Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Integrated Pest Management Extension Methods: An Example from Bangladesh

This study examines the cost-effectiveness of alternative methods for diffusing integrated pest management practices in Bangladesh. Methods compared include farmer field schools, field days, and extension agent visits. Farmer field school participants were more likely to adopt integrated pest management practices than recipients of messages from field days and agent visits. However, due to lower costs per participant, field days were the most cost-effective means for stimulating adoption of simpler practices and extension agent visits were the most cost-effective for extending more complex practices.     

ANIMAL HEALTH SERVICES: FINDING THE BALANCE BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DELIVERY

Growing fiscal deficits and greater awareness of the huge economiccost of often-inefficient government activities have renewedinterest in transferring the delivery of important servicesfrom the public to the private sector in developing countries.This article, drawn from a longer study, offers a frameworkfor determining the appropriate roles of the public and privatesectors in delivering animal health services, such as veterinarysurveillance, disease vector control, vaccination, clinicaltreatment of sick animals, inspection of livestock products,and veterinary research and extension. The profitability and therefore the supply of private veterinaryservices is governed by several factors arising from economiesof scale, such as the size of the livestock enterprises in thelocality, the nature of potential or actual diseases, and thetypes of animals raised in the production systems. Thus, inareas where private veterinary work is unprofitable or whereother types of market failure occur, economic or social concernsmay make some type of public intervention necessary. The transferof animal health services from the public to the private sectormust be done selectively, and government support may be neededto ensure the success of such transfers.      

THE IMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION: THE TRAINING AND VISIT SYSTEM IN INDIA

This article reviews the rationale for public sector involvementin the dissemination of technological information to farmers,concluding that free markets do not fully satisfy farmers' informationneeds, and that government support is justified. Agriculturalextension is a principal way that governments can disseminateinformation, and the World Bank is financing many extensionprojects throughout the developing world. One specific approachto extension adopted in many Bank extension projects is theTraining and Visit (T&V) system. Data from a Bank-sponsoredsurvey in northwest India and from monitoring and evaluationreports issued by several Indian states are used in this articleto evaluate T&V extension operations and their impact. Extensionagents' interaction with farmers is found to be more intensiveand more significant as a source of information in areas coveredby T&V extension than in areas with a different extensionsystem. The yield levels of farmers whose main source of informationwas the T&V extension agent are also shown to be higher.In one case study, the incremental investment in T&V extensionis shown to be likely to generate at least a 15 to 20 percentrate of return.      

An analysis of credit terms in the eurodollar market

A model is presented incorporating various elements involved in the determination of theinterest rate in a capital market that is not purely competitive. It yields an equilibrium relation between the interest rate and the probability of default such that higher probability implies higher interest. Other factors affecting the rate of interest are the elasticity of demand, the perceived rate of loss related to default, and an extra premium due to risk aversion. The equilibrium relation is used as an econometric model which, under appropriate specifications, generates estimates of the weights attached to subjective risk indicators. The data cover transactions in the Eurocurrency market and deal only with publicly guaranteed loans to developing countries. Several economic indicators are identified as significantly affecting the subjective probability. These can be used to generate estimates of the subjective probabilities themselves.