Business Dynamics and Efficiency in Industries and Regions: The Case of Spain

High rates of firm births and deaths are a pervasive phenomenon across industries and territories. Most studies have related the great turbulence at the fringe of practically all manufacturing industries to positive effects on the long-run performance of industries. According to these views business turbulence, although it has a relatively small incidence on net entry, leads to allocative improvement and stimulates innovation. The existing set of empirical studies does not reach clear conclusions, however, and many questions are still open. Our contribution analyses the relationship between business dynamics in manufacturing and the growth of total factor productivity in industries and regions. After a review of current literature on entry and exit it is argued that most models are tailored to suit the processes observed in industries and regions that are near the technological frontier, and we propose an approach that could be more representative of middle range economies such as Spain. According to this approach new firms are seen more as users of innovations than producers of innovations. We adopt a model based on a vintage capital framework in which new entrants embody the edge technologies available and exiting businesses are supposed to represent the most marginal obsolete plants. Both industries and regions are represented by a Hall's type production function which controls for imperfect competition and economies of scale. The results show that both entry and exit rates contribute positively to the growth of total factor productivity in industries and in regions.     

Interaction between crop insurance and technology adoption decisions: The case of wheat farmers in Chile

This paper examines relationships between crop insurance and input technology decisions among Chilean wheat farmers. Using nationwide farm‐level data, a bivariate probit model is estimated. We investigate the extent to which the adoption of production input technologies is associated with farmers’ participation in the insurance program. We find that relationships between insurance and technology decisions are significant only for family farmers. In particular, there is a negative relationship between participation in the insurance program and the adoption of modern irrigation. Interpretations based on the role of input technologies on insurance adoption and adverse selection behaviours are discussed.     

Household Determinants of the Adoption of Improved Cassava Varieties using DNA Fingerprinting to Identify Varieties in Farmer Fields: A Case Study in Colombia

We examine factors affecting the adoption of improved cassava varieties of 217 households in the Cauca Department in southwest Colombia. Using DNA fingerprinting through Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), we identified different cultivars in farmers fields. We also used this information to remove possible bias in the adoption model that could have resulted from a misclassification of improved varieties (IVs). As a result, we found that farmers substantially overestimate their use of IVs and there are important differences in the determinants of adoption between farmer self‐identification and DNA fingerprinting. This finding implies that the incorporation of DNA fingerprinting in IV adoption studies is important to ensure the accuracy of future agricultural economic research and the relevance of subsequent policy recommendations.     

Evolving splines and seasonal unit roots in weekly agricultural prices

The univariate statistical properties of agricultural price series need to be examined as a first step in the analysis of price transmission mechanisms. However, in the case of weekly price series, increasingly available, the testing procedures usually applied in this step are not suitable to deal with evolving seasonal effects. In this study, a method of testing for seasonal unit roots in weekly series of agricultural prices is described. When the deterministic seasonal component does not remain constant over time, the restricted evolving spline model (RESM) is shown to be a useful parametric formulation to capture the deterministic seasonal pattern. Therefore, the RESM model should be included as a deterministic component in auxiliary regression for unit root tests at seasonal frequencies. This proposal is applied to three weekly series of Canary Islands banana prices. From the standard seasonal unit root tests, the null hypothesis is failed to be rejected at the 5% or 10% significance level at some seasonal frequencies for each one of the series. Once critical values are obtained by simulation exercises when the RESM model is included, the hypotheses of unit root are rejected at each one of the seasonal frequencies for all of the three series.     

Organizing women for combat: The experience of the FARC in the Colombian war

The FARC, which used to be Colombia's main guerrilla force and is now in the midst of a peace process, was to a great extent a feminized group. This paper discusses why it recruited so many women, and why it recruited them as combatants. We suggest that only when the FARC adopted a highly hierarchical, self‐contained, and militaristic organizational blueprint did it get involved in the massive recruitment of women as combatants. We discuss the way in which organizational mechanisms and ideology interacted to produce such an outcome, and how this interaction marked both the organization and the trajectories of the women who joined it.     

Can Marketing Help in Tackling Food Waste?: Proposals in Developed Countries

One third of food destined for human consumption is wasted globally, and much of the food waste that comes from high-income or developed countries is caused by poor marketing practices, consumer behavior, and consumption patterns. The present study focuses on developed countries to propose some marketing actions that could help in reducing food waste. A comprehensive analysis was carried out for each marketing variable, to provide a snapshot of actions and proposals that are being developed. Our study highlights the relevance of marketing in contributing to reduce food waste, through the removal of “Buy one, get one free” sales promotions, clarifying date labeling, or raising food waste awareness campaigns. The main contribution of this study is the proposal of marketing actions that help in tacking food waste.     

