Asymmetric Information and News Disclosure Rules

When the imminence of news announcements is not public knowledge, many traders will lack information on both the mean and variance of private information. Our analysis of such a setting in both single and multisecurity contexts implies that disclosure of impending information events by firms can bound variance uncertainty and thereby improve investor welfare by mitigating the market breakdown problem. We also find that the equilibrium pricing functions are nonlinear; specifically, convex for small trades and concave for larger ones. In addition, we predict that large transactions will be followed by large levels of volatility. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: 022, 026, 522.     

Global Technology Policies for Economic Growth

With the end of the Cold War, nations throughout the world are placing ever greater emphasis on economic growth. Over the last 50 years, advances in technology have been the single most important factor in creating growth in many economies, and thus policies to promote technological innovation rank high on the list of priorities for both developed and developing countries. In general, as countries progress up the economic ladder, national R&D intensity, (i.e., R&D/GDP), tends to increase along with per capita income. In addition, nations move through a discernible sequence of technology policies from an initial focus on infrastructure, through a set of actions designed to encourage technology acquisition from more advanced economies, to comprehensive education and research agendas targeted to the creation and development of new technology. In the United States, national technology policy for economic growth focuses on education, building a 21st century infrastructure, and creating a business climate that encourages growth, technological innovation, and risk taking.Throughout the last 50 years there have been significant changes in the competitive position of nations. In recent years, U.S. corporations have regained some of the competitive leadership they lost in the 1980s. This has been accompanied by significantly increased R&D spending by U.S. industry, particularly in the information and health care related sectors. U.S. industry funding of R&D overtook that from the government in the early 1980s and accounts for almost two-thirds of the national total.     

Cultural systems and the wine tourism product

Regionally distinct cultural systems are manifest in the landscapes of all cultures. Geographers have begun to explore such cultural systems in an attempt to better understand a range of cultural geographical phenomena, but such an approach has yet to be applied to our understanding of tourism. Using Bonnemaison’s cultural systems approach, this paper explores the relationship between rural cultural systems and the production and consumption of wine tourism in two culturally distinct wine regions: Champagne, France, and Margaret River, Western Australia. In so doing, it highlights the importance of situating wine tourism within the wider system of rural land tenure, local mythologies of rurality and the regional wine cultural complex.     

Social protection for people with disabilities in Africa and Asia: a review of programmes for low- and middle-income countries

Despite a greater need for social protection among people with disabilities, there is limited evidence of their inclusion into social protection programmes in low- and middle-income countries. This paper presents the findings from a review of regional and global data sources for Asia-Pacific and Africa to identify social protection programmes that aim to include people with disabilities. It finds a substantial number of programmes in both regions, although there is considerable variation in the quantity and types of programmes within and between regions and countries, as well as between low- and middle-income countries. Further, the quality of data is not sufficient to assess the degree to which these programmes are genuinely inclusive of people with disabilities. As such, it highlights important limitations in the way data is currently being collected that require further attention in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the commitment to ‘Leave No-one Behind’     

Pricing‐To‐Market Analysis: The Case of EU Wheat Exports

The EU is a major player in the global wheat market. This paper examines the pricing behaviour of EU wheat exporters using a pricing‐to‐market (PTM) analysis. Wheat is an exemplary product for testing PTM theories as it is widely and frequently traded, and largely unbranded. We estimate the relationship between export unit values and exchange rates using quarterly panel data for 11 EU export destinations for 2000–2013. Results show that there is a meaningful long‐run relationship between export unit values and exchange rates, but there is little evidence of differential mark‐ups between EU export markets. Belarus and Iceland are exceptions where exporters from the EU appear to exercise local currency price stabilisation.     

