Red Holocaust

ABSTRACT

Reduced transport costs and income growth in industrialising European countries changed the market conditions for European farmers in the late nineteenth century. Grain prices fell while dairy prices rose. It has been claimed that these price changes hit large grain farmers with vested interests in grain trade particularly hard, while owner-occupiers and smallholders fared better and with help of developing cooperative associations, came out as successful commercial agriculturalists by switching to intensive branches, foremost dairying. Recent research on the Danish case, shows, however, that change was initiated on large elite estates with long-term dairy traditions. The literature on the Swedish case indicates, that larger farms switched to intensified fodder production quicker than smaller farms did, while in the early twentieth century smaller farms played an un-proportionally large role on the dairy market. Using individual farm data from two East-central Swedish parishes in 1878/80, 1895/96 and 1910/11, it is shown, that larger farms tended to modernise crop rotations and switch towards dairy production earlier than small farms did. Smaller farms caught up, and by 1910 their land use was about as strongly adapted to commercial dairy production as larger farms’ land use was.     

Cultural Preservation and Urban Development: Case Studies on Chinese Old Brand Enterprise

Abstract

When we talk about “City Development, Preservation, and Hospitality”, we do not forget to discuss Chinese Old Brand Enterprises. These enterprises, labeled with distinctive historical character, enjoy high reputation and wide recognition, are very important parts of urban cultural preservation and economic development. Nowadays, China is called an emerging economy in the world. In fact, China has a long history of business tradition for thousands of years. Especially, Chinese Old Brand Enterprises are those that inherit Chinese traditional culture and bear unique techniques, products, and services in their operations. The urban system in most countries is influenced by market forces and enterprises. Cities that produce goods and services that are in demand and attract people to live in them will have faster growth than those that do not.     

Farm credit and credit demand elasticities in Shaanxi and Gansu

This paper empirically estimates individual household credit demand elasticities based on 897 farm households surveyed in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in October 2009. We used survey-based experimental techniques to extract individual household credit demand functions from which we estimated point demand elasticities. From a theoretical point of view, we proposed that as interest rates fell the demand for credit increased in elasticity, and this appears to hold in our data. We find a range of elasticities with mean point estimates of about ? 0.6. We find that nearly 20% of farm households have nearly perfectly inelastic demands for credit but we also find that nearly 20% have elasticities above ? 0.75 including some 15% that have elasticities greater than ? 1.0. Previous studies that have argued against credit policies because of the low inelasticity of demand do not generally hold. There is much heterogeneity in credit demand and we would argue that a full spectrum of targeted credit policies can be used to address differences across farms.     

Utilisation of administrative and research databases in government departments: Providing the platform for skills planning

ABSTRACT

A high-level audit of administrative databases was conducted in more than 20 national government departments or entities. The aim was to investigate the relevance of datasets within these databases to skills planning by the government aimed at harmonising skills supply and demand in South Africa. The audit revealed that datasets have different levels of relevance and usability. There are datasets that: are relevant and immediately usable; are highly relevant and require some preparation; contain relevant variables but are currently undergoing validation and cleaning before they can be utilised; and are in an early stage of evolution. Based on these observations, the authors furthermore explore how databases can be understood from an evolutionary perspective. This investigation provides evidence that, in the field of skills planning, the government is progressing through the early phases of e-government systems development by cataloguing data resources and preparing for transactions between data users and providers.     

The Danish Agro Machinery Industry in a Global Perspective, 1945–2005

Abstract

Since the mid-nineteenth century, agriculture and the agro machinery industry has formed an integral part of the developed world, dominated by North America and Western Europe. After the Second World War, agricultural industrialization speeded up. Millions of small and mixed farms in the West disappeared to be replaced by large-scale and specialized farming. The technology needed to transform agriculture was supplied by an expanding agro machinery industry. As in other fields of industry, the agro machinery industry turned into an international business. By the turn of the twentieth century, farming and industry took an even bigger step as business and technology were being globalized. The agro machinery industry that served these global markets remained in the West, however. Eventually, transatlantic mergers consolidated firms into industries for plant, dairy and pig and poultry farming equipment. This article discusses how the Danish agro machinery increasingly became an integrated part of international and global developments.     

