Are medium‐scale farms driving agricultural transformation in sub‐Saharan Africa?

This study presents evidence of profound farm‐level transformation in parts of sub‐Saharan Africa, identifies major sources of dynamism in the sector, and proposes an updated typology of farms that reflects the evolving nature of African agriculture. Repeat waves of national survey data are used to examine changes in crop production and marketed output by farm size. Between the first and most recent surveys (generally covering 6 to 10 years), the share of national marketed crop output value accounted for by medium‐scale farms rose in Zambia from 23% to 42%, in Tanzania from 17% to 36%, and in Nigeria from 7% to 18%. The share of land under medium‐scale farms is not rising in densely populated countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, where land scarcity is impeding the pace of medium‐scale farm acquisitions. Medium‐scale farmers are a diverse group, reflecting distinct entry pathways into agriculture, encouraged by the rapid development of land rental, purchase, and long‐term lease markets. The rise of medium‐scale farms is affecting the region in diverse ways that are difficult to generalize. Findings indicate that these farms can be a dynamic driver of agricultural transformation but this does not reduce the importance of maintaining a clear commitment to supporting smallholder farms. Strengthening land tenure security of local rural people to maintain land rights and support productivity investments by smallholder households remains crucial.     

Evidence on the Relationship between Low Income and Poor Health: Is the Government Doing Enough?

The government's report, Opportunity for All: Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion (Department of Social Security, 1999), identified poor health as one of the major problems associated with low income. However, much of the available evidence on the relationship between income and health is of little help in forming policies to reduce health inequalities, as it has tended to be based on cross‐section surveys and is therefore unable to shed much light on causal effects. Here, we make use of two British longitudinal datasets to examine the longer‐term influences of income on health within a life‐course perspective. We then use the results of our analysis to provide a brief critical assessment of the likely success of the government's anti‐poverty strategy in reducing health inequalities. A more detailed assessment of government policy in this respect can be found in Benzeval et al. (forthcoming).     

Australian Public‐Sector Outsourcing in the ‘Golden Era’: Cost Savings Evidence or Anecdote?

This paper reports a multi-method study of the watershed period of Australian public-sector outsourcing from the mid-1990s to 2000. Interviews and a large-scale survey conducted with Australian public-sector managers indicate a number of shortfalls in decision-making and decision-evaluation processes from accounting and policy compliance perspectives. The results suggest that the cost-savings objective was given a low level of importance, that transaction-cost data were rarely used in decision-making, and that ex-post decision evaluation of the cost outcomes from outsourcing was minimal. These results are also reinterpreted and implications drawn in light of the current contracting practices of Australian public-sector organisations .     

Nurse retention: is it worth it?

Nurse turnover costs thousands of dollars and negatively affects patient outcomes. Study results indicate experienced nurses perceive decreased autonomy and task orientation, and increased work pressure in their work environments. Strategies are presented to help retain RNs, save money, and improve patient outcomes.     

The effects of price deregulation on maize marketing margins in South Africa

There has been continuous controversy over the impact of food market reforms on food security in Africa. In South Africa, the government and media have often questioned the effects of price deregulation of maize meal, the major staple food, on consumers. This article determines the effect of retail price deregulation on the size of maize milling/retail margins in South Africa. Regression models of monthly milling/retail margins are run from the period May 1976 to December 2004. To assess the robustness of our findings, we estimate several different models of structural change, vary the sample period to examine the sensitivity of findings to unusual weather and market conditions in the region during episodes between 2001 and 2004, and run the models using different estimation techniques, OLS with Newey-West robust estimators and Feasible General Least Squares. In virtually all models, the results indicate that real maize milling/retailing margins in South Africa have increased by at least 20% since the deregulation of retail prices in 1991. Moreover, there is evidence of trend growth in the size of the milling margin over time. Simulations indicate that the deregulation of maize meal prices has entailed a transfer of at least US$179 million/year from consumers to agents in the marketing system. Further study is needed to understand why this outcome in South Africa differs from findings in other countries in the region concerning the effects of reform on food marketing margins.     

