Spanish Household Demand for Seafood

Seafood is an important food commodity in Spain, the second largest consuming nation of seafood in the world. Today, several changes in demographics, socioeconomic factors, and lifestyle changes have affected demand for seafood products. Double‐hurdle models allow an examination of Spanish household expenditures on these products and explicitly account for the value of women's time. The empirical evidence shows that the set of statistically significant factors in the participation and expenditure equations is not the same for fresh and processed seafood goods. Income and household demographic variables are important determinants of both participation and expenditures on seafood products. In addition, the value of women's time affects expenditures on processed products, which include frozen, cured, and canned seafood goods.     

The impact of information on landowners’ participation in voluntary conservation programs - Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence from an agri-environment program in Saxony, Germany

The voluntary nature of programs that pay landowners for conservation measures raises the question of what factors favor participation in such programs. This article focuses on the controversial issue of the impact of information on the participation decision. We develop a straightforward model to analyze how information affects this decision, and empirically estimate the impact of information, as well as other factors, on participation in a conservation program in Saxony, Germany. We find in our theoretical analysis that information measures may affect program participation either in a positive or negative way, whereas our estimation results indicate that the influence of the diverse information measures that have been relevant in our empirical analysis is weak. We argue, however, that information measures may nonetheless be warranted, as they allow for better informed participation decisions, thus contributing to a more optimal selection of program participants.     

Assessing the Impact of the ‘Decoupling’ Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy on Irish Farmers’ Off‐farm Labour Market Participation Decisions

This paper assesses the impact of the ‘decoupling’ reform of the Common Agricultural Policy on the labour allocation decisions of Irish farmers. The agricultural household decision‐making model provides the conceptual and theoretical framework to examine the interaction between government subsidies and farmers’ time allocation decisions. The relationship postulated is that ‘decoupling’ of agricultural support from production would probably result in a decline in the return to farm labour but it would also lead to an increase in household wealth. The effect of these factors on how farmers allocate their time is tested empirically using labour participation and labour supply models. The models developed are sufficiently general for application elsewhere. The main findings for the Irish situation are that the decoupling of direct payments is likely to increase the probability of farmers participating in the off‐farm employment market and that the amount of time allocated to off‐farm work will increase.     

The role of behavioural factors and opportunity costs in farmers' participation in voluntary agri-environmental schemes: A systematic review

Agri-environmental schemes (AESs) are increasingly implemented to promote the adoption of environmentally friendly practices by farmers. We use a systematic review to explore the role of behavioural factors and opportunity costs in farmers' decisions to participate in AESs in Australia, Europe and North America. Behavioural factors influence how farmers value and perceive options, while opportunity costs relate to farmers' forgone utility when choosing to participate in schemes. We synthesise insights from 79 articles and over 700 factors explaining the participation in AESs. We find that a set of behavioural factors seem consistently connected to participation, including agricultural training, advice and having positive attitudes towards AESs. Moreover, several factors related to opportunity costs also have a rather consistent relationship with AES participation, including market conditions, implementation efforts, profitability, and management and contract flexibility. However, many relationships of behavioural factors and opportunity costs with AES participation are not as consistent and generalizable as sometimes portrayed and require context-specific interpretation. Those factors with mixed results can still provide insights into farmers' participation decisions as several of them are either ‘positively and insignificantly’ or ‘negatively and insignificantly’ related to participation, such as environmental attitude, trust and farm size. These results suggest that their relationship with AES participation depends on other factors or the setting, highlighting interactions and raising important new research questions. Overall, our results provide several entry points for both researchers and policy-makers, highlighting uncertainties in relationships between factors and participation that should be considered when designing policies.     

