Estimating the Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture in Low-Income Countries: Household Level Evidence from the Nile Basin, Ethiopia

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the impact of climate change on agriculture in a typical developing country. The economic implications of climate change are estimated by using both a farm productivity and a Ricardian framework. Data are drawn from about 1,000 farms producing cereal crops in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia. The thin plate spline method of spatial interpolation was used to predict household specific rainfall and temperature values using meteorological station data collected for 30?years across the regions. We found that climate change adaptation has a significant impact on both farm productivity and farm net revenues. We complement the analysis by providing an estimation of the determinants of adaptation. Extension services (both formal and farmer to farmer), as well as access to credit and information on future climate changes are key drivers of adaptation.     

The role of family ownership in international entrepreneurship: exploring nonlinear effects

Empirical research on international entrepreneurship is growing, but results on the role of family ownership in this phenomenon are inconsistent. We believe these inconsistencies owe to prior researchers having not yet investigated nonlinear relationships. Drawing on opposing perspectives of stewardship and stagnation, we explore potential benefits and drawbacks of family ownership for international entrepreneurship and explore nonlinear relationships among these two variables. Using a sample of 1,035 US family businesses and applying ordinal regression analysis, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between family ownership and international entrepreneurship: International entrepreneurship is maximized when family ownership stands at moderate levels. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice and indicate avenues for future research.     

Customer satisfaction and service domains: a further development of PROSERV

Quality & Quantity - This paper aims to represent that levels of customer satisfaction of tourist accommodation are an important prerequisite when the goal is building a loyal relationship with...     

Fiscal rule compliance,poverty and social exclusion in the Eurozone

This paper develops a simple model of the effects of fiscal adjustments on poverty. Our theory suggests that in richer countries the effects of fiscal adjustment are stronger the more complex is the poverty measure. By examining a panel of 16 EU countries in the period 2005–2015, the paper finds that structural public balance adjustments may harm the welfare of poorer individuals. The empirical estimation hinges on a comprehensive index of poverty and social exclusion, the AROPE index. The results suggest that rigid fiscal rules require specific alternative policies to sustain the welfare of poorer individuals during downturns.     

Quantitative methods for the economic valuation of a cultural tourism destination: case study of the Pisa Charterhouse

Quality & Quantity - This paper aims to provide an economic valuation of the Pisa Charterhouse, a renowned monastic complex built in the fourteenth century, located in the Tuscany region of...     

A Structuralist Approach to the Economic Trajectories of Russia and the Countries of East-Central Europe since 1900

I introduce geographical specificity to world-systems concepts of core and periphery to develop a structuralist approach on semiperipheral development in the world-economy. I apply this approach to the historical trajectory of economic growth in Russia and east-central Europe since 1900. I find circumstantial support for Wallerstein's classic assertion that mercantilist semi-withdrawal is a potentially effective development strategy for semiperipheral countries and show that Russia raised its economic output above historical trend levels during the Soviet period. In contrast, east-central Europe fell short of historical trends during the Soviet period, suggesting that Russia's gains may have been made at the expense of its satellite empire. With the end of communism, both Russia and the countries of east-central Europe quickly returned to their long-term historical output levels relative to the core countries of western Europe.     

Delegation,Ownership Concentration and R&D Spending: Evidence From Italy

We use data from the Italian manufacturing industry to document a positive correlation between delegation and R&D. This result is robust to controlling for the determinants of R&D such as human capital, capital intensity and sectoral or regional effects. We further investigate the determinants of delegation and find that ownership concentration is significantly related to delegation. Among large firms with a dispersed ownership structure, larger ownership concentration implies less delegation, whereas the opposite emerges with more concentrated ownership. Differences between the Northern and Southern regions in terms of firms' propensity to delegate decisions and engage in R&D also emerge.     

Selection of a Representative Value Function for Robust Ordinal Regression in Group Decision Making

In this paper, we introduce the concept of a representative value function in a group decision context. We extend recently proposed methods UTA^GMS-GROUP and UTADIS^GMS-GROUP with selection of a compromise and collective preference model which aggregates preferences of several decision makers (DMs) and represents all instances of preference models compatible with preference information elicited from DMs. The representative value function is built on results of robust ordinal regression, so its representativeness can be interpreted in terms of robustness concern. We propose a few procedures designed for multiple criteria ranking, choice, and sorting problems. The use of these procedures is conditioned by both satisfying different degrees of consistency of the preference information provided by all DMs, as well as by some properties of particular decision making situations. The representative value function is intended to help the DMs to understand the robust results, and to provide them with a compromise result in case of conflict between the DMs.     

Design principles for long‐lived Internet agents

Prior research on intelligent Internet agents has failed to address the needs of long‐lived data‐collecting agents, focusing instead on short‐lived transaction agents. Transaction agents typically run for a few seconds and retrieve information for a single transaction. With the staggering growth of electronic commerce, researchers and practitioners will want to design long‐lived data‐collecting agents that intelligently search for, retrieve, interpret, categorize, and store vast amounts of related information each time that they run. Such agents can run over the course of days rather than seconds and can be used by practitioners for decision support applications or by researchers as part of an empirical research methodology. This paper proposes a framework for agent sophistication, and emphasizes a number of design concepts for long‐lived Internet agents, including intelligence, validation, concurrency, recovery, monitoring, and interactivity. These concepts are used in the development of an illustrative tool called Electronic Data Retrieval LexicaL Agent (eDRILL), an object‐oriented data‐collecting agent. eDRILL is designed using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and is written in Java. It gathers research data from an online auction. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.