of this infrastructure. Drawing upon data from major financial institutions, the author analyses the location of corporate headquarters and information processing centres. The conclusions suggest that there will be growing disparities between urban and rural telecommunications systems and the consequences for office development.     

Identification of Economies of Scope in a Stochastic Production Environment

This paper extends the definition of economies of scope to multioutput firms that face an uncertain production environment. Identification of economies of scope in this environment, however, requires separability assumptions on the technology. These identification restrictions are demonstrated in the paper. For each identification restriction, the definition of economies of scope is generalized to the case of uncertain production and risk aversion.
L'article que voici élargit la définition des économies de gamme aux entreprises à produits multiples aux prises avec une situation incertaine au niveau de la production. Pour cerner les économies de gamme dans une telle situation, il faut poser l'hypothèse de la séparation des technologies. Les auteurs illustrent ces restrictions et généralisent la définition des économies de diversification pour chacune d'elles dans le cas d'une production incertaine et de l'aversion du risque.     

Do the Largest Firms Grow and Diversify the Fastest? The Case of U.S. Dairies

We analyze growth and diversification of U.S. dairy farms by examining changes in ten size cohorts and new entrants through three successive censuses. We reject Gibrat's law and the mean reversion hypothesis of growth. Growth rates appear bimodal where the smallest and largest farm cohorts grow fastest. All cohorts diversify but the largest farms do not diversify as rapidly as medium-sized farms. New entrants are generally large, and they diversify more rapidly than comparably sized incumbents do. These data suggest that scale economies persist even for the largest cohort of U.S. dairy farms and scale economies dominate scope economies for large farms.     

Catching up in new wave technologies

In the last quarter of the 20th Century, new technologies and competitive practices challenged earlier opportunities for entry from a low skill base and the pursuit of an incremental process of catching up. In traditional manufacturing industries, these changes pose few problems at the entry level, though they render catch-up processes more difficult to sustain. In "new wave technologies", such as those growing out of biotechnology, the science base, patent intensity and systems' embeddedness have raised the barriers to entry and narrowed opportunities for incremental catching up from a low skill base. This paper explores these changes and their implications for traditional entry and catch-up strategies in developing countries.     

On the nature and magnitude of cost economies in hog production

In this article, we assess the impact of farm size on production cost and evaluate the marginal costs and margins by considering that input prices may change with the scale of production. By using French hog farm data, we estimate a system of equations including a feed price function, input demand functions, and an output supply function based on a technology approximated by a combined generalized Leontief‐Quadratic form. Our results suggest that the marginal costs are over‐estimated when the adjustment of the feed unit prices to a change in farm size is not controlled for. More specifically, the cost economies for large farms (enjoying the highest profits) arise primarily from lower feed prices, with technological scale economies having little impact. In contrast, farms with no hired labor exhibit technological scale economies and reach higher price‐cost margins compared to larger farms.     

Estimating product‐specific and multiproduct economies of scale with data envelopment analysis

Nonparametric cost frontier estimation and subsequent analysis of the relative efficiency of firms has historically been conducted without critically examining the shape of the cost frontier. The shape of the cost frontier has been examined using additional parametric estimation methods to recover potential cost savings from multiproduct and product‐specific economies of scale. This paper presents and tests an approach to estimate multiproduct and product‐specific economies of scale using data envelopment analysis. Data for the study are simulated assuming an underlying production technology. Nonparametric estimates of efficiency, multiproduct scale, product specific scale, and scope economies are compared to those of the assumed production technology. Results show that the nonparametric approach accurately estimates multiproduct economies of scale and product‐specific economies of scale under alternative inefficiency distributional assumptions.     

Market and Cost Structure in the U.S. Beef Packing Industry: A Plant-Level Analysis

A resurgence of consolidation in the U.S. meat packing industry in the past few decades has stimulated academic and policy debate. Issues raised include the role of cost economies in driving these patterns, and the effects on the agricultural sector (cattle producers) from market power. Here, plant level cost and revenue data for U.S. beef packing plants are used to estimate a cost-based model incorporating cattle- and output-market pricing behavior. The robust results indicate little market power exploitation in either the cattle input or beef output markets, and that any apparent evidence is counteracted by cost efficiencies such as utilization and scope economies.     

Synergies or Trade-Offs in University Life Sciences Research

Major legislative, legal, and technological changes paved the way for a period of remarkable growth in the patenting of life science research by U.S. universities in the 1980s and 1990s. Using a multiple-output cost framework and two decades of panel data on ninety-six universities, this article examines whether economies of scope and/or scale are present in university production of three major life science research outputs: journal articles, patents, and doctorates. The results show strong evidence of economies of scale in life science research production with mixed evidence of economies of scope between articles and patents.     