Welfare impacts of maize–pigeonpea intensification in Tanzania

This article examines the driving forces behind farmers’ decisions to adopt improved pigeonpea and maize and estimates the causal impact of technology adoption on household welfare using data obtained from a random cross‐section sample of 613 small‐scale farmers in Tanzania. We use seemingly unrelated and recursive bivariate probit regressions to test the endogeneity and joint decision making of pigeonpea–maize production. A double hurdle model is used to analyze the determinants of the intensity of technology adoption conditional on overcoming seed access constraints. To address the impact of adoption on welfare, the article employs both propensity score matching and switching regression techniques. Results from bivariate probit models show that unobservable factors cause both decisions to be correlated but the finding does not support the conjecture that both decisions are made jointly. Overall the analysis of the determinants of adoption identifies inadequate local supply of seed, access to information, human capital, and access to private productive asset as key constraints for pigeonpea technology adoption. The causal impact estimation from both the propensity score matching and switching regression suggests that maize/pigeonpea adoption has a positive and significant impact on income and consumption expenditure among sample households.     

Farmer's willingness to participate in wetland restoration: a hurdle model approach

Due to a severe degradation of the wetland ecosystem in China, great efforts have been devoted to promote farmers’ willingness to participate in wetland restoration. As the decision‐making body, farmer's willingness to participate is critical to wetland restoration. It is thus important to understand factors that will affect farmers’ willingness to participate and their levels of participation. Using a survey sample of 1,009 farmers from the Poyang Lake wetland area in China, this article applies a hurdle model to empirically investigate the factors affecting individual farmers’ sequential decisions on whether or not to participate and how much land to enroll in wetland restoration. Results suggest that farmers’ information and knowledge about wetland restoration compensation policy is crucial in determining whether or not to participate in the first stage. Meanwhile, individual farmer characteristics and household attributes play different roles in influencing farmers’ participation decisions and acreage enrollment decisions. This study provides useful insights to identify effective policy instruments to motivate participation and ensure success of such policies.     

基于MOA视角的公众参与河长制行为分析

为提高公众参与河长制行为,基于MOA理论构建公众参与河长制行为模型,分析公众参与河长制行为的影响因素及作用路径。结果表明：公众参与动机包括水资源需求、健康需求、主人翁责任感、自我实现需求,正向影响其参与行为;参与机会包括法律体系、参与机制、信息公开、物质奖励,正向影响其参与行为;参与能力包括专业知识能力、信息获取能力、沟通交流能力,正向影响其参与行为;参与机会对参与能力具有重要的正向影响,公众参与机会对参与行为影响最大,其次是参与能力,再次是参与动机。从保障公众参与机会、建立公众参与能力提升机制、激发公众参与动机3个方面提出提高公众参与行为的系统性建议。     

The demand for alcoholic beverages in Spain

The objective of this study is to analyze the main determinants of alcoholic beverages consumption at home. Data comes from the latest Spanish Household National Survey, which provides information on expenditure and quantities of different food products by household. Because households are interviewed only 1 week, a large number of zeros have been recorded. Among the existing censured demand models (the double hurdle (DH) model; the purchase‐infrequency model; and the Tobit purchase‐infrequency model, among others) and after carrying out model selection tests, the DH model has been finally estimated. All expenditure elasticities are positive, corresponding the highest value to spirits. Own price elasticities are negative and also in this case the spirits exhibit the highest value. Socio‐economic variables also play an important role in explaining consumer purchase and consumption decisions.     

Social and cultural determinants of collective management of community forest in Nepal

The main goal of the study is to determine which socio-economic factors affect level of participation in the community forest management of “Ludhi-Damgade” of Gorkha district in Nepal. The empirical evidence for level of participation as a function of social status is obtained by using an ordered probit and two-stage least-squares model. The model also estimates the marginal effects of socio-economic factors on different levels of participation suggesting how per unit change in such socio-economic characters affects the level of participation. Empirical results from the model also verify that participation in forest management determines the quantity and type of benefits received from the community forest. The research findings of the study suggest that participation in community forest management is based on the socio-economic profile of an individual and the level of participation is determined by the benefits obtained from the common forest resources. Lack of participation in community forest management excludes the disadvantaged groups from decision-making in product distribution. Consequently, the disadvantaged groups get less benefit from the community forest. The empirical results are expected to aid policy makers in empowering people of lower socio-economic status to understand the importance of participation in community forest management in order to have equal distribution of benefits accrued by community forest.     

