Is late really better than never? The farmer welfare effects of pineapple adoption in Ghana

Export agriculture offers potentially high returns to smallholder farmers in developing countries, but also carries substantial market risk. In this article we examine the intertemporal welfare impact of the timing of a farmer's entry into the export pineapple market in southern Ghana. We examine whether farmers who never cultivated pineapple are better or worse off than farmers who decided to adopt pineapple earlier or later relative to their peers and experienced a significant adverse market shock several years prior to our endline survey. We use a two‐stage least squares model to estimate the causal effect of duration of pineapple farming on farmer welfare. Consistent with economic theory, we find that earlier adoption of the new crop brings greater welfare gains than does later uptake. But we find that the gains to later uptake of pineapple—just before the market shock—are small in magnitude, just 0.1 standard deviations of a comprehensive asset index, indicating that the gains to adoption may be precarious and depend on the context, in particular on the severity of prospective market shocks.     

WHO REALLY WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? ESTIMATES OF RISK AVERSION FROM GAMESHOW DATA

This paper estimates the degree of risk aversion from one of the most popular TV gameshows ever. The format of the show is straightforward; it involves no strategic decision making; we have a large number of observations; and the prizes are cash, which is paid immediately and covers a large range: from £100 up to £1 million. We provide non‐parametric estimates of the utility function and then we test some parametric restrictions. We find that, although the restriction to CRRA utility is statistically rejected, a log function approximates the utility function quite well over a large range of potential winnings. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The meeting place: Qualitative aspects of product environmental assessment

Quantitative methods for evaluating the environmental impact of products are receiving considerable attention. Software is being developed to enable analysis of many aspects of a product's life cycle—from materials' extraction, through manufacture, to use and disposal. Less attention is being paid to the qualitative aspects of products and their significance in addressing environmental concerns. Here, the argument is made for including qualitative evaluations as an important facet of product environment assessment. Such evaluations are essential if significant progress is to be made in alleviating the adverse environmental effects of products. Combined with quantitative analyses, the two approaches become mutually supportive and, ultimately, inseparable.Qualitative environmental assessments can be applied to existing products and at every stage of the design process. Their adoption within the context of professional practice will be fostered by their inclusion, formulation and discussion within design education. This paper describes the basis and nature of these qualitative judgments, and places the qualitative and quantitative in a unified context which points towards more sustainable ways of living. The use of scenarios is discussed as a tool for academic design projects in order to address the complex relationships which might otherwise seem overwhelming to the design student.     

Changes in european defence procurement and industrial capabilities

The impact of defence procurement on a country's industrial and technological base can be considerable—among NATO countries, the USA, Britain and France stand out in this regard. Equally, concern is also often expressed about how to safeguard the civil technology base as a necessary foundation for security, broadly conceived. This article examines the changes taking place in the UK, and more broadly in Europe, regarding defence procurement: first, by examining arguments and events regarding defence R&D; and second, through analysing procurement issues relating especially to industrial structures and strategies. Much strategic repositioning by firms is currently taking place, often encouraged by governments, who seem to lack adequate means of regulating the restructuring, thereby creating unintended problems.     

Effects of deregulation on failing thrift institutions

The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that much of the decline in the net worth of the failing saving and loan institutions was a result of deregulation. Variables are developed to represent major actions to deregulate S&Ls activities and to measure the impacts on institutions' net worth. A mixed cross-section&z.urule;time series analysis is developed to estimate the effects of financial deregulation on failing thrifts' net worth. The data are 1984-89 balance sheet adn income statement data for thrift institutions, prior to the enactment of the 1989 legislation to solve the crisis. The reuslts of the analysis indicate that deregulation of asset and deposit activities was not the cause of the financial distress of failing US thrift institutions. The primary cause appears to be the increase in the federal deposit insurance limit to $100 000 and how attractive this legislative action made brokering deposits that became insured up to $100 000.     

Clarence Ayres’s Critique of Orthodox Economic Theory

Mainstream economists and liberal politicians are criticizing the Third Way as it is being applied in the Netherlands. They argue that mutual consultation precludes an efficient adaptation to disturbances. The present study analyzes changes in wage and income policy in the Netherlands until 2005. It finds that wage and income policy has proven to be flexible enough to address “new” challenges in the Netherlands. The flexibility is rooted in a culture of tolerance that allows for some breaking of working rules. The latter arises from bounded socialization, that is, the imperfect transmission of information with respect to social working rules that result in similar but not identical copies of institutions.     

Because you're worth it? Determinants of Vice Chancellor pay in the UK

Wage inequality has increased across most developed nations; this has been manifested in a wide range of organisations and sectors, with implications for well‐being and sustainability; within UK universities, this has become increasingly visible. There is increasing pressure on universities to deliver social and economic impact in an increasingly market‐driven and metric‐driven environment. In the UK context, increasing financial pressure has led to both an escalation of student fees and constrained wage growth for faculty. In contrast, most Vice Chancellors have secured substantive pay packages raising concerns that regulatory failures may be contributing to the rise. We show that Vice Chancellors use their internal power within organisations to extract a disproportionate amount of the value created by the institution. However, we encountered much diversity according to the quality of governance, highlighting the extent to which not only contextual but also internal dynamics drive wage inequality.     

The looming retirement crisis

A retirement crisis looms in the United States due to a number of recent and emerging trends that affect government retirement programs, employer- and union-sponsored retirement benefits and personal savings arrangements. The crisis can be averted, but only with well-thought-out action on a number of issues, particularly Social Security and Medicare reform.