Women groups formed in response to public video screenings on rice processing in Benin

When the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice)¹ introduced improved parboiling technology in Benin in 2006 through farmer-to-farmer video, it enhanced women's creativity and motivation to parboil more and better the quality of rice. Their rice attracted more buyers and fetched a higher price which increased their profits and strengthened the women's social cohesion. The video motivated women to start parboiling as a group and to express group-based requests for credit and training. However, newly established women's groups in villages with strong negative experiences from the cotton sector did not last because of fear and mistrust. The video helped local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to improve their training methods and strengthened their relations with rural communities and between the women rice processors and input and output markets. Although these NGOs responded by facilitating access to micro-finance institutions, they were unwilling to provide credit to the groups because of past bad experiences. Instead, informal credit suppliers proved more responsive. Rice producers who attended the open-air video shows at the same time as the women rice processors became more willing to sell them rice on credit. We discuss the conditions and challenges of farmer-to-farmer video in creating organizational and institutional changes among service providers and rural entrepreneurs.     

制度逻辑、制度矛盾与合作社的“公司化”

为了回答合作社为什么会"公司化"这一问题,本文首先将合作社的"公司化"归为组织形式改变这一理论范畴,然后在组织分析的新制度主义范式下,建立制度逻辑导致合作社组织形式改变的理论模型,最后运用解释性案例研究方法予以实证。研究发现:第一,农业产业化逻辑和农业市场化逻辑是合作社走向"公司化"的重要制度原因;第二,上述两大制度逻辑同合作社的法定形式存在冲突并由此带来制度不兼容、组织非效率和利益错配三大制度矛盾;第三,三大制度矛盾分别提供内生驱动力、制度资源和自主的行动者,从而导致合作社的"公司化"。     

Why diversity and expectations matter

This article was delivered in a session entitled Insights from a behavioral lens: why perceptions and diversity matter. In the article, I ask whether a diverse academic workforce is an asset to a University, and more generally to society, and conclude that it is. Although this conclusion is based on empirical data from US universities, the message is universal. Even when correcting for years of experience, rank, and nature of appointment and women's work‐life situation, there is still a negative expectation bias, whereby women and minority candidates are not expected to be as good as male researchers (a bias that also exists in the case of the appointment of female Chief Executive Officers). On the other hand, more women and minority appointments increase the productivity of women students.     

Microcredit Programme Participation and Household Food Security in Rural Bangladesh

Lack of access to credit prevents poor households in developing countries from diversifying into income‐generating activities that could safeguard them against unforeseen shocks and seasonality, leaving them susceptible to food deprivation, even when aggregate food supplies are adequate. Microcredit programmes help these households to access financial capital that could help improve their food security situation. We examine how microcredit affects different measures of food security; namely, household calorie availability, dietary diversity indicators and anthropometric status of women of reproductive age (15–49 years) and children under the age of 5 years. We find that microcredit programme participation increases calorie availability both at the intensive and extensive margins, but does not improve dietary diversity and only has mixed effects on the anthropometric measures. We also find that the effect of microcredit participation on food security may be non‐linear in which participation initially has either no effect on food security or may actually worsen it, before improving it in the longer run. Our results help to explain why existing short‐term evaluations of microcredit sometimes do not show any positive effects.     

Understanding New Cooperative Models: An Ownership–Control Rights Typology

This article examines new agricultural cooperative organizational models from an ownership rights perspective. The article adopts a definition of ownership rights comprising both residual claim and control rights. We argue that new cooperative organizational models differ in how ownership rights are assigned to the economic agents (members, patrons, and investors) tied contractually to the firm. The article proposes a typology of discrete organizational models, in which the traditional cooperative structure and the investor-oriented firm are characterized as polar forms. The typology also includes five nontraditional models that cooperatives may adopt to ameliorate perceived financial constraints.     

容积率最佳使用的经济学分析

在住宅开发中,容积率是一个十分重要的指标。开发商总是在想尽可能地提高住宅开发的容积率,但是否容积率越大越好呢？本文试从经济学角度分析容积率最佳使用的原理,并从中得出其分析的结论在实践中的几点启示。     

The case for property investment and the implications of a unitized property market

Abstract

It is well known that direct property investment has often provided a more attractive risk/return profile than gilts and yet it enjoys a comparatively small role in institutional portfolios. This paper begins by updating and confirming that position. It then considers why this should be the case and poses the question of whether the development of a unitized property market might alter institutions’ perceptions of property as an investment in such a way as to increase its portfolio importance.

Section 2 discusses the weighting attached to property in recent years and section 3 discusses the conventional methods of risk/return analysis which present property in a favourable light. The paper then asks why the weighting should be so low and begins (section 4) by looking at arguments that conventional methods of risk/return analysis are misleading when applied to property, leading to an overstatement of return and an underestimate of risk. If institutions are aware of these defects they may adjust their perceptions of risk/return appropriately. We are not, however, persuaded that this is the whole of the explanation. In section 5 we consider other disadvantages or costs of direct property investment which go unrecorded by conventional measures of risk but which might be important to institutions. We confirm there are peculiarities attaching to direct property investment but that these cannot wholly explain the high return that institutions seem to need to induce them to hold only a small proportion of their portfolio in property. We are left, therefore, with the conclusion that institutions’ perceptions of the merits of property investment are a significant factor. Thus, in section 6, we try to identify ways in which an active market in unitized property might encourage institutions to hold larger property portfolios in future.     

