PUBLICATION RECORDS AND TENURE DECISIONS IN THE FIELD OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

To better define levels of accomplishment for publishing journal articles in strategic management, a bibliometric study was performed on the publication records of 96 doctorates in the field whose first post-degree job was in academics. By examining 20 journals that are outlets for research in strategic management, publication records were developed for each individual for the first 5–10 years following receipt of the doctoral degree. Two factors influenced the publication records of these new faculty. Having publications prior to receiving the doctorate and getting a first job at an institution with a graduate program in management were associated with more frequent publishing after an academic career began. As expected, the number of papers published was related to the likelihood of receiving tenure. However, despite the fact that they had produced more papers during the first 5 years than male faculty members and had higher citation rates, female faculty members were less likely to receive tenure. The findings are discussed in terms of institutional policy for hiring and evaluating new faculty.     

Identifying and addressing land governance constraints to support intensification and land market operation: Evidence from 10 African countries

Beyond concerns about agricultural productivity growth, issues of land governance have attracted global interest as demand for land acquisition by outsiders has increased rapidly but most of the transfers failed to live up to expectations and instead disrupted local livelihoods. We use the land governance assessment framework to identify key conceptual issues and identify how land governance in 10 African countries compares to global good practice. Results point towards weak protection of rights in practice, large gaps in female land access, and limited outreach and effectiveness of institutions to record rights and adjudicate disputes. We note that programs to improve performance along these lines had significant impact in other contexts, suggesting that efforts to improve land governance will be warranted and should be closely monitored and evaluated in an effort to identify models suited to African conditions and assess their impact and interaction with other factor markets.     

Does agricultural trade affect productivity? Evidence from Chilean farms

This paper analyzes the relationship between trade and agricultural productivity in Chile, a middle-income country with a recent noticeable history of agricultural trade. This study uses an agricultural commodity trade exposure index in a cross-sectional analysis of more than 70,000 farms to study the relationship between the trade exposure of agricultural commodities and the yields reported by these farms in the 1997 Chilean agricultural census. In order to capture both import and export exposure we subdivide farms in two groups, according to the Chilean case: farms producing only importables such as grains (traditional crops), and farms producing both traditional crops and non-traditional agricultural commodities (products more related to export markets). We exclude from our analysis farms producing only non-traditional products because the census only reports yields for traditional crops. We employ a switching regression model to analyze the effects of trade exposure on traditional crop yields for both groups of farms. Results show that the trade exposure index is positively related to farm yields for both groups, but with a larger effect on farmers producing both traditional and non-traditional commodities. These results are important because they suggest that spillovers from both importables and exportables produce gains in the productivity of traditional crops.     

The impact of agricultural policy distortions on the productivity gap: Evidence from rice production

This article explores how production and trade policy distortions affected rice productivity in 33 rice-producing countries. A rice-productivity index is constructed, and a model linking the productivity gap with policy distortions is presented. After controlling for the differences in infrastructure, access to inputs and equipment, openness, and human capital, this article shows that high levels of rice subsidies and protection in rich countries combined with taxation of rice farming in poor countries widened the gap in rice productivity between rich and poor rice countries.     

Governance and agricultural productivity: A cross-national analysis

In this study we examine the relationship between governance and agricultural performance by employing the World Bank’s Aggregate Governance Indicators. Based on a cross-country panel sample, two methods are employed to test the hypothesis that better governance fosters agricultural productivity. The empirical results of both methods support the hypothesis. As for the first method, the estimation results of the widely-used inter-country aggregate agricultural production function show that a country with better governance can produce more agricultural outputs, given the same amounts of agricultural inputs, the same education level, and the same climate condition. As for the second method, the empirical results of a structural equation model reveal that, given the same amounts of agricultural capital stock and land, an agricultural worker in a country with better governance produces more. Better governance can indirectly improve agricultural productivity by driving agricultural capital accumulation. Our empirical work lends support to the claim of Hayami and Ruttan [Hayami, Y., Ruttan, V., 1985. Agricultural Development: An International Perspective. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore] that governance is a basic factor explaining the poor economic performance of many developing countries. In order to improve the agricultural performance of many developing countries, apart from physical and education investments, more emphasis should be placed on improving the governance infrastructure of these countries.     

Land inequality,government ideology and agricultural protection

This paper presents an empirical investigation of how agricultural land ownership inequality and government ideology (right-wing vs. left-wing) affect agricultural protection. Theoretically, the links are quite ambiguous, switching from positive to negative depending on the structure of the underlying political economic model – i.e. pressure groups vs. median voter approach. The data show, overall, that protection is decreasing in land inequality and with left-wing government orientation, but not in a linear fashion: left-wing governments tend to support agriculture in more unequal societies. There is some evidence that the relationship holds better in democracies than in dictatorships.     