Agriculture,Land Tenure and International Migration in Rural Guatemala

In this paper, we ask what the effects of migration and remittances are on land tenure, agriculture and forests, based on empirical evidence from four rural communities in Guatemala. Our results suggest that remittances improve migrant families' access to agricultural land which – depending on the context – fosters more equitable local land distribution patterns or land concentration by migrant families. Changes in the political economy of the country also combine to stimulate these patterns, while remittances contribute to secure land rights held by migrant households. But even though migrant households are acquiring more land, the trend does not change the traditional pattern of land distribution in the country. Regarding forests, significant changes were not observed in two of the communities, while in one we observed forest decline and in the last, forest recovery. A trend away from reliance on the land for survival results in forest recovery.     

Making explicit agricultural ecosystem service trade-offs: a case study of an English lowland arable farm

European farmland hosts a species assemblage of animals and plants which have undergone declines through the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, at least partly as a result of increased productivity. Further increases in human populations, changes in availability and cost of raw materials, policy constraints, price volatility and climatic changes will further drive greater efficiency and high yields in agriculture, with the risk of further adverse environmental impacts. We assess the effects of different management priorities (production-driven cropping vs. wildlife-friendly farming) at an arable farm in eastern England on food production, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity. We modelled one actual and three alternative cropping scenarios using actual yields from the farm over 13 years, to calculate total yields and those foregone for agri-environmental measures. We measured crop yields, relative abundance of 19 farmland bird species, and CO₂ and N₂O emissions related to crop production. Removing up to 10.5% of land from production coupled with a more diverse rotation (including legumes) resulted in a large increase in breeding birds (177%) and reduction of 9.4% in GHG emissions at the cost of 9.6% of food energy. Food protein lost was only 2.9%. A smaller increase in bird numbers of 50% could be achieved at a much smaller cost to yield (～1.7% energy or protein) but with correspondingly smaller emissions reductions (1.2%). Results are discussed within the context of continued biodiversity loss to agriculture, increasing food demand and changing diets.     

Off-Farm Labor Participation Decisions of Married Farm Couples and the Role of Government Payments

The determinants of off-farm work by married farm couples are examined using data from the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and multinomial logistic regression. Expected government payment is found important in decreasing the likelihood of off-farm work strategies involving work by the husband only or by both husband and wife relative to a strategy of no work by either husband or wife. The marginal impact of government payments on the probability of the wife working off farm alone is found positive suggesting the possibility of nonpecuniary motives for off-farm employment for 21% of farm households in the selected weighted sample.     

Irrigation technology adoption and its implication for water conservation in the Texas High Plains: a real options approach

Water shortage has been a significant issue for several decades in the Texas High Plains. Agriculture has been identified as the main activity contributing to this shortage. To address this issue, many efforts have been focused on the possible adoption of sophisticated irrigation systems with high levels of water application efficiency. In this study, the entry and exit thresholds for the low‐energy precision application (LEPA) system are analyzed simultaneously in cotton farming in the Texas High Plains using a real options approach. The results show that the LEPA system is profitable only when cotton price is set above $1.59/kg. The exit (entry) threshold is consistently low (high) over a range of values for parameter changes including investment cost, exit cost, variable cost, risk‐adjusted discount rate, and volatility rate, so it is unlikely that farmers with irrigation systems in place would leave them easily. This implies that to attain the goal of saving water, Lubbock County needs to focus on convincing current farmers to replace old irrigation systems with new ones.     

品牌个性、消费者自我形象和购买意愿关联性的实证研究——以台北市汽车业为例

国内外的相关研究显示,若是品牌形象与消费者的自我形象达成一致时,消费者会有较高的购买意愿.这些研究大部分都是针对一些涉入程度较低的产品,例如手表、电池或手机等,而对于涉入程度较高的产品,则较缺乏相关的研究验证.文章将焦点放在汽车产品上,以探讨汽车广告中的品牌个性、消费者自我形象以及其购买意愿三者间的关联.结果发现,当品牌个性与消费者真实自我形象之一致性程度愈高时,消费者的购买意愿也会随之愈高;品牌个性与消费者理想自我形象之一致性程度愈高时,消费者的购买意愿同样也会愈高.