The political economy of manufacturing protection in LDCs: An Indonesian case study

Abstract

There are significant inter‐industry variations in protection in all but the most open of economies. This invites the obvious question, why? Are these variations simply random in nature, or are they systematic, and therefore amenable to explanation? Most of the literature on this subject pertains to industrialized economies. Few studies have been undertaken of developing countries, where political institutions are less developed, policy‐making processes often less transparent, protection generally higher and more dispersed and the data base usually poorer. In this paper, we examine these issues with reference to Indonesia, a large, rapidly industrializing economy with high (albeit decreasing) levels of manufacturing protection. We find that the standard theory purporting to explain inter‐industry variations in protection performs quite well in some cases, although a substantial unexplained residual exists. We give examples of how the theory developed for industrialized economies might be modified for developing economies.     

Financial drivers of land use decisions: The case of smallholder woodlots in Amhara,Ethiopia

A household survey on the financial drivers of woodlot production was conducted in the Lake Tana watershed of Amhara State, Ethiopia. Analysis of smallholder Eucalyptus globulus Labill. production reveals that converting uneroded over eroded croplands leads to significantly higher financial returns. Returns were also significantly higher for rotation intervals closer to the optimal economic rotation and for higher planting densities. Most woodlots had positive financial returns. The presence of negative financial returns for some households demonstrates that positive ecological externalities, a lack of economies of scale and/or myopic behavior are potentially important factors in land use decision-making. Wood utilization decisions were shown to impact the potential financial returns of households. Smallholders’ activities demonstrate that eucalyptus is an imperfect substitute for agricultural production on surplus cropland. A third of respondents indicated they had intentionally chosen to convert uneroded croplands to achieve higher returns. Smallholders faced constraints in bargaining over price and access to markets. Future land use policies should address marketing constraints and unsustainable land use activities. Harvesting soil from natural forests and the conversion of productive surplus cropland to woodlot production both present long-term sustainability challenges. This study demonstrates the importance of considering economic and social incentives when creating land use policies for smallholder's woodlot production.     

新型城镇化对工业用地利用效率的影响：理论框架与实证检验

研究目的:构建一般化的理论框架,探讨新型城镇化对工业用地利用效率的影响机制。研究方法:数据包络分析方法、全局主成分分析方法、个体固定效应模型。研究结果:(1)土地市场化供给程度、非国有工业企业占比及高科技产业企业占比越高,越有利于提高工业用地利用效率;(2)工业发展规模遵循着规模经济的规律,在一定技术水平的条件下,规模并非越大越好;(3)从短期来看,工业研发投入未能有效促进工业用地利用效率的增加。研究结论:新型城镇化对工业用地利用效率具有显著的正向促进作用,并且中西部地区新型城镇化更能刺激工业用地利用效率的提升。     

Vertical Economies and the Structure of U.S. Hog Farms

Scale economies are often touted as the factor behind the trend in the structure of the U.S. hog industry toward fewer and larger hog farms. However, since hog production is multistage and farms either integrate or separate the stages, the appropriate measures are multistage economies. In theory, a smaller and, presumably, high‐cost operation, by the standards of single stage/output scale economies, may still be cost‐competitive if it enjoys multistage economies — that is if vertical scope economies more than offset stage‐specific scale diseconomies. Whether that holds in practice remains heretofore unexplored in the agricultural economics literature. Using a unique data set on hog farms in the U.S. Midwest, we estimate a multistage cost function and provide the first‐ever estimates of multistage economies, stage‐specific economies, and vertical scope economies in hog production. Les économies d'échelle sont souvent soupçonnées d'être le facteur qui influence la tendance observée dans la structure de l'industrie porcine aux États‐Unis, soit des porcheries moins nombreuses mais de plus grande taille. Cependant, comme la production porcine est une production à plusieurs stades et que les producteurs peuvent choisir d'intégrer ces stades ou d'exploiter un seul stade, les mesures appropriées sont les économies d'échelle liées aux stades multiples. En théorie, une petite porcherie, qui a probablement des coûts élevés selon les critères des économies d'échelle liées à un seul stade, peut tout de même être concurrentielle quant aux coûts si elle profite des économies d'échelle liées aux stades multiples, c'est‐à‐dire si les économies de gamme verticales font plus que compenser les déséconomies d'échelle liées à un seul stade. La vérification de cette théorie dans la pratique demeure, jusqu'ici, inexploitée dans la littérature agroéconomique. En utilisant un ensemble de données sur des porcheries situées dans le Midwest américain, nous avons estimé une fonction de coût lié aux stades multiples et nous présentons les premières estimations d'économies d'échelle liées aux stades multiples, d'économies d'échelle liées à un seul stade et d'économies de gamme verticales dans la production porcine.