Numeraire choice in normalized quadratic functional forms

A semi-nested test procedure is developed for choosing the numeraire for a normalized quadratic profit function when too few observations exist for nested hypothesis testing and when too many alternatives exis for conventional non-nested testing. Sensitivity of empirical results to choice of numeraire price is examined using agricultural data for the US and ten multistate regions. Few test conclusions vary by numeraire but own price input demand elasticities differ greatly.     

Binary choice and the supply of memory

In a binary choice experiment, the subject predicts on a series of trials whether a particular random event will or will not occur. The results of such experiments show systematic departures from expected value maximization, but to a degree that decreases as the reward for successful prediction increases. This paper proposes that the mechanism underlying these results involves the supply of memory. Subjects are influenced by the outcomes of recent trials, but tend to respond to the evidence in a larger number of trials as reward (and hence attention) are increased. Broader conceptual issues surrounding the notion of rational choice are also discussed.     

System analysis and path choice for modem agricultural development： a case study of Suzhou

From the view of system theory, modern agriculture in a region embodies elements conformity, structure optimization, multi-functionality and sustainable development. This paper first expounds on the relationship among agricultural elements, structure, function and development theoretically, compartmentalizes agriculture types based on human-land elements matching, and depicts the development path of agricultural multi-functionality. it shows that the matching of human-land elements is a key to agricultural types, and the multi-functionality is an indication of agricultural development stages. At last, as a case study of Suzhou in eastern coastal area, the paper analyzes the evolvement situation and developing mechanism and some typical models of modern agriculture which suit to agriculture system evolvement. The results .show that in Suzhou the agriculture productivity, has improved greatly; And along with the agriculture structure optimizing, agriculture function has translated from ＂production ＂ to ＂non- production and production ＂. With simulation of agricultural trend in Suzhou, it is .found that Suzhou has a LP- dependence （labor productivity） on agricultural element, so Suzhou will has much more potential in land productivity. Based on the above analysis on agricultural system, some typical patterns on modern agriculture in Suzhou are brought up, such as export-oriented agriculture, enterprises-leading agriculture, science and technology, parks agriculture, stereoseopic agriculture, and tourism and sightseeing agriculture.     

Reverse Capital Deepening and the Numeraire: a note

The orthodox theory of precautionary saving fails to distinguish risk from uncertainty, and thus assumes the existence of a probability distribution governing an individual's future income prospects. The individual is assumed to be motivated to save by the dispersion in the distribution of future income, and researchers have therefore attempted to correlate saving with income variance. However, the empirical evidence tends to refute any such correlation. This paper proposes a concept of futility to describe actions that cannot affect the external environment, and demonstrates that precautionary saving in the orthodox sense is futile inasmuch as saving cannot alter the dispersion of resources around an expected future value. Despite the inadequacy of orthodox theory, the theory is perpetuated because even futile behaviour is consistent with the neoclassical notion of rationality. The retention of an invalid theory of precaution provides a faulty basis for both empirical research and policy analysis; thus, the present paper suggests an alternative approach to precaution based on the work of Knight and Shackle, in which decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty rather than risk.     

Consistent firm choice and the theory of supply

Summary. This paper analyzes the problem of deriving predictions, regarding supply behavior of a competitive firm, from prior consistency postulates about input-output choices made by such a firm. It extends the literature by introducing a consistency postulate for firm choice, which is weaker than profit-maximization. This consistency postulate is nevertheless both necessary and sufficient for supply responses predicted by the standard theory of firm choice based on the postulate of profit-maximization. Furthermore, our rationality postulate, in conjunction with another condition, is shown to be equivalent to firm choice behavior that can be rationalized in terms of profit maximization.Received: 11 April 2003, Revised: 26 April 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D21.Indraneel Dasgupta: I thank Bhaskar Dutta and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions.     

International portfolio diversification and endogenous labor supply choice

This paper presents a multi-country general equilibrium model driven by productivity shocks, where labor supply and consumption are chosen endogenously. We use this framework to study the effect of labor supply for optimal international diversification. We find that the model's ability to help explain home-bias depends crucially on the level of substitutability between consumption and non-working time. Quantitatively, the non-separability in the preferences helps in a nonnegligible way, but it cannot entirely explain the extreme degree of home-bias in U.S. portfolios.     

