Land, landlords and sustainable livelihoods: The impact of agrarian reform on a coconut hacienda in the Philippines

Agrarian reform has been a key theme on the development agenda of many countries in the Global South for decades. Whilst such interventions are often pursued for political goals and in the interests of empowerment, there is often a mismatch between these goals and the actual outcomes achieved. Within this context, this study investigates the impacts of agrarian reform in Del Rosario, a former coconut hacienda in the Philippines. This is done in an attempt to explore whether agrarian reform has facilitated the creation of sustainable livelihoods among its beneficiaries, in particular, and in their agrarian reform community, in general. The impacts of reform are examined in relation to four themes - economic, social, demographic and environmental. Overall, the study concludes that agrarian reform has not brought about sustainable livelihoods in the former coconut hacienda. People's livelihoods, especially those derived from copra farming, remain at a subsistence level. At most, at an economic level agrarian reform has brought about improved access to land among its beneficiaries. Nevertheless, it has empowered the farmers by giving them greater freedom and has increased their sense of well-being, as well as enabling them to improve their families’ life prospects and strengthen social capital.     

Optimal hedge fund portfolios under liquidation risk

We use an expected utility framework to integrate the liquidation risk of hedge funds into portfolio allocation problems. The introduction of realistic investment constraints complicates the determination of the optimal solution, which is solved using a genetic algorithm that mimics the mechanism of natural evolution. We analyse the impact of the liquidation risk, of the investment constraints and of the agent's degree of risk aversion on the optimal allocation and on the optimal certainty equivalent of hedge fund portfolios. We observe, in particular, that the portfolio weights and their performance are significantly affected by liquidation risk. Finally, tight portfolio constraints can only provide limited protection against liquidation risk. This approach is of special interest to fund of hedge fund managers who wish to include the hedge fund liquidation risk in their portfolio optimization scheme.     

The Effect of Carbon Taxes on Agricultural Trade

This study evaluates the implications of an existing carbon tax on international trade in the agricultural sector. Applying uniformly to all fossil fuels combusted within its borders, the province of British Columbia unilaterally introduced a carbon tax on July 1, 2008. In 2012, the province granted an exemption from the tax to certain agricultural sectors. Using commodity‐specific trade flows and exploiting cross‐provincial and intertemporal variation, we find little evidence that the carbon tax is associated with any meaningful effects on agricultural trade despite the sector being singled out as “at risk” by the provincial government. Our findings suggest that there is not compelling evidence to support exempting the agricultural sector from the tax. Discussion of potential policy remedies to address the tax's potential effects on firm profitability and international competitiveness is also included.     

Let's make a deal in the classroom: Institutional solutions to the Monty Hall Dilemma

The authors describe how the Monty Hall Dilemma, a well-known choice anomaly, can be demonstrated with a simple and versatile classroom experiment. In addition to demonstrating the anomaly, the experiment can be used to introduce students to some institutional modifications that have been shown to ameliorate it. This experiment, which can be tailored by instructors to meet specific learning objectives for a variety of courses, can also be used to frame broader discussions about rationality, institutions, and choices under uncertainty.     

Returns to scope: a metric for production synergies demonstrated for hospital production

Knowledge of the production function’s scope properties can provide insights for firms choosing their operating strategy, policy-makers considering industry structure, and analysts determining appropriate tools. We introduce a new property, returns to scope, which is distinct from scale properties and does not rely on price information. Based on desirable characteristics of an estimator of returns to scope, we propose two methods for assessment. We present examples using simulated data and hospital production data from the 2008 National Inpatient Sample of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. We find that hospitals experience negative returns to scope (productivity losses) from the joint production of minor and major diagnostic procedures. Based upon our results we conclude that the new returns to scope property allows sharper insights than classic economies of scope approaches.     

An Analysis of Kin-Provided Child Care in the Context of Intrafamily ExchangesLinking Components of Family Support for Parents Raising Young Children

Little is known about why parents choose kin-provided child care and less is known about how kin-provided child care is related to other forms of in-kind support from relatives close-at-hand. Previous models of the choice of kin-provided child care assumed that the presence of other forms of in-kind support from relatives nearby was inconsequential to estimating effects of economic and demographic factors on the decision to use kin-provided child care. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of the Class of 1972, this study shows that this assumption is incorrect because use of kin-provided child care and intrafamily in-kind resource exchanges are interrelated. When the association between use of kin-provided child care and the presence of other family in-kind exchanges is ignored, the study shows that estimated effects for income, the price of child care, and maternal characteristics are underestimated. The findings provide a better understanding of why parents choose kin-provided child care by confirming that this decision is a part of a larger set of parental decisions about involvement in resource exchanges within extended families. My findings support recent child care bills aiming to increase parental choice of child care provider, broaden the definition of a provider to include non-coresident relatives, and expand price subsidies for kin-provided child care.     

ON THE DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATIONAL CORRUPTION: THE CASE OF UKRAINE

This article utilizes a unique data set to examine the relationship between a group of potential explanatory variables and educational corruption in Ukraine. Our corruption controls include bribing on exams, on term papers, for credit, and for university admission. We use a robust nonparametric approach in order to estimate the probability of bribing across the four different categories. This approach is shown to be robust to a variety of different types of endogeneity often encountered under commonly assumed parametric specifications. Our main findings indicate that corruption perceptions, past bribing behavior, and the perceived criminality of bribery are significant factors for all four categories of bribery. From a policy perspective, we argue that when bribe control enforcement is difficult, anti‐corruption education programs targeting social perceptions of corruption could be appropriate. (JEL K42, J16, C14)     

Combining time-series and econometric forecast of tourism activity

It has always been difficult to model the travel industry because tourism involves such a diverse set of activities. However, various regional decision makers have become increasingly interested in predicting the flows of visitors through their market. Accurate forecasts of the number of tourists' arrivals, their length of stay, and their expenditures improve planning and inventory control. Stochastic time-series models have compared favorably with econometric models at the aggregate level while some naive automatic forecasting tools have fared well in comparison when predicting industry-level behavior. Several approaches have been developed to improve forecast accuracy. This paper presents parsimonious methods of improving accuracy by combining various forecasting techniques. The Box-Jenkins stochastic time-series method is combined with a traditional econometric technique to forecast airline visitors to the State of Florida.     

Private Information and the Exercise of Executive Stock Options

This paper finds strong evidence that executives use private information when exercising their stock options. The most informed executives tend to exercise early, do not exercise on the vest date, do not exercise to capture dividends, exercise a high percentage of their options, and exercise when the option is the least in‐the‐money. We also find that exercises around resignation and retirement are followed by significant negative abnormal returns. Furthermore, the operating performance of firms following exercises motivated by private information is significantly worse than that of firms in which the exercises are not motivated by private information.