Trade liberalization and food security in Nepal

Among South Asian countries, Nepal liberalized most extensively during the 1980s and 1990s on both domestic and external fronts. In South Asia, Nepal has the lowest per capita income, highest dependence of population on agriculture and second highest poverty rate. At the same time, Nepal has the lowest average tariffs in South Asia and has taken several steps to downsize its public food distribution system and remove a host of agricultural subsidies. The outcomes from these policy reforms in Nepal are mixed. Aggregate indicators of food sufficiency and security (per capita food availability, extent of malnourishment) show improvement in Nepal since liberalization. Relative to other South Asian countries, Nepal is doing better on some indicators, like extent of undernourished population, while on other indicators, like stunting of children, Nepal is actually doing the worst. More importantly, the gains from liberalization across regions in Nepal have been uneven. The reason for such an uneven outcome is lack of complementary policies from the government that would lead to spatial integration of markets (e.g. the creation of physical and marketing infrastructure). Liberalization has in effect reinforced the ex-ante hierarchy across regions in Nepal. The paper then reviews the role and reform of the Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) within this broader context.     

On the efficiency of composting organic wastes

We develop a mathematical programming model for the analysis of a nationwide waste‐management system based on composting of organic wastes. The model integrates a wide range of engineering, environmental, and economic factors, including estimated production functions based on agronomic experimental data, as well as demand functions for vegetative agricultural products. The model is applied to the case of Israel, comprising 14 groups of municipalities as the source of organic municipal solid waste and wastewater‐treatment sludge, 8 composting plants, and 13 agricultural regions; the latter constitute the source of livestock manure and are the consumers of compost to be potentially applied to 42 crops. From a social point of view, 90% of the compost's potential production was found to be warranted. This efficient solution, however, does not emerge under the base‐year‐observed situation, largely because of the absence of source separation of organic municipal solid waste and the farmers' lack of awareness of compost's advantages as a substitute for conventional fertilizers and as a soil‐amending product. Consequently, most of the organic wastes are disposed of by landfilling, resulting in a loss of $102 million per year in terms of net social benefits. While the consumers of agricultural products are expected to benefit from a shift from the base‐year situation to the efficient solution, most of their gain is expected to come at the expense of the farming sector. Nevertheless, the appearance of the efficient solution does not depend on administrative compensation payments, but on the removal of bottlenecks. Potential government intervention strategies to promote the change are analyzed.     

Regulating a reluctant profession: Holding solicitors to account

Solicitors are often placed in a position of trust where they hold money on behalf of their clients. Instances of the misuse of clients’ money have been a recurring feature in the history of the legal profession in England and Wales. Yet the legal establishment was slow to impose the same standards of accountability on its members which had long been expected of other members of society and continued to prevaricate many years after the need for financial regulations had been demonstrated through a series of scandals. This paper provides a detailed review of the evolution of basic accounting regulations governing the legal profession.     

Tourists' support for conservation messages and sustainable management practices in wildlife tourism experiences

A common justification for developing wildlife tourism attractions is that they help to secure long-term conservation of wildlife and wildlife habitats. Managers and guides often highlight their role in protecting wildlife and its habitat, yet little is known about the interests, needs and preferences of the tourists who participate in such activities – how aware are they of conservation issues; how concerned are they about the environmental impacts their visit may cause; do they expect and accept the conservation messages they receive? This research explores the perceptions, preferences and conservation awareness of tourists visiting the Mon Repos Conservation Park in Queensland, Australia. Comparison data from four other sites are also presented in order to provide a wider context for interpreting the data. The findings suggest that wildlife tourism management practices that enlist tourists as conservation partners, communicate the reasons behind any constraints imposed, and present a consistent message regarding interactions with wildlife, are likely to be most successful in meeting the needs of both tourists and wildlife.     

The weighted cross-shareholding complex network: a copula approach to concentration and control in financial markets

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - In this work, we focus on the cross-shareholding structure in financial markets. Specifically, we build ad hoc indices of concentration and...     

Rhetorical History as Institutional Work

Rhetorical history has emerged as a useful theoretical construct that bridges the long recognized gap between historical and organizational scholarship. Despite its growing popularity, the precise nature of rhetorical history as a construct, its scope conditions, and its utility in resolving critical issues in historical organizational analysis remains unclear. This paper addresses these issues. We define rhetorical history and contextualize the construct by elaborating its relationship to associated concepts like collective memory, rhetoric, and narrative. We ground the construct by reviewing literature that has applied rhetorical history in both theory and empirical research. Our inductive review identifies four recurring themes in which rhetorical history is used to construct perceptions of; (a) continuity and discontinuity, (b) similarity and difference, (c) winners and losers, and (d) morality and immorality. We conclude with a discussion of how rhetorical history is an essential mechanism of institutional work.     

Stop tank abuse

Large volumes of fluids are processed or stored in tanks of all shapes and sizes and occupy a major portion of the landscape within our chemical plants and refineries. These tanks serve the industry very well but occasionally they suffer from improper design or abusive conditions and failures occur.     

What is the future of water quality trading?

A comprehensive review of experiences with water quality trading (WQT) programs worldwide is presented, spanning altogether more than 4 decades. A new WQT database is built, extracting data and information from existing review papers, complemented with gray and published literature about individual trading programs. Key aspects that affect trading volumes and program continuation are identified and categorized. No single success or fail factor emerges from this review, typically a mix of factors play a role. There is potential for WQT to evolve further and serve as a cost-effective pollution control instrument, but this requires nudging political will to regulate nonpoint source.     

Exploring entrepreneurial intention among engineering students in India: a multiple basket approach

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - In the light of Bandura’s (Social foundations of thought and action: a social cognitive perspective, Princeton-Hall, Englewood...