The impact of mechanized processing of cassava on farmers’ production efficiency in Uganda

The study investigates the impact of adopting mechanized processing of cassava on farmers’ production efficiency in Uganda. A stochastic production function, using translog functional form, was used to compare efficiency measures of farmers in mechanized cassava-processing villages compared with the farmers in nonmechanized cassava-processing villages in 2014. Given the specification of the translog production function, the mean technical efficiencies of the farmers were 0.69 and 0.52 in mechanized and nonmechanized villages, respectively. The significant determinants of technical inefficiency among the respondents are farming experience, education, membership of farmer association, access to markets, sale of cassava to processors and farmers who planted cassava as sole crop are all negative, which confirm to a priori expectations and significant at different levels. The policy implication of the study is that mechanization of cassava processing, particularly if done at the right scale, could create demand that can transform primary production for increased yields, higher incomes and production efficiency of smallholder farmers who constitute a significant proportion of Uganda’s agricultural sector.     

The MISSCARE Survey-Turkish: psychometric properties and findings

One measure of the process of nursing care is missed nursing care, which refers to any aspect of required care that is omitted either in part or in whole or delayed. Little is understood about how the quality and processes of nursing care differs among countries around the world. The aims of this study were (a) to test the psychometric properties of the MISSCARE Survey-Turkish and (b) to compare the extent and type of missed care as well as reasons for missing care between Turkey and the United States. There was less missed care reported by Turkish nurses as compared to U.S. nurses (p < 0.0001). Turkey nurses identified more problems with inadequate staffing resources (p < 0.0001), materials resources (p < 0.0001), and communication/teamwork (p < 0.0001) as reasons for missed nursing care than did U.S. nurses. Missed nursing care is a critical problem that needs to be addressed in both countries.     

Short note on inf-convolution preserving the Fatou property

We model agents’ preferences by cash-invariant concave functionals defined on L ^∞, and formulate the optimal risk allocation problem as their infimal-convolution. We study the case of agents whose choice functionals are law-invariant with respect to different probability measures and show how, in this case, the value function preserves a desirable dual representation (equivalent to the Fatou property). Financial support from the European Science Foundation (ESF) “Advanced Mathematical Methods for Finance” (AMaMeF) under the exchange grant 1192 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Food Stamps and Food Spending: An Engel Function Approach

Estimation of Food Stamp Program (FSP) effects has been complicated by self-selection and by a contradiction between observed spending patterns and the economic theory of consumer choice. We developed a modified version of the traditional theory, in which participant households may be partly extramarginal even if they have some cash spending on at-home food. Using Current Population Survey (CPS) data for 2001–2005, we estimated Engel functions for at-home and away-from-home food spending for FSP participants and nonparticipants. Compared to nonparticipants with the same level of total income, participants had higher at-home food spending and lower away-from-home food spending.     

Evaluating the Validity of the Dichotomous Choice Question Format in Contingent Valuation

Hypothetical and actual cash willingness to pay (WTP) for an art print were elicited with dichotomous choice and open-ended question formats. Comparing hypothetical and actual dichotomous choice responses using both a likelihood ratio test and the method of convolutions suggests we reject equality at the 0.05 but not the 0.01 level. Hypothetical WTP was roughly two times actual WTP with the dichotomous choice format. There were no significant differences between the open-ended and dichotomous choice question formats when both were used to estimate hypothetical WTP or both used to estimate actual WTP.     

Stability and bifurcations in <Emphasis Type="Italic">IS-LM</Emphasis> economic models

In this note, we analyze the local dynamics of a general non-linear fixedprice disequilibrium IS-LM model. We assume investment behavior as a general nonlinear function avoiding any Kaldor type assumption. By proving the existence of a family of periodic solutions bifurcating from a steady state, we confirm and extend some results in the literature for IS-LM models reducible to Leinard’s equation. We use bifurcation theory and study the effect of a change of the adjustment parameter in the money market upon the solutions of the model as the steady state loses stability. We establish analytically that the values of the adjustment parameter in the money market may affect the equilibrium relative to the product market and the government budget constraint. (JEL: C62, E32)     

Continuous mobile banking usage and relationship commitment – A multi-country assessment

Although conducting banking transactions via mobile phones, smart phones and tablets has become popular in many countries, major gaps exist in our understanding of those who use this technology, particularly how experienced users perceive mobile banking. Drawing from the literature on mobile banking adoption, continuous usage behavior and post-adoption of technology behavior, the authors shed light on the nature of experienced mobile banking users’ relationship commitment (RC) with their bank and personal finances. The study reveals changes in commitment and shows that mobile banking offers substantial added value to users. Overall, this research will help managers better understand the importance of mobile banking services in the light of customer RC.