After over 25 years of accrediting beaches,has Blue Flag contributed to sustainable management?

This paper examines the qualitative, quantitative, and geographical evolution (1987–2012) of the Blue Flag campaign and accreditation process in Spain, a leading coastal tourism destination heading the list of awards. The standard Blue Flag criteria for crowded, developed beaches are now adapting to new demands for natural beaches, but they still fail to capture essential sustainable tourism features, such as limiting user numbers, or preserving and restoring sand ecosystems. Given these shortcomings, some destinations are moving to alternative awards with a higher environmental commitment, such as EMS, ISO14001, and Eco-Management and Audit Schemes (EMAS). A cluster analysis of Blue Flag data for 983 beaches in Spain over 26 years revealed different behaviour patterns: established tourist areas that have always opted for the Blue Flag programme; tourist areas that adopted the Blue Flag early on but replaced it with ISO14001 and EMAS; recently developed destinations applying for the award to boost their tourism promotion; and tourist areas with no well-defined policy that have opted intermittently for Blue Flag. These profiles illustrate the different policies of Spain's Autonomous Regions, and they are useful for tourism managers to verify whether their destination's behaviour pattern contributes to sustainable tourism and matches strategic policies they have designed for them.     

Pesticide‐handling practices: the case of coffee growers in Papua New Guinea

Pesticide mismanagement potentially has high risks for farmers, households living in the community and the environment. In Papua New Guinea where farming is the primary occupation, there is evidence of dangerous herbicide application methods being used by coffee growers. Using original survey data for coffee smallholders from four provinces, we assess the factors driving farmers' use of personal protective equipment when preparing and applying herbicides, and farmers' disposal of agro‐chemical containers. We control for households' demographic variables and measure the impact of farmers' training in pest and disease management. We use the special regressor method to estimate binary choice models featuring an endogenous binary regressor (training). Our results show that human capital (education) and training are important drivers of farmers' pesticide‐handling practices, with marginal effects estimated at 10 and 22 per cent, respectively.     

Price transmission,asymmetric adjustment and threshold effects in the cotton supply chain: a case study for Vidarbha,India

This study examines price transmission asymmetries in Vidarbha's (India) cotton supply chain from 2002 to 2012. The analysis takes account of thresholds in price adjustments toward their long‐run equilibrium. The first stage considers the price dynamics between international and Indian domestic cotton prices. The second stage considers price transmission from domestic to farm gate cotton prices in Vidarbha. Results from the first stage indicate that Indian and international cotton markets are well‐integrated. In contrast, the second stage reveals significant threshold‐type nonlinearities as well as asymmetries in price transmission between domestic and farm gate prices. The short‐run dynamics suggest that the pass‐through from domestic to farm gate prices is larger when domestic prices decrease than when they increase. Moreover, back of the envelope calculations suggest that the loss in revenue for a typical farmer from a decrease in domestic price is larger than the gains from an increase in domestic price of the same magnitude. The implication is that traders benefit from price fluctuations at the expense of farmers. Evidence from fieldwork in Vidarbha suggest that asymmetries revealed in this analysis may be linked to trader's market power and inadequate market information among farmers.     

The role of venture capitalist to enhance the growth of Spanish and Italian university spin-offs

The establishment of spin-offs to commercialise university knowledge/technology is a potential mechanism to promote economic and innovative development. Nevertheless, University Spin-Offs (USOs) are usually resource-constrained, especially in obtaining funding, limiting their growth. Venture Capital (VC) investors play an important role in the financing and the improvement of their managerial skills, which are critical for firm growth. This paper aims to explore both the effect of VC partners on the USOs’ growth and the cross-national differences in the role played by them. To study both issues, we empirically analysed 516 Spanish and 904 Italian USOs created by 50 Spanish and 57 Italian universities, respectively, and observed them between 2005 and 2013. The results showed different effects in the Spanish and Italian cases. While in Spain the presence of VC partners positively affects the USOs’ growth, in Italy there is not a significant effect. This evidence calls for systematic policies by public administrations and universities to foster USO growth.