Economy-wide implications of biofuel production in Zambia

ABSTRACT

Potential biofuel demand in South Africa is estimated to increase to 1550 million litres by 2025 due to mandatory blending rates. Land and water constraints, however, limit the ability for domestic production. Zambia, due to its abundance in land, suitable climate, supportive set of bioenergy incentives and close geographical location to South Africa, has the potential to meet this increase in demand. Using a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium model, we estimate the macro- and socio-economic impacts of bioethanol production in Zambia from three potential crops: sugarcane, cassava and sweet sorghum. The results show that the development of a single product bioethanol industry has the potential to increase economic growth without negatively affecting overall food security. Further expansion of the industry to multiple products results in larger gains to growth and welfare.     

The transition from tenancy to freehold peasant ownership in Norway

Abstract

Already in the late seventeenth century many tenant farmers in Norway were buying their farms, and it has been held that by about 1750 freeholders were in the majority in the country.     

Reconstructing Scandinavian farms 1660–1860: Sources in Denmark,Iceland, Norway and Sweden

Abstract

The great economic and cultural variations to be found in the preindustrial peasant societies of nearly all European countries does not mean that any attempt to make generalizations about them must be abandoned. It does, however, imply that such generalizations as are made can be meaningful only if they are based on a large number of local case studies over as broad a spectrum as possible. In Scandinavia there is a powerful tradition, reaching back to the eighteenth century, of the writing of provincial, parish and village histories, although the scholarly standards achieved in these have been very variable, and some areas have been much better covered than others in this way. And individual farms have been looked at in detail in only exceptional cases.     

Norway's recovery from the Great Depression – an act of balancing?

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how Norway recovered from the Great Depression and tries to show that a monocausal Schumpeterian explanation is flawed. Three elements of such an explanation are being discussed and dismissed: the shift in employment structure; the spread of electric power; and the changes in household consumption. The paper comes to a more balanced conclusion. Mainly for chronological reasons, supply-side factors can't independently explain the recovery. Not before 1934–35, when recovery had been underway for roughly two years, did supply-side factors start to have a real impact. Only by viewing these forces in interaction with the demand side, in particular export demand generating an investment boom, can a more plausible explanation of Norway's recovery from the Great Depression be presented.     

Farmers, Vertical Coordination, and the Restructuring of Dairy Supply Chains in Central and Eastern Europe

The combination of transition and globalization since the early 1990s has caused dramatic changes in the dairy chains in Central and Eastern Europe. This paper uses survey evidence from several Central and East European countries to document the growth of vertical coordination in the dairy chain, its relationship with policy reforms, its effects and the implications for small farms. Evidence suggests that in several countries small dairy farms have benefited from vertical coordination processes by providing them access to inputs and higher value markets.     

Access to urban markets for small-scale producers of indigenous cereals: a qualitative study of consumption practices and potential demand among urban consumers in Polokwane

This study of urban residents of Polokwane, the capital of the Limpopo province in South Africa, was designed to describe how, where, when and by whom sorghum and millet are consumed; how the subjects of the study perceived these grains; to what extent the produce of small-scale producers was considered acceptable; and to gauge their potential demand for products derived from indigenous cereals. Qualitative data were collected using individual interviews and focus-group sessions. The findings suggest that sorghum, which is easily purchasable in town, is widely consumed, mainly as soft porridge, but also as thick porridge, fermented porridge and sorghum beer. The age of consumers, the closeness of their links with rural areas and their religion influence their consumption of sorghum products. Sorghum is seen as being healthy, nutritious and traditional, but inconvenient to cook and preserve. Millet, which is not readily available in Polokwane, is considered old-fashioned. A ‘need for tradition’, or its opposite, a ‘need for modernity’, among consumers underlies their demand for products derived from indigenous cereals, a demand which is only partially satisfied. Many respondents would be ready to purchase products originating from small-scale farmers; some may believe that the quality of the produce of small farms is better, or may feel solidarity with small farmers and want to support them. This paper presents ideas for further investigation about the possibility of developing specific products and marketing strategies that will allow small-scale farmers to meet an unsatisfied urban demand.     