从经济学角度分析我国气象服务供给模式的选择

文章从现代经济学角度,廓清了我国气象服务中不同类型气象产品的属性,并在此基础上概括了目前世界上三种气象服务供给模式,且就其利弊作了深入的分析,最后提出我国气象服务供给应该选择的模式:国家气象部门只提供公共气象服务,私人气象服务应交给"市场",由私人公司开展。     

Dept and input misallocation of agricultural supply and marketing cooperatives

Kim and Maksimovic provide an empirical model to examine the effect of dept on a firm. Their model is adopted to examine agricultural supply and marketing cooperatives. Using a short-run variable cost function, we find firm efficiency decreases as dept increases. A US$1 increase in indebtedness increases total short-run variable costs by US$0.0167 or roughly 1.67% Dept tends to shift input usage away from labour inputs. A test developed by Conrad and Unger is applied to determine whether the agricultural supply and marketing cooperatives are at a long-run equilibrium capacity. It is found that most of the cooperatives were overinvested in capacity. However,dept does not explain this overinvestment. Finally,the effect of dept on total productivity over the study period is examined. It is found that dept has had a small positive impact on total factor productivity growth. Scale economics and non-optimal capacity had large impacts on total factor productivity. Although dept is associated with short-run misallocation of resources, we find little evidence that dept is associated with long -run suboptimal capacity.     

Eco-efficient choice of cropping system for reducing nitrate-N leaching in an agricultural watershed

Eco-efficiency analysis framework was used to evaluate joint economic and environmentally optimal N application rates for alternative cropping systems managed in a watershed in Atlantic Canada. Eco-efficiency indexes were estimated as the ratio of economic returns from N fertilizer application to groundwater-N leaching associated with crop production. Trade-offs between crop yield and associated reduction in groundwater-N leaching were also estimated. Data for the analysis were generated using the soil and water analysis tool modeling, and allowed for evaluating crop yield and groundwater-N leaching effects for a given crop in rotations assumed to be managed at varying N fertilizer application rates. The cropping systems evaluated included: (i) corn-based cropping systems involving corn–corn–alfalfa–alfalfa–alfalfa (CCAAA, and CCCAA) rotations; (ii) potato-based cropping systems involving potato–corn–barley–potato–corn (PCBPC and PBWPC); and (iii) vegetable-horticulture cropping system involving potato–winter wheat–carrot–corn. Cropping systems were compared under conventional tillage (CT) and no-till (NT) systems. Estimated eco-efficient N fertilizer rates were substantially lower than current provincial nutrient management plan (NMP)-recommended rates, and estimated maximum economic rate of nitrogen fertilizer. However, the actual amounts depended on the crop and rotation system. CCAAA-CT was the eco-efficient choice of rotation system among the corn-based cropping systems considered. Similarly, PCBPC-CT was the eco-efficient choice among the potato-based production systems. In addition, when the NMP-recommended N rate was replaced by the eco-efficient rate for the vegetable horticulture cropping system, the eco-efficient cropping system shifted from a rotation involving CT to a NT system.     

城市化与三农问题及云南的路径选择

我国农业、农村、农民问题,一直是困扰经济发展、阻碍国家现代化实现的主要问题。就现在农村的情况而言,农民也难以富裕起来,更难以和城市居民相比。在农村,仅靠农业来解决农民问题是很难有出路的,因为农民占有的农业生产资料太少,尤其是耕地。在有限的耕地资源条件下,要想让农民富裕起来,减少农民数量是一个行之有效的途径。要从根本上解决我国的三农问题,主要途径在城市化,就是把大部分农民变成城市居民。     

On the role of unobserved preference heterogeneity in discrete choice models of labour supply

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of unobserved preference heterogeneity in empirical applications of discrete choice models of labour supply. Typically, unobserved heterogeneity is estimated either with continuous or discrete mixture models. However, in order to avoid estimation difficulties, most of the empirical analysis assumes a relatively constrained mixture, standard examples being models where only few coefficients are allowed to vary with independent normal distributions or with discrete distributions with few mass points. We compare labour supply elasticities obtained with these typical specifications of unobserved heterogeneity with those from a more general model that we are able to estimate through an EM algorithm for the nonparametric estimation of mixed models. Results show that labour supply elasticities change significantly with respect to a basic model without unobserved heterogeneity only when the joint distribution of the varying tastes is left completely unspecified.     

农产品供应链利益分配研究综述

首先,分析了国内外对于农产品供应链研究的现状。国外学者侧重研究农产品供应链模式构建、农产品供应链系统整合、农产品供应链协调优化,国内研究重点放在其形成机理、演化进程、结构模式等相关理论方面。其次,从收益共享契约、合作和非合作博弈论、量化影响因素等角度阐述了国内外学者在供应链利益的分配机制上的研究现状。最后,对供应链利益分配目前研究所存在的不足和今后的发展方向进行了分析。     

A simultaneous discrete choice model of labor supply and wages for married women in Switzerland

A simultaneous model of female labor supply and wages is estimated. The labor supply model is formulated as a trichotomous discrete choice model in order to take into account the bimodal distribution of observed working hours. For women without observed wages the probability of choosing the observed work category is integrated over all values of the wage. The model is estimated using a sample of married women in Switzerland. The budget constraint is constructed by computing the disposable income for each hours point, taking into account the Swiss income tax system. The estimation results imply relatively modest wage elasticities of expected labor supply for working women. On the other hand the elasticity of the participation probability with respect to wages for nonworkers is twice as large. The magnitude of the income elasticities is comparable to other studies. The wage elasticities obtained with two alternative estimation procedures are considerably lower. These results show that wage elasticities crucially depend on how the problem of unobserved wages is solved.     

