Impact of land fragmentation and resource ownership on productivity and efficiency: The case of rice producers in Bangladesh

The paper analyzes the impact of land fragmentation and ownership of resources on productivity and technical efficiency in rice production in Bangladesh using farm level survey data. Results reveal that land fragmentation has a significant detrimental effect on productivity and efficiency as expected. The elasticity estimates of land fragmentation reveal that a 1% increase in land fragmentation reduces rice output by 0.05% and efficiency by 0.03%. On the other hand, ownership of key resources (land, family labour, and draft animals) significantly increases efficiency. The mean elasticity estimates reveal that a 1% increase in family labour and owned draft animal improve technical efficiency by 0.04% and 0.03%, respectively. Also, a 1% increase in the adoption of modern technology improves efficiency by 0.04%. The mean technical efficiency in rice production is estimated at 0.91 indicating little scope to improve rice production per se using existing varieties. Policy implications include addressing structural causes of land fragmentation (e.g., law of inheritance and political economy of agrarian structure), building of physical capital (e.g., land and livestock resources), improvements in extension services and adoption of modern rice technology.     

Food commodity price changes and consumer welfare in Bangladesh: Valuable lessons for today

The recent rise in global food prices threatens many countries worldwide, especially the vulnerable populations. Viable coping strategies can only be designed based on the important policy lessons learned from the experiences of these countries in confronting the similar shocks of 2007–2011. However, the disproportionate effects of these events and the impacts of policy responses remain largely unexplored. We examine the impact of a food price surge and the effectiveness of various mitigating policies in Bangladesh, one of the most populous, densely populated countries in the world that is plagued by poverty. Specifically, we combine individual-level expenditure survey data with recent advances in consumer theory to examine the welfare consequences across income groups and geographic areas of the country over 2000–2016. Our empirical findings lend support to the hypothesis that the brunt of the price surge was borne by relatively less affluent and rural households, and government poverty alleviation programmes were largely ineffective.     

Bioelectricity in Malaysia: economic feasibility,environmental and deforestation implications

We investigate the economic feasibility of bioelectricity production from biomass in Malaysia and its impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and storage, agricultural prices, agricultural employment and deforestation. For this purpose, we develop a partial equilibrium model that projects agricultural prices, production, imports, exports, domestic consumption and land use in 5‐year increments between 2015 and 2065. Our results show that by 2030 biomass‐generated electricity can supply 36.5 per cent of the electricity generated in Malaysia, 16 times more than the 2016 electricity supply from biomass. Increased bioelectricity production from biomass will significantly reduce GHG emissions and will help Malaysia meet its commitment in the Paris Agreement to mitigate GHG emission by 45 per cent before 2030. Our modelling shows that biomass‐generated electricity creates a derived demand for waste biomass that expands the area of oil palm plantations. The expansion lowers agricultural prices, boosts agricultural employment and leads to some deforestation as landowners clear rainforest to plant oil palm trees. Nonetheless, the deforestation does not increase GHG emissions since GHG gains from bioelectricity significantly exceed GHG losses from deforestation.     

Pioneering Versus Incremental Innovation: Review and Research Propositions

Marketing's role in supporting a company's efforts to develop pioneering and incremental products can be quite different. Abdul Ali examines published articles and offers a set of propositions to show how several factors influence the product development decision. He cites examples from the business world to illustrate these propositions. This article suggests that a firm should take into account several factors relating to its capabilities, along with various project and market characteristics, in order to decide what products it should develop.     

R&D and regional competitiveness: a study of global entrepreneurial firms

We quantify, using data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, the empirical relationship between global competitiveness and R&D investment activity as well as the independent relationship between global competitiveness and R&D investments across geographic regions of economic development. We also explore alternative measures of the effectiveness of R&D investments. Our findings suggest that R&D investments are a possible policy target variable in high-income regions for policy makers to consider for increasing firms’ global competitiveness.

     

Can innovation shocks determine CO2 emissions (CO2e) in the OECD economies? A new perspective

ABSTRACT

This study has attempted to address prior knowledge gaps in the environmental economics literature by integrating the innovation shocks into the Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) equation for twenty-six OECD economies using data from 1990 to 2014. Foreign direct investment (FDI), exports (EXP), renewable energy consumption (REC), and GDP per capita were included as control variables. The results from multiple empirical analyses indicated that positive shocks to innovation improve, but the negative shocks disrupt environmental quality. Data analyses also showed that a positive correlation exists between income per capita of OECD economies. From the negative coefficient of income per capita (squared) and the existence of a negative nexus between FDI and CO2e, both the EKC and the Pollution Halo Hypothesis (PHH) were confirmed in sampled economies, respectively. The paper offers empirical support for the favourable impacts of REC on the quality of the environment and calls for the adoption of innovation shocks as a policy instrument to formulate better environmental policies for a sustainable future.     

Rational decision-making and firm performance: the moderating role of the environment

This study investigates the moderating roles of environmental munificence and dynamism in the relationship between process rationality and organizational performance. Based on a sample of 62 manufacturing firms, the study found that environmental munificence and dynamism moderate the relationship between rationality and performance. Further, the study found that rationality is strongly associated with performance in environments high in munificence and dynamism. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SLUM DWELLERS' HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION PATTERN AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR COST RECOVERY IN SLUM UPGRADING: Evidence from Dhaka, Bangladesh

Strong emphasis has recently been placed on recovery of improvement costs from slum dwellers for sustainable development of low-income urban settlements. Furthermore, socio-economic stratification of slum dwellers is perceived to influence their consumption and investment patterns in the city. Against this background, populations in six slums in Dhaka, stratified into house owners and renters, were studied. Results show that renters have stronger ties with their rural origin where they are likely to return and remit a significant portion of their income, leaving a limited amount for consumption and investment in the city. In contrast, owners have stronger attachment to the city, remit negligible amounts to their village of origin and pay more attention to city consumption and investment. Consequently, any cost recovery approach to slum upgrading implies heavy reliance on owners. But renters can also be expected to share the cost, to some limited extent, in the form of property tax or community services charges. The key point here is the concurrence of renters and owners on the sharing of costs and benefits.     

Consumer credit and monetary policy in Malaysia

What is the impact of monetary policy on the Malaysian consumer? The study addresses this issue by empirically investigating the consequences of interest rate shocks on consumer credit in Malaysia. The study relies on the impulse response functions and the variance decomposition analysis based on the structural Vector Auto‐regression methodology. Apart from analysing the responses of aggregate consumer loans (ACL) to interest rate changes, further disaggregation is made in efforts to arrive at more detailed findings. In particular, the ACL data are categorized into loans for purchase of residential property, loans for personal uses, loans for credit cards, loans for purchase of consumer durables, loans for purchase of passenger cars and loans for purchase of securities. Through this disaggregation, the study shows the relative sensitivity of the various types of consumer loans to interest rate shocks.