Currency Substitution and the Stability of the Demand for Money in East Asia

Abstract

This paper models and tests the stability of the demand for money in five East Asian countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—in the context of an open economy. The Johansen multivariate cointegration vector error correction analysis against quarterly data covering the period 1985:1–2001:4 was used. It was found that a stationary long run cointegrating relationship exists between broad money, real income, domestic interest rates, foreign interest rates corrected for exchange rate depreciation, and the expected rate of depreciation of the exchange rate. The results show that US Treasury bills rates and the foreign exchange rate vis-à-vis the US dollar play a significant role in the East Asian countries money demand relationship. This suggests that currency substitution vis-à-vis the US dollar may be an important consideration in the design and implementation of monetary policy in the East Asian countries. Furthermore, the results show that the Asian currency crises impacted the money demand functions negatively in these countries. CUSUM and CUSUMSQ stability tests show no evidence of parameter instability of the money demand functions in three of the five countries throughout the period under investigation.     

Towns and rural industrialisation in Sweden 1850–1890: A spatial statistical approach

Abstract

Using a spatial statistical analysis we study the relation between rural industrial employment and distance to towns and access to communications in nineteenth century Sweden. Our results show that rural parishes with access to communications had a higher proportion of rural industrial workers than parishes without. In a region with few towns, the south-east of Sweden, parishes close to large towns had a higher proportion of industrial employees than distant parishes in 1850, while no significant correlation was observed in 1890. In a region with a relatively dense urban system, Mälardalen, only in 1890 did parishes close to large towns show a higher proportion of rural industrial workers than did more distant parishes. However, the mean positive effect was negligible beyond 10 km. Thus, in the second half of the nineteenth century the immediate urban hinterland was industrialising prior to large scale urbanisation and urban industrialisation.     

Economic transition and the determinants of self-employment in urban China: 2007–2013

Abstract

Why was there a large growth in self-employment in urban China during the economic transition period? There are two hypotheses proposed to answer this: the disguised unemployment hypothesis that there is no opportunity to access the formal sector to gain better work, and the business creation hypothesis that successful business owners create new jobs for others, new business opportunities, and many innovative new products for society, as pointed out in previous studies. Using CHIP2007 and CHIP2013, this paper tests the two hypotheses. The main conclusions are as follows: First, generally, utilizing the imputed wage premiums, which were used in previous studies, the business creation hypothesis is rejected; the disguised unemployment hypothesis is supported for both the local urban resident and the migrant groups in 2007 and 2013. Second, the results that utilized the new wage premiums based on the imputed employee wages in the private sector show that the business creation hypothesis is supported when a worker chose to become an employer for both the migrant group and the local urban resident group in 2013. Third, the business creation hypothesis is relevant for the older generation group of local urban residents in 2013.     

Tracing Trade Interdependence between EU and East Asia

Abstract

There have been two related trends shaping global trade during the past couple of decades: the increasing role of international supply chains and the rise of China. Increased complexity in global trade has generated a need to construct more processed trade data — trade in value added — in order to deepen our understanding of trade relations between countries. In this article, we present a broad picture of trade in value added between the EU28 and East Asian countries. We find that East Asia is important as a final demand and supply chain export destination, especially for Northern European countries, while for CEE countries it is more important as an import source for both final demand and supply chain trade. Trade with East Asia is least important for Southern European countries. The production structure of an EU country seems to be one of the main factors explaining the importance of supply chain trade with East Asian countries. The data also suggest that supply chain trade could support the growth of domestic value-added exports to the supply chain trade partner country as well as to other countries.     