林业专业合作组织发展的理论基础分析

运用交易成本、信息不完全和不对称、组织创新和组织优势、专业分工等理论,深入剖析林业专业合作组织发展的理论基础,这不仅有利于理解林业专业合作组织的内涵和实质,还将为中国林区坚持发展林业专业合作组织提供理论支持。     

组织信任与组织绩效：内部营销视角

基于内部营销视角探讨组织信任的方向性特征如何影响组织绩效。依据内部营销的理论逻辑,提出组织信任三个方向对组织绩效的影响假设和组织信任方向对组织绩效影响的差异性假设。实证结果证实了组织信任中对直接上司的信任和对高层领导的信任对企业绩效有显著的影响,而对同事的信任对企业绩效影响不显著;组织信任的三种方向中,对高层领导的信任对组织绩效的作用最高,对直接上司的信任作用次之,对同事的信任作用最低。     

树立科学发展观加速高校科技成果转化和产业化

高等学校的职能是以育人为本,教学、科研和社会服务协调发展。目前社会对高校整体科技地位的评价是：国家基础研究的主力军,应用研究的重要方面军,高科技产业化的生力军。在这样的形势和条件下,学校应该响应国家和地方政府的号召,充分发挥高校人才和成果的优势,面向国民经济建设的主战场,加速科技成果的转化,大力发展科技产业。高校从事科技成果转化和产业化要依托学科优势,提升科技创新能力,争当知识经济的火车头。     

Gender Levees: Rethinking Women's Land Rights in Northeastern Honduras

In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, one woman's impassioned speech linking women's exclusion from land rights with the failings of Honduras' state-led agrarian reform and counter-reform gathered gale force, simultaneously weakening particular levees of gender-bias while constructing others. Post-Hurricane Mitch organizational practices and reconstruction policies in Northeastern Honduras afforded women access to joint property titles and participation. Yet the practices and processes through which women gained new rights reproduced certain exclusionary gender structures and created new barriers to women's participation. These contradictory consequences speak to recent feminist assessments of women's land rights under neo-liberal land titling programmes and a resurgence of policies addressing agrarian reform, and reveal the broader stakes of struggles for women's land rights. In so doing, they underline the importance of attending to spatial connections and historical articulations between the present and the past, and thus the past and the future.     

关于地勘企业集团组织结构和管理模式设计的若干思考

地勘队伍属地化后,随着地勘单位企业化进程的逐步推进,地勘企业集团组织结构和管理模式的设计成了当务之急.文章探讨了地勘企业集团的基本特性和基本框架,并提出了设计地勘企业集团组织结构和管理模式的基本设想.     

Using quantitative influence diagrams to map natural resource managers’ mental models of invasive species management

Despite the significant effect that invasive species have on natural values, the number and extent of invasions continue to rise globally. At least three dominant reasons explain why policy development and implementation can fail: differences in managers’ mental models of invasive species management; cross-agency responsibility; and poor planning and management (i.e., planning–implementation gap). We used a case study of cross-agency management of gamba grass (Andropogon gayanus) in Australia to explore the differences in organizational staffs’ mental models of management. The gamba grass invasion in northern Australia is continuing to expand and associated effects are increasing; coordinated action across agencies is needed to manage the expansion. Our aim was to examine how staff would represent their mental models as a diagram that we could compare between individuals and groups. We used cognitive mapping techniques to elicit models of 15 individuals from across 5 organizations, represented as an influence diagram, which shows the interrelationships that define a system. We compiled the individual influence diagrams to create a team model of management that captures the common connections across participants’ diagrams. The team model revealed that education, science, legislation, enforcement and property management plans were perceived to be the most important management tools to control or eradicate gamba grass. The Weed Management Branch was perceived to have the most central role in gamba grass management, while other organizations were perceived to have specific roles according to their core business. Significant positive correlations (i.e., shared perceptions) were observed across half of the participants, indicating that the some participants have shared models that could be used as a starting point for discussing the team model, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and potentially building consensus around a shared model. Dominant opportunities for improvement identified by participants were better use of management tools, namely education and enforcement, better coordination and collaboration between agencies and increased resourcing. Our research demonstrates the value and validity of using influence diagrams to explore managers’ mental models and to create a team model that could serve as a starting point for improved cross-agency natural resource management.     

Efficient Waste? Why Farmers Over-Apply Nutrients and the Implications for Policy Design

Understanding why farmers over-apply fertilizer is essential to designing effective agro-environmental policy. If farmers are simply inefficient, possibilities exist for simultaneously improving farm profits and the environment. If not, costly trade-offs are necessary. This article examines why farmer perceptions of agronomic advice, input substitutability, hidden opportunity costs, uncertainty, and risk aversion can make it economically rational to "waste" fertilizer by applying it above agronomically recommended rates. I use this information to evaluate the relative merits of policy responses such as insurance, education, cost-shares, regulation, taxes, and land retirement.     

