Simultaneous estimation of work choices and the level of farm activity using panel data

We analyse the simultaneous determination and evolution overtime of work choices and the level of farm activity, using apanel of Israeli farm households. We estimate jointly a multinomialchoice model of work activity and an endogenous switching regressionof farm size, accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and correctingfor simultaneity bias. Our results imply that some family farmstend to expand over time and specialise in farming, whereasother farm households downsize their farming operation and increasetheir engagement in the off-farm labour market. Therefore, thesize distribution of farms is converging towards a bimodal distribution.     

Commercial Farm Workers and the Politics of (Dis)placement in Zimbabwe: Colonialism, Liberation and Democracy

The widespread land occupations of 2000 demonstrate the uneasy fit of commercial farm workers within the politics and development of Zimbabwe. Not only have farm workers borne the most violence at the hands of land occupiers, but their current socio-political situation on predominantly white-owned commercial farms has either been reduced by a nationalist liberation war binary of exploitation/abuse by racist white settlers or totally elided through human rights and democracy discourses anchored in the liberal subject. Based on periodic fieldwork research with commercial farm workers from 1992 to 2000, this paper analyses how farm workers have been represented by the various public actors during the current land occupations and the complex ways some farm workers have responded to these events. The emphasis is on how political actors need to rethink the situation of commercial farm workers if they are to take an active role in the improvement of their living and working lives.     

做强主业树形象 立足服务求发展——属地化以来江西局改革与发展的基本实践及当前地勘工作思考

属地化以来,江西省地矿局坚持以人为本,以经济建设为中心,以实现富民强局为目标,突出地质找矿主业,做大做强矿产开发业,优化完善产业、队伍结构,不断提升施工技术,在实践中探索了一条有江西地矿特色的改革发展新路。结合当前地勘工作发展面临的形势,提出关于加快地勘工作发展的四点建议。     

Farm size,productivity and returns to scale in agriculture revisited: a case study of wine producers in South Africa

The inverse relationship between farm size and productivity has almost become a ‘stylised fact’ in the economic development literature. Most of the studies contributing to this preception have been Hawed by methodological shortcomings and the request is that these studies be treated with caution. Using recent farm survey data from the wine producing areas of the Western Cape of South Africa, this study attempts to overcome some of the methodological problems, distinguishing between partial and total productivity measures. Using data envelopment analysis, most of the wine grape producers were found to operate under constant returns to scale. Co-operative membership seemed to overcome the economies of scale associated with processing and marketing. The inverse relationship between farm size and both land productivity and total factor productivity is weak, not consistently negative and differs between regions. Thus, caution must be used when advocating rural development policies based on the inevitability of an inverse relationship existing in all sectors and production regions of agriculture.     

The value of views and open space: Estimates from a hedonic pricing model for Ramsey County,Minnesota, USA

We examined how environmental amenities, particularly views and open space access, impact residential home sales prices in Ramsey County, MN using a hedonic pricing model. Home sale prices increase with closer proximity to parks, trails, lakes, and streams. Proximity to lakes produced the greatest impact on home sale value of these distance variables, followed by parks, trails, and streams. Increasing view areal extents as well as increasing the amount of water and grassy land covers in views also resulted in increased sale prices. Increased view richness in terms of the number of different land cover types in a view reduced home sale prices. These results illustrate the importance of these environmental amenities to single-family homeowners and can be used to inform land use planning and policy decisions aimed at their preservation.