Myopia and saliency in renewable resource management

An important challenge in managing renewable resources is to understand why owners and managers sometimes make decisions that deplete resources and future earnings, such as when graziers allow pastures and land condition to be degraded. In this paper, we test two potential reasons for unsustainable management practices, myopia and salience, with each explaining why resource managers may exhibit impatience in harvest decisions. Myopia is associated with decision makers placing lower weight on future outcomes than would be implied by their pure time preference. Salience is associated with overweighting of consumption ‘now’, implying inconsistency in time preferences. To test for these effects on renewable resource management, an incentivised, dynamic field experiment was carried out with rangeland grazing enterprise owners in north‐eastern Australia that related management choices with uncertain rainfall events to both profits and land condition over time. Results demonstrate that respondents exhibiting myopia/salience in their choices tended to achieve lower cumulative scores in the experiment, as well as lower land conditions on their properties as measured with remote sensing data. Our results explain why there may be persistent optimisation failures by resource owners that reduce both profits and environmental outcomes.     

The impact of conservation tillage on maize yield and input demand: the case of smallholder farmers in north‐west Ethiopia

This study analyses the economics of conservation tillage (CT) with respect to its effect on maize yield and chemical fertiliser, herbicide, and female and male labour demand. We estimate production and input demand functions using seemingly unrelated regressions on plot‐level cross‐sectional farm household data collected in the north‐west of Ethiopia. A two‐step control function is applied to address potential endogeneity bias due to the inclusion of the CT adoption decision as an explanatory variable. Our results show that CT increases maize yield and chemical fertiliser demand. Additionally, the results show that the adoption of CT reduces female and male labour required for crop production. However, this is achieved through the increased use of herbicides, which might have an undesirable health and environmental effects.     

Cost‐reflective pricing: empirical insights into irrigators’ preferences for water tariffs

Using prices to improve the efficiency with which water resources are allocated is now widely accepted in principle if somewhat difficult to achieve in practice. Whilst there are some technical difficulties associated with full‐cost recovery in irrigation, the lack of political will to tackle reform remains a significant impediment. This article reports the results of an empirical investigation into farmers’ preferences for changes to water prices and tariff structures. We conclude that some of the preferences of farmers are conducive to price reform. We also find evidence that public subsidy of infrastructure in irrigation is not always aligned with the preferences of farmers.     

Influence of livelihoods on climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta Vietnam

Farmers in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta face a wide range of climate-related and hydrological factors which threaten rice production. Smallholder farmers must adapt to climate change to sustain rice production as their central and most important livelihood activity. A sample was stratified across agro-ecological areas in the Delta affected by flooding, alluvial soils, acid sulphate soils, and saline water intrusion and by derived farmer typologies. A rural livelihoods approach was used in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to identify and enumerate enabling and constraining adaptation factors. Smallholders experienced diverse natural hazards such as floods, abnormal rains, high temperatures, water scarcity, and salinity intrusion specific to the agro-ecological areas. Adaptation was constrained by labour shortages, water quality, topography, access to combine harvesters, transportation infrastructure, dryers and household savings. Adaptation was enabled by farming techniques and experience, cooperative groups, water quantity, access to information, and ability to purchase agro-chemicals through credit. Small farmers (< 1?ha) were more constrained than large farmers (> 1?ha) who had an expanded livelihood asset base. A range of policy implications are discussed, but adaptation is not just about technological fixes but requires overall improvements in a range of human, social and financial components.     

Understanding the denial of abuses of human rights connected to sports mega-events*

Abstract

Academics debate the positive and negative consequences of hosting sports mega-events, and although there is a general recognition that doing so cannot be a panacea for solving other social issues, who wins and who loses tends to be the same. This article considers why mega-events are not more regularly resisted given the routinization of harm to local populations that they tend to invoke. It develops ideas derived from the late sociologist and criminologist Stanley Cohen concerning the relationships between, and the politics of, denial and acknowledgement, with specific attention to the role of academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. The article illustrates the difficulties in exposing, contesting and transforming these human rights abuses, but suggests that there are grounds for optimism as new strategies for communicating human rights abuses in connection with sports mega-events are developed.     

Highway traffic flow and the uneconomic region of production

In this paper highway traffic flow is formulated as a short-run production function in which traffic volume is the output and traffic density is the variable input. Given this formulation, the ‘uneconomic’ region of production is relevant. Often it is the case that traffic density will exceed the point at which traffic volume is at a maximum; i.e., the marginal product of the variable input is negative.     

When does an employee not help coworkers? The effect of leader–member exchange on employee envy and organizational citizenship behavior

Using a sample of 233 front-line hotel employees, we examined leader–member exchange (LMX), envy, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The results from path analysis support the research model that employees who have a relatively poor working relationship with their supervisor (i.e., low-quality LMX relationship) were more likely to show higher levels of envy than employees who have relatively closer working relationships with the same supervisor (i.e., high-quality LMX relationship). Ultimately, higher levels of envy decreased employee voluntary helping behavior (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior, OCB) toward coworkers. This finding suggests that employees perceiving a poor working relationship with their supervisor committed less voluntary helping behavior toward coworkers than their counterparts. Implications for managers and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Blue Flag or Red Herring: Do beach awards encourage the public to visit beaches?

Surveys of beach visitor motivation in Ireland, Wales, Turkey and the USA indicate that beach awards play an insignificant role in motivation to visit beaches. However, a number of criteria closely identified with awards, notably cleanliness and water quality, are revealed to be very important. Aesthetic and emotional factors such as scenic setting and general ambience, and practical concerns such as proximity and range of activities available are much more important than beach awards in attracting visitors to beaches. The merits of beach awards are critically reviewed and it is concluded that any benefits that might accrue are in areas other than attracting visitors.     

Visitors’ learning for environmental sustainability: Testing short- and long-term impacts of wildlife tourism experiences using structural equation modelling

Wildlife tourism experiences have the potential to positively impact tourists’ awareness, appreciation and actions in relation to the specific wildlife they encounter and the environment in general. This paper investigates the extent of such impact across multiple sites, and uses Structural Equation Modelling to identify factors that best predict positive long-term learning and environmental behaviour change outcomes. Three sets of variables were measured – visitors’ entering attributes (including pre-visit environmental orientation and motivation for the visit), salient aspects of the experience, and short- and long-term learning and environmental behaviour change outcomes. Although attributes such as pre-visit commitment and motivation to learn were among the best predictors of the long-term impact of the experience, there was evidence that aspects of the experience were also important. In particular, reflective engagement which involved cognitive and affective processing of the experience was found to be associated with short- and long-term environmental learning outcomes. The implications for wildlife tourism managers are discussed.