Social Globalization and Child Labor: A Cross‐country Analysis

While much of the research on child labor focuses on household level factors, macroeconomic factors, such as globalization, have gained increasing attention. This paper contributes to the literature on the role of globalization in child labor by examining a specific aspect of globalization, namely social globalization. The results of the empirical analysis indicate that social globalization does have a significant negative impact on the average incidence of child labor in the cross‐country sample of developing countries. This contrasts with the existing literature on economic globalization and child labor, where, in many cases, no significant effect is found.     

The Economics of Sustainable Land Management Practices in the Ethiopian Highlands

This article uses data from household‐ and plot‐level surveys conducted in the highlands of the Tigray and Amhara regions of Ethiopia. We examine the contribution of sustainable land management (SLM) practices to net value of agricultural production in areas with low vs. high agricultural potential. A combination of parametric and non‐parametric estimation techniques is used to check result robustness. Both techniques consistently predict that minimum tillage (MT) is superior to commercial fertilisers (CFs), as are farmers’ traditional practices (FTPs) without CFs, in enhancing crop productivity in the low agricultural potential areas. In the high agricultural potential areas, in contrast, use of CFs is superior to both MT and FTPs without CFs. The results are found to be insensitive to hidden bias. Our findings imply a need for careful agro‐ecological targeting when developing, promoting and scaling up SLM practices.     

Estimating returns to soil conservation adoption in the northern Ethiopian highlands

Land degradation in the form of soil erosion and nutrient depletion presents a threat to food security and sustainability of agricultural production in many developing countries. Governments and development agencies have invested substantial resources to promote soil conservation practices as part of an effort to improve environmental conditions and reduce poverty. However, limited rigorous empirical work has been done on the economics of soil conservation technology adoption. This article investigates the impact of stone bunds on value of crop production per hectare in low and high rainfall areas of the Ethiopian highlands using cross-sectional data from more than 900 households, with multiple plots per household. We have used modified random effects models, stochastic dominance analysis (SDA), and matching methods to ensure robustness. The parametric regression and SDA estimates are based on matched observations obtained from the nearest neighbor matching using propensity score estimates. This is important, because conventional regression and SDA estimates are obtained without ensuring that there actually exist comparable conserved and nonconserved plots on the distribution of covariates. We use matching methods, random effects, and Mundlak's approach to control selection and endogeneity bias that may arise due to correlation of unobserved heterogeneity and observed explanatory variables.
We find that the three methods tell a consistent story. Plots with stone bunds are more productive than those without such technologies in semi-arid areas but not in higher rainfall areas, apparently because the moisture conserving benefits of this technology are more beneficial in drier areas. This implies that the performance of stone bunds varies by agro-ecology type, suggesting the need for designing and implementing appropriate site-specific technologies.     

Evaluating the Potential of Index Insurance Schemes to Reduce Crop Yield Risk in an Arid Region

We evaluate yield risk reduction through weather index, area yield index and farm yield insurance contracts for wheat farms in Kazakhstan by employing data from 1980 to 2002. We use the usual mean variance (MV) approach and also a second‐degree stochastic dominance (SSD) criterion. While MV is not necessarily consistent with the expected utility (EU) theory, SSD results only in a minimum but EU‐consistent benefit from insuring. Differences in the estimation results for both approaches underline the advantage of applying both criteria to analyse the risk‐reducing potential of crop insurance. Bootstrapping results show that none of the analysed insurance schemes provides statistically significant risk reduction for every single farm. In addition, weather‐based index insurance is found to provide less risk reduction than area yield insurance based on the rayon (county) yield. Moreover, rayon yield index insurance can reduce yield risk more effectively for Kazakhstan's wheat producers than farm yield insurance with a low strike yield.     

Towards a three-part heuristic framework for technology education

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - There is not one single global version of technology education; curricula and standards have different forms and content. This sometimes...     

Neither market nor hierarchy—coordination costs in the allocation of track capacity in the Swedish railway network

Transaction costs have been an issue since the advent of the deregulation of the European railway markets in the 1990s. Transaction cost economics received renewed attention in research on the deregulated railway markets in the EU after the publications of two influential reports in the early 2010s. In this article, we develop a model that enables classification and measurement of transaction costs and other coordination costs in deregulated markets. This model is then used to analyze the costs of path allocation in the Swedish railway sector and to compare the results with findings in previous research. We also discuss the economic rationale of the distribution of coordination costs among the involved parties. Our key empirical findings are that the total coordination costs in the Swedish market-mimicking path allocation process are as low as or lower than the most cost-efficient market coordination processes studied in railway markets, and that the state administrations take on nearly all the coordination costs in order to minimize the effects of opportunism, rent-seeking and information impactedness. Another finding is that the size of the coordination costs found by different studies seems to be dependent on whether a bottom-up or a top-down approach is used.