The Perfect Little Bump: Does the Media Portrayal of Pregnant Celebrities Influence Prenatal Attachment?

This study proposes and tests a theoretical model that analyzes celebrity pregnancy attraction and its ultimate influence over prenatal attachment within pregnant women. In particular, interest in pregnant celebrities and a high concern for physical appearance are examined for their relationship to weight concern and body image, and then leading on to prenatal attachment. The conceptual model presented was tested using structural equation modeling in a sample of 478 pregnant women. All hypotheses proposed were found to be significant. Results suggest that a high pregnant celebrity attraction, in combination with other factors, can lead to a reduced level of prenatal attachment. The study contributes further to knowledge of the influence of celebrities over consumer body image and healthy psychological adaptation in the important context of pregnancy.     

Factors explaining the low and variable profitability of fertilizer application to maize in Zambia

It is widely recognized that an “African green revolution” will require greater use of inorganic fertilizers. Often‐made comparisons note that fertilizer use rates in Africa are just 10–20% of those in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Most attempts to explain relatively low‐adoption of fertilizer assume yield responses to inorganic fertilization warrant higher application rates and hypothesize that observed use rates are limited by market‐based factors. Another explanation may be that application rates are low because African yields are less responsive to inorganic fertilizer than yields in other regions, and less responsive than analysts perceive. Examining the case of Zambia, we evaluate whether yield response to fertilizers could explain adoption and application rates. A model of yield response is constructed and a combination of estimators is employed to mitigate potential biases related to correlation between fertilizer use and unobserved heterogeneity as well as stochastic shocks. Results indicate higher fertilization rates would be marginally profitable or unprofitable in many cases given commercial fertilizer and maize prices. Phosphoric fertilizer is particularly unprofitable on acidic soils, which are common in Zambia and other areas of sub‐Saharan Africa. We propose feasible recommendations for diversifying the current government strategy to enhance crop productivity.     

Impact of Segment‐level Natural Resource Operational Risk Reporting on Earnings Predictions

Non‐financial reports alert investors to operational risks associated with issues such as insufficient access to natural resource inputs and related costly interruptions to production, while segment‐level reports alert investors to operational risk distribution across a firm. An important issue, to date unexplored, is how segment‐level non‐financial reporting has an impact on earnings predictions. We report the results of an experiment used to examine how mining company segment‐level water reports affect investors' earnings predictions, where water reports indicate whether the firm and its segments will have access to sufficient water to meet production needs. We find that investors do not change their earnings predictions when firm and segment‐level reports indicate low water risk but they do revise down their earnings predictions when firm and segment‐level water reports indicate high water risk. This is consistent with investors responding to the additional information provided in segment‐level reports confirming that water risk is high across the firm. Regardless of whether firm‐level water reports indicate high or low water risk, when segment‐level reports indicate that one segment is low water risk and another is high water risk, investors revise down their earnings predictions. This is consistent with investors recognizing that natural resource operational risk concentration in one segment can affect earnings more than evenly‐distributed risk. Overall, our findings suggest that belief‐adjustment theory explains how investors react to prospective operational risk information contained in segment‐level water reports according to the similarity of the segment‐level risks, and that this information is factored into earnings predictions.     

Developing cross-cultural competencies through international corporate volunteerism

We propose three features of cross-cultural experiences, contextual novelty, project meaningfulness and social support, facilitate the development of cross-cultural competencies. Using a longitudinal design, the employees in Study 1 participated in an international corporate volunteerism program designed with all three features. These results found a positive change over time in cross-cultural competencies. Results of Study 2, also longitudinal, suggest that the participants’ post-assignment cross-cultural competencies are the highest: (1) when employees with higher baseline cross-cultural competencies work in high contextual novelty (i.e., international location) and (2) when employees with lower baseline cross-cultural competencies work in low contextual novelty (i.e., domestic location).