Rural Land,Emerging Rental Land Markets and Public Policy in Ethiopia

Abstract: While farmers today access land mainly through administrative‐based land distribution, transactions in rental markets are on the rise. Different rental contracts are informally arranged with varied land use and transfer rights and degree of enforcement. These contracts are often interlocked to overcome the problem of incomplete or missing non‐land factor markets. The empirical evidence is thin but shows mixed records on performance of rental markets. Transactions in rental markets provide an additional venue to access land, reduce disparity in distribution of area of land operated, correct imbalances in factor proportions at farm level, and partly substitute for missing or incomplete factor markets. However, rights to rental land are restricted and poorly enforced, and markets are localized and thinly traded. While participation in rental markets is potentially welfare improving, increasing scarcity of land and demands for higher rent, a fee for right to rent land, payment in cash, farming skills and experience, and proof of no‐default are tightening conditions to access to land, particularly to the young poor farmers. Public policy has an important role in formalizing and enhancing the development of rental markets through strengthening enforceable long‐term security of tenure, providing legal cover to rental contracts, allowing tradability of long‐term use rights through rental markets, and providing the institutional mechanism to enforce contracts and reduce the burden of self‐enforcement. These policy measures need to be nested within a broad framework of market development, and informed by policy research and experimentation.     

北京农业土地产出率分析与对策

土地是农民生存根本,农业土地产出效率直接影响到农民收入。从近年来北京农业土地产出率分析中可以看出,其发展速度非常快,但对比发达国家农业土地产出率,还有一些差距,分析目前农业土地产出率存在的问题,提出了一些合理化对策。     

论农业技术市场的培育与发展

决定农业发展的基本力量是农业生产力的发展，而科学技术已成为农业生产力发展中最活跃、最有决定意义的一个因素。我国耕地资源不足，气候资源复杂多变，水资源严重匮乏。在这种自然资源强约束和分布不均衡的背景下，我国农业生产要持续、稳定、协调地发展，根本出路就在于依靠农业技术进步去打破农业生产的自然资源约束。建国以来，我国一直重视农业科学技术的发展。到２０００年，我国共建立了地区以上的农业科研机构１２８０个，职工１３．４万人，农业技术推广机构２２万多个，职工１１７．７万人，取得了３万多项科研成果，推动了我国…     

Agricultural Productivity and Economic Growth: Role of Tax Revenues and Infrastructures

To encourage economic growth in a developing economy, higher agricultural productivity has been believed to enhance the manufacturing sector's development, which provides the transition into industrialization. Although this positive linkage between agricultural productivity and economic growth has been judged to be incorrect, based upon the comparative advantage argument in a model of small-open economies by Matsuyama (1992), this article revisits the linkage by extending Matsuyama's model by introducing the revenue-generating effect, which is missing in his model. As agriculture is an important source of taxation in an early stage of economic development, higher agricultural productivity generates more tax revenues and facilitates spending on infrastructure. By introducing government taxation and infrastructure expenditure, we show that under proper conditions, higher agricultural productivity creates a positive growth effect via the revenue generation that dominates the negative growth effect through the comparative advantage. Moreover, introducing infrastructure expenditure may shift the manufacturing sector's original comparative disadvantage into comparative advantage, thereby enabling a trapped economy to take off and eventually industrialize. From the early stages of economic development in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, we can quantitatively assess an obvious net positive effect of agricultural productivity upon labor allocation and economic growth.     

生产力增长、智慧生产力与人的自由全面发展

文章认为,生产力是一个涵盖劳动者、劳动对象、劳动手段及交通、能源、管理、信息、科学技术等多种因素在内的而且人的自由全面充分发展、个人生产力和智慧生产力在其中的主导地位日益突出的庞大的集合体和有机的超大的系统。物质生产力的发展是人类实现自由全面发展的基础和从必然王国向自由王国迈进的条件。科技进步为人的自由充分发展创造了条件,人必须充分发展以适应新科技革命。文章指出,就现代科技革命和社会主义市场经济发展而言,全面充分发展个人生产力即智慧生产力才是发展社会主义的社会生产力的最重要和最根本的途径。     

Health and Productivity: Panel Data Evidence from Ethiopia

Abstract: Neoclassical growth models and endogenous growth theories show the positive contribution of human capital to growth. Using household panel data (1994–2000) on individuals who reported their wages in urban Ethiopia, we estimated a relationship between health measures (i.e. proxied by height and BMI) and wages (which proxies productivity/growth). Our findings from the IV quantile regression estimates indicate that productivity is positively and significantly affected by education, height and BMI. The return to BMI is important both at the lower and upper end of the wage distribution. The return to height is significant only at the end of the wage distribution. The substantive content of the results (i.e. the high‐nutrition and high‐productivity equilibrium story) does not change even if we did not control for endogeneity of schooling. Non‐parametric evidence also supports the strong and positive relationship between productivity and our indicators of human capital.     

