The Class Dynamics of Food Sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador

This paper examines the class dynamics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador. It argues that the nature of contemporary demands for food sovereignty is heavily influenced by the outcomes of peasant movements’ historical and ongoing internal class dynamics. Processes of class differentiation within peasant organizations in both countries have led to the interests of certain classes predominating over or at the expense of others. Despite La Vía Campesina's projection of ‘unity in diversity’, incorporating sometimes conflicting class interests into the movement is particularly challenging. As such, class analysis must be brought back into debates around food sovereignty in order to gauge (and potentially further) the movement's transformative potential.     

FAIR Act Implications for Land Values in the Corn Belt

In 1996 the federal government enacted the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act, which represented a sweeping change in public policy toward agriculture. This paper examines the impact of the FAIR legislation on farmland values across the U.S. Corn Belt. A representative farm framework is used to determine the impact of FAIR on farmland values. The analysis suggests that marginal production environments are likely to suffer most severely under FAIR, and that a prolonged period of weak commodity prices could engender sharp declines in farmland values.     

Decision making in the solar age: Ecological criteria for the post-economic era

Note to industrial societies: traditional value systems worked in an Age of Petroleum but that age is ending. What changes do we need to make for the new Solar Age?     

The changing corporate-social contract in the 1980s: Creative opportunities for consumer affairs professionals

In an address to members of the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals, Hazel Henderson congratulated them on their stated purpose: “to foster the integrity of business in its dealings with consumers,” but added the whether they can also simultaneously “promote harmonious relationships between business, government and consumers” is another matter—one for honest differences of opinion.     

Where do manufacturing firms locate their headquarters?

Firms often separate headquarters' (HQ) functions physically from their production facilities and construct stand-alone HQs. By locating its HQ in a large, service oriented metro area away from its production facilities, a firm may be better able to outsource service functions in that local metro market and also to gather information about market conditions for their products. However if the firm locates the HQ away from its production activity, the coordination costs in managing plant activities are increased. In this paper, we empirically analyze the trade-off between these two considerations.     

ECONOMIC PROGRESS AND CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES: A DISSENTING VIEWPOINT

The attached text formed the basis for my opening contribution, and also some later remarks, at the discussion that followed the 2008 Clare Distinguished Lecture in Economics and Public Policy, given in Cambridge, England, on 14 May 2008. The lecturer was Professor Mohan Munasinghe, a Vice‐Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and his subject was ‘A Policy Framework for Climate Change and Sustainable Development: Economic Analysis and Beyond’. I have made a few small changes to take account of some more recent developments.     

Sources, uses, and forms of data in the new product development process

This paper presents qualitative and exploratory research investigating the role that managing knowledge and information plays in new product development (NPD). A set of 20 in-depth interviews uncovered eight basic types of information used throughout the NPD process and three general approaches to managing information needed in the NPD process. Although some exemplary companies seem to do an outstanding job of collecting and disseminating information, the majority of firms struggle. NPD process automation solutions tackle part of the problem, ignoring nonquantitative data forms and the full picture of information use throughout the entire development process.     

Absorptive Capacity, Coauthoring Behavior, and the Organization of Research in Drug Discovery

We examine the interface between for-profit and publicly funded research in pharmaceuticals. Firms access upstream basic research through investments in absorptive capacity in the form of in-house basic research and 'pro-publication' internal incentives. Some firms also maintain extensive connections to the wider scientific community, which we measure using data on coauthorship of scientific papers between pharmaceutical company scientists and publicly funded researchers. 'Connectedness' is significantly correlated with firms' internal organization, as well as their performance in drug discovery. The estimated impact of 'connectedness' on private research productivity implies a substantial return to public investments in basic research.