Too small to be beautiful? The farm size and productivity relationship in Bangladesh

This paper examines the agricultural productivity-farm size relationship in the context of Bangladesh. Features of Bangladesh’s agriculture help overcome several limitations in testing the inverse farm-size productivity relationship in other developing country settings. A Stochastic Production Frontier (SPF) model is applied using data from three rounds of a household panel survey to simultaneously estimate the production frontier and the technical inefficiency functions. The ‘correlated random effects’ approach is used to control for unobserved heterogeneous household effects. Methodologically, the results suggest that SPF models that ignore the inefficiency function are likely mis-specified, and may result in misleading conclusions on the farm size-productivity relationship. Empirically, the findings confirm that the farm size and productivity relationship is negative, but with the inverse relationship diminishing over time. Total factor productivity growth, driven by technical change, is found to have been robust across the sample. Across farm size groups, the relatively larger farmers experienced faster technical change, which helped them to catch up and narrow the productivity gap with the smaller farmers.     

Land constraints and agricultural intensification in Ethiopia: A village-level analysis of high-potential areas

Highland Ethiopia is one of the most densely populated regions of Africa and has long been associated with both Malthusian disasters and Boserupian agricultural intensification. This paper explores the race between these two countervailing forces, with the goal of inform two important policy questions. First, how do rural Ethiopians adapt to land constraints? And second, do land constraints significantly influence welfare outcomes in rural Ethiopia? To answer these questions we use a recent household survey of high-potential areas. We first show that farm sizes are generally very small in the Ethiopian highlands and declining over time, with young rural households facing particularly severe land constraints. We then ask whether smaller and declining farm sizes are inducing agricultural intensification, and if so, how. We find strong evidence in favor of the Boserupian hypothesis that land-constrained villages typically use significantly more purchased input costs per hectare and more family labor, and achieve higher maize and teff yields and higher gross income per hectare. However, although these higher inputs raise gross revenue, we find no substantial impact of greater land constraints on net farm income per hectare once family labor costs are accounted for. Moreover, farm sizes are strongly positively correlated with net farm income, suggesting that land constraints are an important cause of rural poverty. We conclude with some broad policy implications of our results.     

Kazakhstan's wheat system: priorities, constraints, and future prospects

This paper provides an overview of Kazakhstan's wheat system following independence and identifies policies and constraints currently influencing the operation and development of the system. It also looks at the factors affecting production decisions, including the current operating environment, intra-sectoral linkages, and overall macroeconomic conditions and identifies several alternative sources of productivity growth that can potentially improve the current and future competitiveness of Kazakhstan's wheat producers. The paper emphasizes that the wheat system cannot operate in isolation from the rest of the economy. Regaining lost levels of productivity can only be accomplished with some level of coordinated policy linking the priorities of the wheat system with those of the agricultural sector and the economy as a whole.     

Workers’ tenure and firm productivity: New evidence from matched employer-employee panel data

Using rich longitudinal matched employer-employee data on Belgian firms, we explore the impact of workers’ tenure on firm productivity. To do so, we estimate production functions augmented with firm-level measures of tenure. We deal with the endogeneity of standard inputs and tenure, which arises from unobserved firm heterogeneity and reverse causality, by applying a modified version of Ackerberg et al.’s (2015) control function method, which explicitly removes firm fixed effects. Consistently with recent theoretical predictions, our analyses point to positive, but decreasing, returns to tenure. We also find that the impact differs widely across several firm dimensions. Tenure is particularly beneficial for productivity in contexts characterized by a certain degree of routineness and low job complexity. Along the same lines, our findings indicate that tenure exerts stronger positive impacts in industrial and capital-intensive firms, as well as in firms less reliant on ICT-intensive and knowledge-intensive processes.     

Structural transformation or elite land capture? The growth of “emergent” farmers in Zambia

Over the last decade, Zambia has witnessed a rapid increase in the number of medium-scale “emergent farms” cultivating 5–20 ha of land. This study analyzes the factors underpinning this growth. We find that the growth of emergent farmers in Zambia is primarily attributable to land acquisition by salaried urbanites and by relatively privileged rural individuals. We found little evidence to support the hypothesis that the rise of emergent farmers primarily represents a process of successful accumulation by farmers who began farming with less than 5 ha of land, a situation faced by more than 95% of farming households. We argue that these outcomes are the result of Zambia’s land administration and agricultural spending policies. Rising concentration of landholdings in Zambia raises serious questions about the potential of current agricultural growth to act as a vehicle for broad based economic growth and poverty reduction.     

Adaptation to land constraints: Is Africa different?

Since the seminal works of Malthus and Boserup, scientists have long debated the impact of population growth and land constraints on the wellbeing of rural people. Today these concerns are particularly relevant to Africa, with its rapid population growth, very small farms, and chronic food insecurity. In this paper we examine adaptation to falling land-labor ratios using a comprehensive theoretical framework in which households faced with binding land constraints can respond in three ways: intensifying agricultural production, diversifying out of agriculture, and reducing fertility rates. Using cross-country data and drawing upon the existing literature, we reach three conclusions. First, population density is associated with reduced fallows and more intensive use of land but not fertilizer use or irrigation, indicating major challenges in achieving sustainable intensification or agricultural productivity growth. Second, there is little evidence of successful non-farm diversification in response to land pressures in Africa from domestic or international income sources. Third, rural Africans in land constrained countries desire smaller families, but have thus far benefited little from family planning policies. These findings underscore the need for a coordinated multi-sectoral approach to sustainably reduce poverty in the region.