Model selection and misspecification in discrete choice welfare analysis

This study extends the work by Herriges and Kling (1997) to further evaluate the impact of discrete choice modelling techniques on welfare measures. Particularly, we evaluate the performance of the increasingly popular mixed logit model and the computational strategy for deriving discrete choice welfare measures. Our simulation results show that model misspecification can have profound effects on welfare measures. In general, the flexible mixed logit model performs relatively well in the presence of misspecification. However, when the nesting structure can be appropriately identified (via statistical tests and a priori knowledge/experience), the nested logit model provides more reliable welfare measures than the mixed logit model.     

Estimation of the public benefits of urban water supply improvements in Ethiopia: a choice experiment

Improving existing drinking water supply services in developing countries depends crucially on available financial resources. Cost recovery rates of these services are typically low, while demand for more reliable services is high and rapidly growing. Most stated preference-based demand studies in the developing world apply the contingent valuation method and focus on rural areas. This study examines household Willingness to Pay (WTP) for improved water supply services in a choice experiment in an urban area in Ethiopia, a country with the lowest water supply coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa. The design of the choice experiment allows estimation of the value of both drinking water supply reliability and safety. The estimated economic values can be used in policy appraisals of improved supply investment decisions. Despite significant income constraints, households are willing to pay up to 80% extra for improved levels of water supply over and above their current water bill. Women and households living in the poorest part of the city with the lowest service levels value the improvement of water quality most. As expected, also averting behaviour and expenditures play an important role.     

Web content analysis of agricultural cooperatives located in Turkey

After the appearance of the globalization process post of 1980＇s, world has becaming a big village, that had been brought many important outcomes related with cooperatives which are aimed to emit the capital to the base. These conditions have been forced the movement to adopt themselves to this process vitally. As of year 2007, there are 26 several types of cooperatives with 90.086 unit cooperatives which have total number of 8,561.618 partners that are all dependent to Turkish cooperative association as well as Ministry of Industry and Commerce. In this study, the web sites of Turkish agricultural cooperatives were examined in terms of their contents. Also, it is tried to find out the sufficiency level of their electronic marketing activities. Within the context of this study, web sites of 5 agricultural cooperatives are examined in terms of their design.     

Instrument choice : Empirical implications and analysis

A neglected consequence of instrument choice is that standard regression approaches are invalid in macroeconomic research. Analysis accommodating policy objective and reaction functions yields non-technical solutions to this problem. Exploratory empirical analysis undertaken has implications for monetary targetting strategies.     

Towards a better estimation of agricultural supply elasticity: the case of soya beans in Brazil

Brazil is a major exporter of several agricultural commodities and has shown strong interest in agricultural trade negotiations. For several commodities, trade liberalization is expected to be followed by farmgate prices increase and to boost domestic production. However, in a country as big as Brazil, possible supply responses to price increase will probably strongly differ from one region to another. This article focuses on soya beans for which Brazil became a top exporter. The panel data technique is used to estimate the soy bean supply response at national and regional level. Soya bean supply is shown to be very price elastic. Moreover, soya bean supply own price elasticity is much higher in the Center-North regions than in the South of the country. Substitution between livestock and soya bean is also very significant in the Center-North region. World agricultural trade models should take account for such regional variability of soya bean supply elasticity. The results also allow us to discuss the issue of soya bean expansion at the Amazon border.     

Graphical analysis of agricultural research spillover potential

This paper introduces two important extensions to the uncentered correlation metric, the commonly used metric proposed by Jaffe [1986. “Technological Opportunity and Spillovers of R & D: Evidence From Firms’ Patents, Profits, and Market Value.” The American Economic Review 76 (5): 984–1001] for analyzing research spillovers across firms or countries. First, it is shown that the Jaffe metric can be displayed graphically using the biplot, a graphical display of a two-dimensional approximation to any multidimensional matrix. Second, it is illustrated that since the data used to produce the Jaffe metric are constrained within the simplex (i.e. shares add up to one), then a theoretically superior metric satisfying the basic axioms of technological proximity measures in this sample space is the Aitchison distance measure, a metric based on log-ratios of shares. The findings of the paper using agricultural research and development spillover potential for Southern African countries show that the Jaffe metric overestimates the technological proximity across countries as compared to the proposed Aitchison measure.