Impact of Contract Farming on Income: Linking Small Farmers, Packers, and Supermarkets in China

This study compares contract and non-contract growers of apples and green onions in Shandong Province, China in order to explore the constraints on participation and the impact of contract farming on income. We find little evidence that firms prefer to work with larger farms, though all farms in the area are quite small. Using a Heckman selection–correction model, we find that contract farming raises income even after controlling for observable and unobservable household characteristics. These results suggest that contract farming can help raise small-farm income, though questions remain regarding the number of farmers that can be brought into such schemes.     

Is good news for Donald Trump bad news for the Peso?

We study the relationship between Mr. Trump’s election prospects and the US dollar-peso exchange rate, controlling for other factors that determine overall exchange rates. Increases in Mr. Trump’s probability of winning generate short-run, but statistically significant economically meaningful, disturbances in the US dollar-peso exchange rate. We also provide evidence on Mr. Trump’s effects on Mexican equity markets, premia for Mexican sovereign default risks, exchange rate volatility.     

A discrete event simulation to model the cost-utility of fingolimod and natalizumab in rapidly evolving severe relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in the UK

Objective: Two disease-modifying therapies are licensed in the EU for use in rapidly-evolving severe (RES) relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), fingolimod and natalizumab. Here a discrete event simulation (DES) model to analyze the cost-effectiveness of natalizumab and fingolimod in the RES population, from the perspective of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, is reported.

Methods: A DES model was developed to track individual RES patients, based on Expanded Disability Status Scale scores. Individual patient characteristics were taken from the RES sub-groups of the pivotal trials for fingolimod. Utility data were in line with previous models. Published costs were inflated to NHS cost year 2015. Owing to the confidential patient access scheme (PAS) discount applied to fingolimod in the UK, a range of discount levels were applied to the fingolimod list price, to capture the likelihood of natalizumab being cost-effective in a real-world setting.

Results: At the lower National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) threshold of £20,000/quality-adjusted life year (QALY), fingolimod only required a discount greater than 0.8% of list price to be cost-effective. At the upper threshold of £30,000/QALY employed by the NICE, fingolimod was cost-effective if the confidential discount is greater than 2.5%. Sensitivity analyses conducted using fingolimod list-price showed the model to be most sensitive to changes in the cost of each drug, particularly fingolimod.

Conclusions: The DES model shows that only a modest discount to the UK fingolimod list-price is required to make fingolimod a more cost-effective option than natalizumab in RES RRMS.     

Optimal Management of Environmental Externalities with Time Lags and Uncertainty

Many environmental externalities occur with time lags that can range from a few days to several centuries in length, and many of these externalities are also subject to uncertainty. In this paper, we examine the key features of an optimal policy to manage environmental externalities that are both lagged and stochastic. We develop a two-period, two-polluter model and obtain closed-form solutions for optimal emissions levels under different combinations of damage functions and stochastic processes. These solutions show that it is not obvious whether greater control should be exerted on polluters that generate externalities with longer lags or on polluters that generate externalities with shorter lags. We find that the optimal ranking of polluters with respect to the length of the time lag associated with their externality will depend on (a) the discount rate, (b) conditional expectations of future states of the polluted resource, (c) persistence of the pollutant, and (d) initial conditions.     

FORMAL HOME HEALTH CARE,INFORMAL CARE,AND FAMILY DECISION MAKING*

We use the 1993 wave of the Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) data set to estimate a game‐theoretic model of families' decisions concerning the provision of informal and formal care for elderly individuals. The outcome is the Nash equilibrium where each family member jointly determines her consumption, transfers for formal care, and allocation of time to informal care, market work, and leisure. We use the estimates to decompose the effects of adult children's opportunity costs, quality of care, and caregiving burden on their propensities to provide informal care. We also simulate the effects of a broad range of policies of current interest.     

Exploring the relationship between institutional factors and FDI attractiveness: A meta-analytic review

This meta-analysis attempts to synthesize and review decades of research on the relationship between institutional factors and host country foreign direct investment (FDI) attractiveness. Using prior tests derived from 97 primary studies, we find support for prior theoretical predictions that institutional factors such as political stability, democracy, and rule of law attract FDI, while others such as corruption, tax rates and cultural distance deter it. Further evidence suggests a need for exploration of moderating factors that may influence previous key findings. Specifically, environmental effects such as level of development, region of destination, and competitive industry environment have varying influence on the strength and significance of the relationship. We also explore a number of methodological and economic moderating variables, providing additional interesting insights into previous empirical analyses. We conclude with suggestions for future research that stress a call for further contextualization of the relationship.     

Convergence in Income Inequality: Further Evidence from the Club Clustering Methodology across States in the U.S.

This paper contributes to the sparse literature on inequality convergence by empirically testing convergence across states in the U.S. This sample period encompasses a series of different periods that the existing literature discusses -- the Great Depression (1929–1944), the Great Compression (1945–1979), the Great Divergence (1980-present), the Great Moderation (1982–2007), and the Great Recession (2007–2009). This paper implements the relatively new method of panel convergence testing, recommended by Phillips and Sul (2007). This method examines the club convergence hypothesis, which argues that certain countries, states, sectors, or regions belong to a club that moves from disequilibrium positions to their club-specific steady-state positions. We find strong support for convergence through the late 1970s and early 1980s, and then evidence of divergence. The divergence, however, moves the dispersion of inequality measures across states only a fraction of the way back to their levels in the early part of the twentieth century.     

Targeted characteristics and use of socially marketed preventive health goods: evidence from condoms in sub-Saharan Africa

Social marketing is a popular method for allocating targeted publicly funded preventive health goods in poor countries. However, low demand among targeted groups may inhibit take-up relative to non-targeted groups, ownership may not result in use, and there exists little large-scale evidence on how use of socially marketed goods varies by targeted characteristics. I assemble national household survey data from 27 sub-Saharan African countries to examine how use of one of the most common socially marketed preventive health goods (i.e. male condoms) varies by the main targeted characteristics (i.e. low income, low educational attainment, and high HIV risk).

The results suggest that the majority of condoms used are socially marketed condoms, engaging in transactional sex is associated with an increased likelihood of using a socially marketed condom brand, and low-income/low educational attainment are not associated with increased likelihoods of using socially marketed brands. The fact that distribution targets low socioeconomic status groups and relative use remains low suggests that weak demand for condoms among these groups inhibits use. Policymakers should consider mechanisms to increase demand and to further refine targeting efforts.     

The Industrial Statistics Divide: Are Statisticians Really Relevant to Business and Industry?

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