Does crop insurance influence agrochemical uses under current Chinese situations? A case study in the Manasi watershed,Xinjiang

Government subsidy to crop insurance has been advocated as a policy alternative to support growth of agricultural production and farmers' income in China since the country joined the WTO. However, cautions have been raised as the crop insurance program may impact the environment negatively. This study tries to explore farmers' behaviors with regard to agrochemical use with household data applied to a simultaneous equation system consisting of disaggregated input models. It is found that decisions on fertilizer, pesticides, and agro‐film applications do have different impacts on crop insurance participation, and are influenced by the latter in different ways. It is also implied that encouraging farmers' participation in crop insurance under current low‐premium and low‐indemnity terms does not have a significantly negative impact on the environment.     

Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information,decision‐making,and agricultural practices? The Indian case

Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of crops and improved methods of cultivation. In India, however, the coverage of agricultural extension workers and the relevance of extension advice is poor. We investigate whether a women's self‐help group (SHG) platform could be an effective way of improving access to information, women's empowerment in agriculture, agricultural practices, and production diversity. We use cross‐sectional data on close to 1,000 women from five states in India and employ nearest‐neighbor matching models to match SHG and non‐SHG women along a range of observed characteristics. We find that participation in an SHG increases women's access to information and their participation in some agricultural decisions, but has limited impact on agricultural practices or outcomes, possibly due to financial constraints, social norms, and women's domestic responsibilities. SHGs need to go beyond provision of information to changing the dynamics around women's participation in agriculture to effectively translate knowledge into practice.     

Effect of off‐farm income on smallholder commercialization: panel evidence from rural households in Ethiopia

This article investigates how off‐farm income affects crop output market participation decisions and marketed surplus of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. A double‐hurdle model is estimated using three waves of panel data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey. Unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for using a correlated random effect procedure and potential endogeneity of explanatory variables using a control function approach. The results show that off‐farm income has no significant influence on household crop output market participation. However, conditional on market participation, additional off‐farm earnings negatively affect the marketed surplus. This indicates that farmers use off‐farm earnings for consumption rather than for investment in agricultural production. Policy measures that promote rural investment may help increase returns to labor for land‐poor households participating in off‐farm work in the process of agricultural commercialization.     

Decisions nonindustrial forest landowners make: an empirical examination

Our purpose is to estimate a model of non-industrial forest landowner behavior that considers certain types of behavior that have escaped discussion and rigorous investigation in the literature, yet which are critical to future policy making. Our focus on the many different but related decisions landowners make broadens the typical understanding of landowner behavior to show how bequest motives, debt and participation in non-timber activities, and harvesting decisions are interrelated and dependent on landowner preferences, market, and land characteristics.     

Life cycle models of women's body mass index and probability of being obese: Evidence from panel data

The objective of this paper is to develop a multiperiod, finite‐life, life cycle models of household decisions on food, leisure, and health (body mass index [BMI] or being obese) and to estimate econometric versions of these models treating SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) participation as endogenous. A key insight from the economic models is that households allocate their wealth over the multiperiod life cycle to equalize the marginal utility of wealth in each period. The observations for this study are a balanced panel of over 1,600 women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort (NLSY79). We focus on the 20‐year period starting in 1986, when SNAP data first became available. Women of all ages are included in the study because at the beginning of adulthood women cannot accurately predict over their life cycle labor and marriage market and health shocks that can thrust them into an economic position where they would qualify for SNAP. New findings include that a woman's household SNAP participation with or without updating for last periods health status and higher local dairy product prices reduce significantly her BMI and probability of being obese.     

Participation and returns in rural nonfarm activities: evidence from the Kyrgyz Republic

This article uses two representative household budget surveys from the Kyrgyz Republic to analyze factors influencing participation and returns from different types of nonfarm activities in 2005 and 2006. We use the double hurdle and Heckman models, which allow us to demonstrate that a number of variables has different effects on participation and income from nonfarm activities. For example, residing in remote areas and lack of capital are found to stimulate participation in nonfarm activities, but decrease nonfarm income. Results are robust, but using the Heckman model seems to produce more accurate results for returns to education and gender under the presence of selection bias. Overall, nonfarm activities are found to be most important for the poor, who are pushed out of agriculture due to limited and poor land resources. This indicates that equipping poor households to enable them to move towards better remunerative nonfarm activities should be a priority for Kyrgyz rural policy makers.     