Inequality caused by macro-economic policies during overaccumulation crisis

ABSTRACT

The tendency of capital to ‘overaccumulate’ has on occasion been severe in post-apartheid South Africa, but has taken different forms. The neoliberal era since the early 1990s has witnessed overaccumulation-crisis displacement in a manner that exacerbates inequality. Such displacement includes financialisation (i.e. higher relative debt and share-portfolio ratios, as well as illicit financial flows), worsening uneven spatial development (within cities and between rural and urban livelihoods), and an amplification of environmentally-damaging extraction systems. Public policy accommodated, accentuated and displaced the crisis, rather than ameliorated, reversed or resolved these symptoms of overaccumulation, to the detriment of the poorest South Africans. Although government has made efforts to address social distress through fiscal policy (e.g. social grants and education), most macro-economic policies – especially in the monetary, financial and international spheres – are amplifiers of inequality. But the most important constraint is a deeper problem than public policy typically admits: capital's tendency to overaccumulation.     

Kenya's focus on urban vulnerability and resilience in the midst of urban transitions in Nairobi

ABSTRACT

Addressing urban vulnerability requires an understanding of the underlying determinants of resilience for individuals, households, communities and institutions – to withstand shocks, to adapt and to change. Analysing urban resilience utilises the results of five rounds of the Indicator Development for Surveillance of Urban Emergencies surveys conducted in three informal settlements of Nairobi. Results show a significant deterioration in food security and household hunger in marginalised urban populations, with other deprivations including insecurity, negative coping behaviour and inadequate access to water and sanitation. Within slum populations, there was a significant variation in income and expenditure (p?<?0.05) with lowest income quintiles spending over 100% of their income on food. Significant gender disparities have been shown in lowest income quintiles, with female breadwinners earning 62% compared with male breadwinners (p?<?0.05). Recommendations from this analysis include establishing thresholds for vulnerability and concrete dimensions for measuring resilience that can initiate and guide related interventions.     

Energy consumption patterns and supply problems in underdeveloped areas in South Africa

Energy usage provides one striking example of processes and conditions of development and underdevelopment in South Africa and the concomitant inequalities in fulfilment of basic needs. Access to affordable and convenient fuels increases as households shift from underdeveloped rural and peri‐urban areas to the developed metropolitan centres. The form and quantity of fuels used by households is constrained by levels of urbanization, the availability and cost of fuels, and household income.

The energy supply problems in developing areas centre on two critical and immediate issues. Firstly, in rural areas the demand for fuelwood is exceeding supply with quite devastating social, economic and environmental consequences. A fuelwood supply and demand model has been developed which indicates the urgency for implementing afforestation programmes, although lack of sufficient suitable land implies that other energy supply strategies will also have to be considered. The second major problem is that the standard, most convenient and affordable domestic energy supply option, electricity, has still not been made available to many black townships and most peri‐urban areas. With increases in population and urbanization, the problem of adequate household energy supply is shifting to peri‐urban areas, which experience major social and economic costs as a result of dependence on costly and inconvenient fossil fuels and batteries. Electricity has been shown to be the most economical and preferred option.     

The gold standard,trade and recovery in the 1930s:

Abstract

For some twenty years, Norway's recovery from the depression of the 1930s has been explained by the supply-side transformation of domestic industry. This article presents an alternative view. By analysing Norwegian developments in an international context, the mechanism of recovery is related to the increased foreign demand for Norwegian export products following the ending of Gold Standard constraints in 1931. Generally, we argue that just as it was external forces that led Norway into the Great Depression, such forces also paved the way for the subsequent recovery. Increased exports renewed optimism in domestic markets, bringing about a growth in investment activities and eventually a recovery in private consumption.     

Confronting the Mystery of Urban Hierarchy

The size distribution of cities in the United States is startlingly well described by a simpler power law: the number of cities whose population exceedsSis proportional to 1/S. This simple regularity is puzzling; even more puzzling is the fact that it has apparently remained true for at least the past century. Standard models of urban systems offer no explanation of the power law. A random growth model proposed by Herbert Simon 40 years ago is the best try to date—but while it can explain a power law, it cannot reproduce one with the right exponent. At this point we are in the frustrating postion of having a striking empirical regularity with no good theory to account for it.J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1996,10(4), pp. 399–418. Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-6072