Gender and Land Rights Revisited: Exploring New Prospects via the State, Family and Market

The question of women's land rights has a relatively young history in India. This paper briefly traces that history before examining why gendering the land question remains critical, and what the new possibilities are for enhancing women's land access. Potentially, women can obtain land through the State, the family and the market. The paper explores the prospects and constraints linked to each, arguing that access through the family and the market deserve particular attention, since most arable land in India is privatized. On market access, the paper makes several departures from existing discussions by focusing on the advantages, especially for poor women, of working in groups to lease in or purchase land; using government credit for land rather than merely for micro–enterprises; and collectively managing purchased or leased in land, the collectivity being constituted with other women, rather than with family members. Such group functioning is shown to have several advantages over individual or family–based farming. This approach could also help revive land reform, community cooperation and joint farming in a radically new form, one centred on poor women.     

The complexity of exchange: Wheat markets,petty‐commodity producers and the emergence of commercial capital in colonial Punjab

This paper questions the orthodox Marxist view of merchant capital as “unproductive,” by highlighting the importance of traders in subsuming the countryside to the logic of capital. However, it also argues that in order to properly understand the role played by traders in agrarian change, critical Marxist scholarship on merchant capital needs to recognize the complex marketing systems in which traders and farmers operate. These markets have their own internal relations, organizational and institutional logic which in turn is tied to the specificity of the commodity. Using wheat markets in colonial Punjab as a case study, it then utilizes the framework of complex marketing systems to highlight the range of firms and farms that operated in these markets; the importance of personal relations and informal institutions of family, caste, and religion for establishing trust; and the class stratified nature of market participants. It was from within these informally organized markets that commercial capital first emerged in colonial Punjab. By creatively combining the concept of commercial capital with markets as complex systems, it hopes to provide a richer framework for the study of agrarian change in diverse contexts.     

集体林产权制度改革效应分析

分析了新一轮集体林产权制度改革后林农经营不同林种的行为特征,得到集体林产权制度改革预期目标与改革结果不相一致的结论。用制度经济学理论解释了改革成效不大的原因,主要表现为国家对采伐限额制度、生态效益补偿制度、林业税费制度这3种影响林业发展的制度供给不足,并从5个方面指出国家对制度供给不足的原因,提出了完善配套改革的建议。     

Collaborative research on Conservation Agriculture in Bajío,Mexico: continuities and discontinuities of partnerships

Agricultural technologies are debated and contested. Studying the socio-political life of agricultural research can help us to understand why some particular technologies or pathways are favoured (and others not) and eventually why expectations are maintained or not. We studied the 30-year trajectory of practices of Conservation Agriculture in the central region of Mexico. The results of our interviews and literature review show how, over the course of time, Conservation Agriculture (CA) technology has successively changed from being referred to as Conservation Tillage, Direct Seeding, Conservation Agriculture and has now, finally become integrated within Sustainable Intensification. These changes are connected with revamped narratives and the applications of the latest research and development (R&D) paradigms. They were the result of new spaces for CA projects opening up after other spaces had closed, spaces that allowed the researchers, politicians, technicians and farmers to continue to engage in CA in a reconfigured way that fit the various agendas. The opening and closure of spaces for CA projects were the result of researchers being subject to, and taking advantage of, political changes and of politicians seeking new initiatives to support their agendas. This shows how research and politics are mutually dependent and how they generate a discontinuity of project interventions which, paradoxically, represent a continuity of agendas and research processes. As CA is both a complex and flexible technology, it has been possible to make it fit to accommodate the changing agendas of different actors.     

From Extensive to Involutionary Growth: A Dialectic Interpretation of the Boom and Busts of Cocoa Production in the Gold Coast

African economic history has undergone impressive revitalization in the past decade. Much of the recent work is, quite naturally, inspired by developments in economic history at large, and increasingly – indirectly or directly – using markets as the organizing principle in understanding how economies evolve over time. More specifically, recent work assumes that markets create the possibility to use resources more efficiently, which, theoretically, enables economies to grow as long as institutions adjust and enable the population to exploit the arising opportunities. That is, the current works in African economic history are to a large extent grounded in Smithian growth models, labelled after Adam Smith's work on the mechanisms of long‐term growth. This paper critically discusses the explanatory value of the Smithian growth models for understanding the long‐term economic development in Africa. The latter is best described as recurrent growth episodes, and we argue that while Smithian models can account for initial periods of growth, they fail to explain why the growth was not sustained. We use the boom and busts of cocoa production in Ghana in the twentieth century as a case in point. We show that the decline in cocoa production was not caused by state policies distorting the functions of the markets, as the Smithian growth models suggest. Instead, the decline in production was an outcome of changes in the ecological and institutional conditions that caused the initial growth. The irony is that it was the initial growth in cocoa production that altered the conditions, making further growth in production impossible. We capture these changes – for the first time ever – by combining the concepts of forest rents and involutionary growth in an African case.