Does ethnic diversity decrease economic interactions? Evidence from exchange networks in rural Gambia

Using a unique dataset collected in 59 rural Gambian villages, we study how ethnic heterogeneity is related to the structure of four economic exchange networks: land, labour, inputs and credit. We find that different measures of village‐level ethnic fragmentation are mostly uncorrelated with network structure. At a more disaggregated level, household heads belonging to ethnic minorities are not less central than those from the predominant ethnicity in any of the networks and, at the dyadic level, the fact that two households share ethnicity is not an economically significant predictor of link formation. Our results indicate that, in the particular setting of our study, the structure of the exchange networks is better defined by other variables than ethnicity and that ethnic heterogeneity is unlikely to be a driver for sub‐optimal economic exchanges.     

What tenure security? The case for a tripartite view

In the face of advancing urban informality in the developing world there appears to be increasing consensus that tenure security is an important engine driving settlement development. This has, however, not led to a consensus about what tenure security exactly entails. In both theory and policy, the idea of tenure security for low-income settlement dwellers is encountered in three distinct forms: tenure security as perceived by dwellers, tenure security as a legal construct and de facto tenure security. The main argument of this paper is that much controversy that surrounds the debate arises precisely as a consequence of the indiscriminate use of these different kinds of tenure security. To address this problem, a tripartite conceptualization of tenure security that incorporates its three constituent components (perception, de jure, de facto) and clarifies their interrelations is presented.     

Becoming A Leader In A Complex Organization

For a new leader, the process of entering and establishing a position of leadership in a complex organization presents a major challenge. This challenge seems particularly acute when authority, goals and technology are ambiguous, as in many professional service organizations. In this paper, we integrate ideas from the literature on socialization and role theory as well as that on executive succession processes to view new leader integration as a mutual adjustment process between two trajectories – that of the organization and that of the new leader. It is argued that this may lead to four possible types of integration outcomes: assimilation, transformation, accommodation and parallelism. Drawing on a case study of a large hospital, the paper identifies several mechanisms that can be mobilized by the new leader to enhance his or her room for manœuvre as the integration process evolves. The mechanisms can be classified as collaborative or affirmative, with each type having different risks and advantages. The case analysis further reveals that leader integration processes may be differentiated between different activity domains, dynamic over time (as the use of one type of integration approach alters the potential for another later), and interactive across different activity domains (as events in one part of the organization have consequences for those occurring in another).     

Econometric modelling on microcomputers: A review of major software packages

In their present state, both in terms of price and power, microcomputers are taking over applied econometics. Now even model simulation is feasible. This paper tries to help the model-builder in determining which of the following modelling software is appropriate to his/her specific needs: AREMOS, ESP, Micro-TSP, MODLER and SORITEC. Tables devoted to data management, estimation, model specification, simulation, and presentation of results, detail the availability of desirable features. Finally, individual short reviews stress the best and worst points of each software.     

Does Team-Based Compensation Give Rise to Problems When Agents Vary in Their Ability?

This paper reports the results of an experiment on how team heterogeneity in terms of productivity influences both the revenue sharing proposed by the principal to the team and the employees' performance. Experimental evidence shows that when the team is heterogeneous, the principal does not try to motivate the agents through her sharing offer. Regardless of the level of team-based compensation, a large amount of free riding occurs since each agent is mainly influenced by his teammate's behavior. In contrast, when the team is homogeneous, agents are better able to cooperate, reciprocating the principal's offer.     

Moral hazard and Marshallian inefficiency: Evidence from Tunisia

We formalize the link between optimal cost-sharing contracts and the production technology in the presence of moral hazard by appealing to several well-known results from duality theory. Building on intuitions from the interlinkage literature, we show that optimal contractual structure is determined by the (i) substitution possibilities that exist between different observable factor inputs, as well as (ii) between these inputs and unobservable effort. We endogenize contractual choice using landlord characteristics as instruments, exploiting the fact that, in our dataset, landlords interact with several tenants and vice versa. The approach is applied to an unbalanced plot-level panel of cost-sharing contracts in a Tunisian village, using a translog representation of the restricted profit function. Contractual terms are found to be a significant determinant of input use and therefore lead to Marshallian inefficiency, while the optimality of the underlying contractual structure is rejected.     

Implementation of land and ecosystem accounts at the European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency has started the implementation of a programme of land use and ecosystem accounts, following the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) guidelines of the United Nations. The purpose is to integrate information across the various ecosystem components and to support further assessments and modelling of these components and their interactions with economic and social developments. This programme reflects the increasing demand for environmental policy integration in Europe, both vertically through thematic policies as well as horizontally across policies in those sectors that contribute most to environmental impacts. The construction of land and ecosystem accounts is now feasible due to continuous improvements in monitoring, collecting and processing data and progress with the development of statistical methods that facilitate data assimilation and integration. The accounts are based on explicit spatial patterns provided by comprehensive land cover accounts that can be scaled up and down using a 1 km² grid to any type of administrative region or ecosystem zone (e.g., river basin catchments, coastal zones or bio-geographic areas). Land cover accounts have been produced for 24 countries in Europe and first results published in the European Environment State and Outlook2005 report of the EEA.¹     

Technological evolution and economic instability: Theoretical simulations

This paper aims to study those firms which have similar characteristics at the beginning of time. The objective is to observe the relation that exists between technological evolution, firms' performances and economic instability. This is done using an adaptation of the Nelson and Winter model, in order to show the possibility of various growth trajectories, and also to underline the heterogeneity of the firms. This heterogeneity corresponds to a period of economic instability, and itself only exists as a result of the specific nature of the technological trend. The theoretical interest lies in using the structures/performances relation, by according a central place to innovation.     

Fritz Redlich, 1892-1978: The Man and the Scholar

A bstract . Fritz Redlich (1892-1978) played a leading role in the development of the analytic approach in history and in establishing the new institutional history that combines entrepreneurial and business history and sociology. A member, in economics , of the German historical school , he spent 16 years in the chemical industry before the triumph of Nazism forced him to emigrate from Germany in 1936. After teaching at various colleges until 1942, he spent the rest of his life doing research in the libraries of Harvard University , producing several notable works in economic history , including a classical study of American banking , and pioneering in entrepreneurial history.