Cropland use,yields, and droughts: spatial data modeling for Burkina Faso and Niger

For countries with recurrent droughts, the design of drought impact mitigation measures could benefit from analyses of determinants of yields and prices of local crops at regional and district level. This study applies dynamic spatial panel data regression models to yields and prices of four major food crops across regions of Burkina Faso and Niger, over sample periods between 1984 and 2006. Results lend support to mainly simultaneous spatial spillovers, particularly for millet and cowpea prices and sorghum yields in Niger, and maize yields in Burkina Faso. After accounting for these effects, most crop yields are found to be weakly price‐responsive, as envisaged by a supply‐side geographical diffusion hypothesis. Seasonal rainfall elasticity estimates suggest that dominant food crops have slight advantage margins in terms of relative resilience to rainfall shortages. However, this result is to be weighed against low millet yields in Niger, and marked drops in sorghum yields during officially declared droughts in Burkina Faso.     

PRICING,CAPACITY, AND CONSTRUCTION BOUNDARY OF A CONGESTIBLE HIGHWAY WITH AN ELASTIC DEMAND: SOCIAL OPTIMUM,SECOND BEST,PRIVATIZATION, AND VERTICAL DISINTEGRATION*

This paper uses a spatial model to analyse first‐ and second‐best policies, impacts of privatization and vertical disintegration of a congestible highway with elastic demand. The paper also uses simulation methods to analyse the welfare cost of a uniform‐toll constraint. Results show, inter alia, that the social optimum requires the marginal cost of highway extension to be equal to the net consumer benefit at the boundary, while in the second‐best case the aggregate user cost must be measured in terms of the shadow price. In turn, a profit‐maximizing firm equates the marginal extension cost to the markup revenue at the boundary.     

Housing tenure choice and the dual income household

Housing tenure choice has been the subject of a very large literature. Many treatments have sought to estimate the effect of household income on the likelihood of home ownership. To date, no study has ever disaggregated the household income of married couples into the separate labor income components to see if one partner’s income has a different effect than the other. Using a derived likelihood function to control for censoring in the wife’s income, this paper estimates the effect of separate incomes on housing tenure choice, accounting for possible endogeneity of the wife’s income. To compare the results of this estimation method, the paper also estimates the standard IV models, 2SLS and IV probit. While the results show that there is no endogeneity of the wife’s income, ignoring the censoring of the endogenous variable (when a large fraction of observations are censored) can possibly lead to biased coefficient estimates. Also, this paper confirms the importance of total household income, which has a larger effect than the total disaggregated components.     

Interlocked Village Markets and Trader Idiosyncrasy in Rural India

The role of traders and traditional exchange institutions has received little attention in empirical research on rural markets in developing countries. We use detailed data on transactions in a village commodity market in India and identify two observed anomalies: first, the repeal of the law of one price, and second, a trader‐idiosyncratic effect, namely that large volumes are sold to a trader who does not offer the best price. Econometric analysis demonstrates that trader idiosyncrasy can largely be explained by reciprocity motives in interlocked village markets. Reciprocity leads to market inefficiencies and can result in unexpected supply responses.     

Agglomeration and productivity: Firm-level evidence from China's textile industry

Is the spatial concentration of manufacturing activity able to enhance firm-level productivity? This question is particularly relevant to production in China, which has a huge territory and population, but a skewed distribution in terms of urban–rural development. This paper aims to examine the dynamics of industrial agglomeration and the impact of agglomeration on firm-level productivity in China's textile industry by using a firm-level panel dataset from 2000 to 2005. First, the average value of the Ellison–Glaeser (EG) index (city level) is found to be approximately 0.00019. Moreover, the calculated city EG index of spatial concentration for each year exhibits a decreasing trend of spatial agglomeration for garments and other fiber products, but an increasing trend for the textile industries' agglomeration in China. The above findings are similar to the findings of Lu and Tao (2009). Secondly and importantly, this study finds an inverted U-shape relationship between agglomeration and productivity. It suggests that while industrial agglomeration enhances firms' productivity, agglomeration diseconomies may appear if the degree of agglomeration is too high.     

研究与开发支出述评

研究与开发（以下简称R＆D）支出是企业获得超额利润的一个重要源泉,研究R＆D支出与企业的关系显得非常重要。R＆D支出是指企业R＆D投入强度。本文主要区分国内外研究现状,从R＆D支出对企业价值、企业业绩、企业风险及成长性等方面的影响角度进行综述。本文梳理了相关研究的脉络,力求为学者们的后续研究提供便利。     

基于4R理论的海外旅游专业硕士课程设置的思考

现代旅游业的国际化需要大批具有丰富行业管理经验的应用型、外向型人才．美国教育专家多尔的建构性4R理论为解决我国高等旅游教育课程设置中存在的问题提供了理论依据．在分析4R理论的基础上，对10多个国家及地区旅游专业硕士课程进行比较研究，并以西安外国语大学为例，结合其办学特色，从国际化、应用性、职业化人才培养视角，探索旅游管理专业硕士课程建设问题，以期使课程结构体系及内容符合市场要求．并随着旅游教育目标群体及教育者群体多样化拓宽，使高等旅游教育大众化走向完善，实现就业意义上的“供给创造需求”。     

Information Shocks and the Dynamics of the Housing Market*

In this paper, we analyze housing‐market reactions to the release of previously unpublished information on school quality. Using high‐quality housing data, which precisely bracket the timing of the information shock, we investigate housing‐price dynamics within school‐catchment areas. We find a robust short‐term housing‐market reaction to the publication of school‐quality indicators, suggesting that this information was new to the households, and that households are willing to pay for better schools. The publication effect does not seem to be permanent as prices revert to pre‐publication levels after two to three months.     

Racial Harassment,Ethnic Concentration,and Economic Conditions*

In this paper, we analyse the association between the spatial concentration of ethnic minorities and racial harassment. Ethnic concentration relates to racial harassment through at least three channels: hostility in the attitudes of majority individuals that finds expression in harassment behaviour, the probability that minority individuals meet majority individuals, and the cost of expressing hostility aggressively. Thus, harassment cannot simply be modelled as a stronger form of hostility. Using unique data for Britain, we show that, in areas of higher local ethnic concentration, experience of harassment is lower, even though hostility on the side of the majority population is not.     

基于公司不进行正式研发投资的简要探讨

本文我们研究了正式的研发投资的频率。用实物期权和基于知识的观点去解释一个公司的知识资源是怎么影响该公司用于确定技术选择的研发投资频率。详细的说,我们得出一个公司若没有内部知识资源,很可能就总不投资研发;若有内外部知识资源,公司有时投资研发;但有内部知识资源而没有外部知识资源时,公司很可能总是投资研发。