Improving the speed of adoption of agricultural technologies and farm performance through farmer groups: evidence from the Great Lakes region of Africa

The article examines the effect of membership in farmer groups (MFG) on adoption lag of agricultural technologies and farm performance in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. We use duration and stochastic production frontier models on farm household data. We find that the longer the duration of MFG, the shorter the adoption lag and much more so if combined with extension service delivery. Farmer groups function as an important mechanism for improving farm productivity through reduced technical inefficiency in input use. We discuss policy implications under which farmer groups are a useful channel to reduce adoption lag, and the means through which improved farm performance can be achieved.     

The Marine Environment: Fencing the Last Frontier

Fisheries resources contribute a valuable source of protein to the world's food supply. While there is much promise for continued production gains from aquaculture and terrestrial sources, the marine fisheries sector faces a number of critical current policy junctures. Since extension of jurisdiction to 200 miles in 1976, there have been dramatic changes in the opportunity for coastal nations to rationally manage formerly open access marine resources. While more spatially encompassing management has brought physical yield close to full biological potential, much of the potential economic yield from fisheries is still squandered. An important issue is whether the future potential of marine resources will be guided by an expansion of private property rights or by an expansion of bureaucratic regulatory structures. New monitoring, information, and enforcement technology is making it increasingly possible to zone the ocean and implement measures that mimic terrestrial property systems. At the same time, there is opposition to privatizing marine resources by groups who view them as public resources. The outcome of the tussle between the forces supporting and opposing property rights creation will largely determine the extent and kinds of values that will be generated from marine resources around the world in the next decade.     

QUADRATIC SINGLE AND MULTI-COMMODITY MODELS OF SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM: A SIMPLIFIED EXPOSITION

This paper presents a somewhat simplified exposition of quadratic single and multi-commodity models of spatial equilibrium. The intent is to facilitate their understanding by students and researchers. A graphical model is presented which illustrates the necessary conditions for spatial equilibrium. Then single commodity programming models with, first, quantities and, subsequently, prices in the decision domain are constructed. The equivalence of the graphical and programming models, as well as application of the necessary conditions as constraints in the programming models, are ilustrated. Finally, a multi-commodity model with asymetric demand and supply coefficients is constructed as a primal-dual formation in which the constraints are the necessary conditions for spatial equilibrium.
Cet exposé présnte une interprétation assez simplifiée de modéles quadratiques d'équilibre spatial à produits individuels et multiples. Son dessein est de faciliter aux étudiants et aux rechercheurs leur compréhension de ces modèles. Un modèle graphique qui montre les conditions nécessaires à I'équilibre spatial est présenté. Ensuite, des modèles de programmation à produits individuels sont construits avec, premièrement, des quantités dans le domaine de la prise des décisions et, par la suite, avec des prix dans ce mème domaine. L'équivalence des modèles graphiques et des modèles de programmation, aussi bien que l'application des conditions nécessaires comme contraintes dans les modèles de programmation, y sont illustrés. Enfin, un modél à produits multiples, avec coefficient asymétriques de demande et d'offre, est construit comme formulation unique/double dans laquelle les contraintes sont les conditions nécessaires à l'équilibre spatial.     

The taxation of passive foreign investment: lessons from German experience

Abstract The paper evaluates the working of German CFC rules that restrict the use of foreign subsidiaries located in low‐tax countries to shelter passive investment income from home taxation. While passive investments make up a significant fraction of German outbound FDI, we find that German CFC rules are quite effective in restricting investments in low‐tax jurisdictions. We find evidence that the German 2001 tax reform, which unilaterally introduced exemption of passive income in medium‐ and high‐tax countries, has led to some shifting of passive assets into countries for which the exemption was previously limited.     

Willingness to Pay for Forest Property Rights and the Value of Increased Property Rights Security

This paper studies the willingness to pay (WTP) for forest property rights in Viet Nam. We do so by asking respondents to estimate the value of two different forest property rights regimes where only the level of property security differs and all other forest plot characteristics are constant. We use this information to identify the value of the property rights security. Our results reveal that a significant number of individuals are willing to pay for an additional area of forestland but that the amount offered appears to be inadequate to compensate sellers, as very few land market transactions actually take place. The results further indicate that income relates positively to WTP, irrespective of forest property regime. Wealth, age, and ethnicity also have an impact on the amount households are willing to pay. As expected, there was a significant mark-up on the more secure right. Econometric estimates of the difference between the WTP for secure and insecure property rights show that a higher level of female education, and household age decrease the difference between the two WTP measures while the difference tends to increase as income improves. This has important policy implications, as it indicates that households tend to evaluate the property rights institutions differently.     

Does Child Labour Displace Schooling? Evidence on Behavioural Responses to an Enrollment Subsidy

It is often argued that child labour comes at the expense of schooling and so perpetuates poverty for children from poor families. To test this claim we study the effects on children's labour force participation and school enrollments of the pure school-price change induced by a targeted enrollment subsidy in rural Bangladesh. Our theoretical model predicts that the subsidy increases schooling, but its effect on child labour is ambiguous. Our empirical model indicates that the subsidy increased schooling by far more than it reduced child labour. Substitution effects helped protect current incomes from the higher school attendance induced by the subsidy.     

Faddists,Enthusiasts and Canadian Divas: Broadcasting Quotas and the Supply Response

This paper constructs a model of the recorded music market to investigate the consequences of local content requirements in broadcasting for the “internationalization” of domestic music. It models the entry decisions of bands, the contracting decisions of record companies, the airplay decisions of radio stations and the radio listening and recording purchasing decisions of consumers. The paper shows that a local content quota leads, perversely, to the increased internationalization of domestic music. A quota that also requires increased broadcasting of “new” music yields an additional welfare loss but does nothing to a record company's incentives to sign up new bands.     

The trade-off between innovation and defense industrial policy: A simulation model analysis of the Norwegian defense industry

The paper investigates the trade-off between innovation and defense industrial policy. It presents an agent-based simulation model calibrated for the Norwegian defense industry that compares different policy scenarios and examines the effects of a pending EU market liberalization process. The paper points to two main results. (1) It finds that a pure scenario where national authorities focus on, and provide support exclusively for, either a) international competitiveness or b) national defense and security objectives, is more Pareto efficient than a corresponding mixed strategy where policy makers simultaneously pursue both international competitiveness and defense and security objectives. (2) Under the conditions of the new EU liberalization regime, it finds that a stronger and more visible trade-off will emerge between international competitiveness and national defense and security objectives. Policy makers will have to choose which to prioritize, and set a clear agenda focusing on one of the two objectives.     

Does the Welfare State Destroy the Family? Evidence from OECD Member Countries

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on demographic trends in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e., the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show that an expansion in the welfare state increases fertility, marriage, and divorce rates with a quantitatively stronger effect on the marriage rate. We conclude that the welfare state supports family formation in the aggregate. Further, we find that the welfare state decouples marriage and fertility, and therefore alters the organization of the average family.