Disaggregating the Demand for Pesticides: Does it Matter?

This paper analyzes the demand of French farmers for pesticides by disaggregating among the three main categories of pesticides. We estimate the demand elasticities of herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides with respect to pesticide expenditure, and also consider crop differentiation. We retain a Linear Approximated Almost Ideal Demand System specification. A Full‐Information Maximum Likelihood estimation procedure is used to deal with corner solution problems and censored data. The estimation is based on two cross‐sections covering pesticide use of three major crops cultivated in France in 2001 and 2006. Our results show that farmers' response to price variation is very low, especially for 2001. Furthermore, elasticities of pesticide expenditure are significantly different across categories: the highest levels are obtained for fungicides and the lowest ones for insecticides. Finally, we find higher own‐price elasticities for herbicides and fungicides than for insecticides, which are less frequently used.     

Wirtschaftsordnung und Statistik

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

An example of multiple minima in a Cochrane-Orcutt procedure with multiple autocorrelation

We provide an example, based on an equation of the Canadian-US exchange rate, of multiple minima in a generalized Cochrane-Orcutt procedure. Our experiments suggest the need for search procedures in order to correctly identify autocorrelation structures.     

Theϕ-divergence statistic in bivariate multinomial populations including stratification

ϕ-divergence statistics quantify the divergence between a joint probability measure and the product of its marginal probabilities on the basis of contingency tables. Asymptotic properties of these statistics are investigated either considering random sampling or stratified random sampling with proportional allocation and independence among strata. To finish same tests of hypotheses of independence are presented. The research in this paper was supported in part by DGICYT Grants No. PS91-0387 and No. PB91-0155. Their financial support is gratefully acknowledged.     

Education and wages in the Czech and Slovak Republics during transition

An employer-based sample of over 400,000 Czech and 125,000 Slovak men is used to estimate the benefits of education in 1995–1997. By 1997, education of all types had become substantially more highly rewarded in both countries than it was either under communism or in the early years of the transition. Education's value began increasing earlier and reached a higher level in the Czech Republic than in Slovakia. Increases in the value of education were especially pronounced for types of education ideologically disfavored by communism.     

Fixed-Term Contracts and Labor Market Duality in France

The French labor market is segmented between permanent and temporary workers. The second category has difficulty in getting an open-ended contract. This paper aims at depicting workers on short-term contracts and shows the consequences on their professional career are negative and significant. A large part of the wage gap between permanent and temporary workers remains unexplained by observable characteristics. They receive less on-the-job training and their likelihood of obtaining a stable job is lower than 30% after 1 year and a half. They have also a higher probability of being the adjustment variable in case of an economic negative shock. These different findings show the importance of using public policies to encourage transitions from fixed-term to permanent employment and reducing labor-market duality.     

The South African Financial Cycle and its Relation to Household Deleveraging

This paper considers the extent to which South African households have deleveraged, since the global financial crisis of 2007/2008. We extend the official South African Reserve Bank business cycle methodology to date financial cycles, from which we identify the peaks and troughs of the South African financial cycle going back to 1966. Our composite financial cycle index peaks in April 1974, January 1984 and May 2007; it has bottomed out in July 1979 and February 1999. Thus, we still await the trough. We further compare and contrast the deleveraging process in the current downward phase to the experiences from previous financial cycles. We find that the average period of the financial cycle in South Africa is much longer (approximately 17.3 years) than that of the business cycle (approximately 5.8 years), and that deleveraging has not yet matched the degree of deleveraging seen in previous downward phases. Our results suggest that further deleveraging is necessary, before we can expect to turn the financial corner.     

The ideology of class and tourism confronting the discourse of advertising

Starting from Baudrillard's analysis of the ideological character inherent in all consumption, touristic consumption, for many reasons ,has a special place in this social semantic. Here, advertising plays an important if not essential role because tourism is a product consumed outside of normal time and daily social space. Therefore the social semantic asserts itselfless through the product itself than through its representation: the discourse of advertising. But advertising discourse is plural, each form having its own ideology, competing with others. Behind the commercial competition lies a competition of social classes, but with a new typology, no longer based on the capital/favor relationship. Four ideological models are analyzed and illustrated with their advertising messages: the traditional model, the clerical/executive model, the youth model, and the “intellectual class” model.