我国农业经济发展水平及其影响因素实证研究

农业经济发展与农业生产自然制约条件、农业人力资本投入、农业生产资本投入、农业生产技术、农业经济的市场作用、农业生产条件制约因素等密切相关.本文选取反映农业经济增长的13个指标,对其1980-2012年的时间序列运用主成分回归分析与其误差修正模型,研究我国农业经济发展全要素生产率及影响我国农业长期经济发展与短期经济发展的因素.结果表明,影响我国农业长期与短期经济发展的主要因素按影响力大小依次为农业生产条件、市场作用、自然制约条件、农业生产资本、农业生产技术、人力资源.     

Fragmentation and Market Quality: The Case of European Markets

This paper questions whether the proliferation of alternative trading venues in Western Europe after MiFID implementation in 2007 affected market quality. By means of a difference-in-differences analysis, we evaluate changes in market quality of stocks that initiated trading in Multilateral Trading Facilities (MTF) in relation to matched samples. Our analysis provides evidence that the overall liquidity (measured by transaction costs and price impact) and trading activity increased in the short term with trade initiation in MTF. Notably, we show that fragmentation did not cause lower price precision or informativeness, but some tests suggest that fragmentation correlates positively with volatility. The results of this study are stronger for stocks with greater propensity for MTF trade initiation, i.e. stocks with greater size and liquidity prior to that event. Interestingly, the impact on liquidity and trading activity varied across stock exchanges and timing of MTF trade initiation. As for long run effects, our results suggest an improvement of overall liquidity and a neutral effect on the trading activity of traditional exchanges.     

Indonesian Agricultural Development: The Awkward Case of Smallholder Tree Crops 1

The problems of transforming smallholder tree crops from traditional low-yielding to modern high-yielding technology are examined, using a meta production function approach to analyse the changes. The role of government in transformation is considered, and various ‘individual’ and ‘black’ improvement schemes implemented since the 1950s are analysed. Many of these schemes have not teen successful owing to poor planning and inadequate managerial and financial support, and their coverage has been small in relation to the huge areas needing improvement. The paper suggests a more modest ‘dispasal’ approach to transformation, concerned with setting up nurseries to provide better quality planting material and advice to individual fanners. But even this revised approach should be carefully planned and executed light of previous mistakes if it is to have widespread impact.     

资源配置、全要素生产率与农业经济增长愿景

对2004~2010年我国不同地区农业的资源配置扭曲情况的分析表明:由于"二元经济"的影响,我国农业的资本和劳动存在着明显的跨部门配置扭曲。如能有效消除此类扭曲,我国农业TFP能提高6%~36%。各地区的资源再配置效应对农业TFP增长率有着显著影响,并且各地区的资源再配置效应存在明显差异。对全国各个地区而言,土地资源再配置效应都是影响农业资源再配置效应的主要因素,资本和劳动再配置效应则相对较弱。由此可见,促进城乡资本和劳动力市场一体化以及进一步完善农村土地流转市场是现阶段降低农业资源配置扭曲、促进农业TFP增长的主要途径。     

Challenges Facing Agricultural Extension Agents: A Case Study from South‐western Ethiopia

Abstract: This article examines the working conditions of extension workers and constraints to the adoption of modern agricultural technologies/practices in south‐western Ethiopia. Data collected from 85 extension workers form the empirical basis for the study. The empirical results indicate that extension work in the study area has not been participatory in its nature, little consideration was given to farmers’ experiences and knowledge, and extension workers lack practical skills. In addition to deciding on who should take part in the extension programme, extension agents are found to supply more services to those farmers who are financially sound and show interest in the programme. The study reveals that apart from the fact that the number of extension workers in the study area is very small, their qualification and communication skills leave a lot to be desired. The study makes it also clear that a host of factors obstructs the promotion/adoption of modern agricultural technologies/practices in the study area.     

Stock Market Development and Economic Growth: The Case of Selected African Countries

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of stock market development on economic growth in 14 African countries in a dynamic panel data modelling setting. Results largely show a positive relationship between stock market development and economic growth. Further analyses, based on the level of economic development and stock market capitalization, are also conducted. The results reveal that the positive influence of stock market development on economic growth is significant for countries classified as upper middle income economies. On the basis of market capitalization groupings, stock market developments play a significant role in growth only for moderately capitalized markets. The general trend in results shows that low income African countries and less developed stock markets need to grow more and develop their markets to elicit economic gains from stock markets.