Fishermen’s competitiveness and labour market performance: Evidence from shrimpers in Bangladesh

We conduct an experiment to determine competitiveness among shrimpers who engage in collecting shrimp seeds in the southwestern coastal region of Bangladesh. We then examine how competitiveness affects the labour supply decisions and labour market performance of these shrimpers. Our results show that shrimpers who prefer competition are more productive than shrimpers who do not prefer competition. Competitive shrimpers secure better prices and earn higher incomes selling their catches. We estimate that their wage elasticity of participation ranges from 0.4 to 0.5, which is consistent with preferences under neoclassical assumptions. Competitive shrimpers have a slightly greater wage elasticity than non-competitive shrimpers, suggesting that they might be more responsive to expected earnings. Our results have important policy implications for the efficient management of common pool resources.     

A ‘SATISFICING’ MODEL OF CAP DECISION-MAKING

Agricultural policy decisions in the European Community tend to be treated as exogenous influences on agricultural markets, on the grounds that political factors assume a dominant (yet indeterminant) role in the decision-making process of the Common Agricultural Policy. This paper attempts to endogenise the annual price-fixing process in a behavioural model based on the assumption that politically motivated decision-makers seek to achieve ‘satisficing’ rather than optimal solutions to the conflicting problems of farm income support and budgetary expenditure.     

北京城市家庭水产品在外消费的影响因素分析

本文使用记帐式调查数据,采用Double—hurdle模型分析了北京城市居民家庭水产品在外消费及其影响因素。计量分析结果发现,收入与时间机会成本会显著增加城市居民家庭水产品在外消费的参与概率与消费数量。此外,家庭在外水产品消费的参与和消费决策还受到家庭人口结构与区域分布的显著影响。本文的研究结果对促进我国餐饮业与水产业的健康发展和相关政策的制定有重要意义。     

Information Access and Smallholder Farmers’ Market Participation in Peru

Previous studies have documented the effect of information and communications technology (ICT) on farmers’ market participation. We employ a triple‐hurdle model to examine the effect of internet and phones on Peruvian smallholder farmers’ market participation, marketplace choice, and volume decisions using household‐level data from the IV National Agricultural Census of Peru in 2012. Double matching at the district‐ and household‐levels is implemented to address potential selection bias. Results indicate a positive direct effect of internet and phones on farmers’ market participation and volume decisions on the national market. Those with ICT access are more likely to sell on the foreign market than those without ICT access. The marginal effects suggest that internet access tends to have larger impacts on volume decisions than phones. In addition to direct effects, we find that internet access has significant and positive spillover effects on market participation and volume decisions in the national market. Without implementing matching procedures, the magnitude of the ICT effect tends to be smaller. Results provide empirical support for policies and social programmes that promote ICT especially internet usage in rural Peru to improve smallholder farmers’ marketing performance.     

The influence of farm input subsidies on the adoption of natural resource management technologies

Farm input subsidies are often criticised on economic and ecological grounds. The promotion of natural resource management (NRM) technologies is widely seen as more sustainable to increase agricultural productivity and food security. Relatively little is known about how input subsidies affect farmers’ decisions to adopt NRM technologies. There are concerns of incompatibility, because NRM technologies are one strategy to reduce the use of external inputs in intensive production systems. However, in smallholder systems of Africa, where the average use of external inputs is low, there may possibly be interesting complementarities. Here, we analyse the situation of Malawi's Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP). Using panel data from smallholder farm households, we develop a multivariate probit model and examine how FISP participation affects farmers’ decisions to adopt various NRM technologies, such as intercropping of maize with legumes, use of organic manure, water conservation practices and vegetative strips. As expected, FISP increases the use of inorganic fertilizer and improved maize seeds. Yet, we also observe a positive association between FISP and the adoption of certain NRM technologies. For other NRM technologies, we find no significant effect. We conclude that input subsidies and the promotion of NRM technologies can be compatible strategies.