Adoption of conservation tillage in Australian cropping regions: An application of duration analysis

The diffusion of agricultural innovations is rarely rapid. As a result, adoption decisions over time are very likely to be influenced by changes in generic factors such as the price of complementary inputs and environmental conditions. Despite this, the vast majority of studies aiming to explain innovation adoption are limited to cross-sectional data and analysis techniques that cannot accommodate time-dependent variables. This study departs from these attempts by using a duration analysis technique to investigate the significance of time-dependent economic and environmental variables, along with cross-sectional variables such as technology-specific perceptions, on the adoption of soil-conserving cropping practices by grain growers in southern Australia over the period 1983–2003. Of particular interest is the possible trade-off faced by farmers where adoption of no-tillage cropping technology can lead to greater herbicide reliance and subsequently unsustainable weed management due to high risks of herbicide resistance. Results show that factors affecting the cost-effectiveness of herbicides are important in the adoption of the erosion-reducing cropping systems. Several factors relating to the availability and use of technical information are also shown to be influential. The duration analysis approach allowed changes in time-dependent variables, including the fall in the price of the herbicide glyphosate, to be identified as determinants of the timing of no-till adoption.     

Contested land tenure reform in South Africa: experiences from Namaqualand

In South Africa the distribution of land rights remains a major manifestation and cause of injustice, only slowly affected by the constitutionally mandated programme of land restitution, redistribution and tenure reform. The Transformation of Certain Rural Areas Act 94, 1998 (Trancraa) is the first post-apartheid legislation to reform ‘communal’ land tenure. It applies to 23 former ‘coloured rural areas’ and was introduced in six areas in Namaqualand in the Northern Cape Province during 2001–2. In a different, contested process a Communal Land Rights Bill for the former ‘homelands’ was published in August 2002, adopted by Cabinet in 2003 and signed into law in July 2004. While the Communal Land Rights Act relies on ‘traditional councils’ with a majority of non-elected members, Trancraa was enacted in the context of the 1997 White Paper of South African Land Policy and focused on community choice and the role of municipalities. The consultative process in Namaqualand was driven by civil society organisations and community actors, but did not include the training, finance and development support needed to transform rural relations among people affected by unemployment, land scarcity and weak local organisations. To promote procedural and substantive justice, tenure reform must honour the human rights of equality, redress and land development support articulated in land policy and the Constitution.     

The predictive validity of the Karnani and Wernerfelt model of multipoint competition

This study is the first to examine the predictive validity of the Karnani and Wernerfelt theoretical model. We developed measures for four variables, and explored whether they successfully operationalized the dimensions in the theoretical model. The model proposed four response strategies, and six were observed in the data. Incumbent firms most frequently did not respond at all to another firm's entry, even though a counterattack response was predicted by the model. Since the independent variables did not predict responses as proposed by the model, exploratory analyses identified “best” predictors of responses.     

Consumer heterogeneity in the longer-term effects of price promotions

While a significant literature has emerged recently on the longer-term effects of price promotions, as inferred from persistence models, there is very little if any attention paid to whether such longer-term effects vary across different types of consumers. This paper takes a first step in that direction by exploring whether the adjustment, permanent, and total effects of price promotions, and the duration of the adjustment period, differ between consumers segmented based on their usage rates in a product category and their loyalty to a brand. We also investigate whether such consumer segmentation will improve the forecasting performance of persistence models at both product category and brand levels. Expectations are developed based on consumer behavior theory on various effects of price promotions, such as the post-deal trough, the mere purchase effect, the promotion usage effect, and responsiveness to competitor's reactions. Evidence from household-level supermarket scanner data on four product categories is provided. We find substantial differences between consumer segments and provide insights on how managers can increase the longer-term effectiveness of price promotions by targeting each consumer segment with a different promotion program. In addition, consumer segmentation is found to significantly improve the forecasting performance of the persistence model for two of the four product categories. For the other two product categories, consumer segmentation provides forecasting performance similar to that obtained from aggregate-level persistence models.     

Best foot forward or best for last in a sequential auction?

Should a seller with private information sell the best or worst goods first? Considering the sequential auction of two stochastically equivalent goods, we find that the seller has an incentive to impress buyers by selling the better good first because the seller's sequencing strategy endogenously generates correlation in the values of the goods across periods. When this impression effect is strong enough, selling the better good first is the unique pure‐strategy equilibrium. By credibly revealing to all buyers the seller's ranking of the goods, an equilibrium strategy of sequencing the goods reduces buyer information rents and increases expected revenues in accordance with the linkage principle.