Extensification of agriculture and deforestation: empirical evidence from Sudan

Extensification of agriculture is one of the major factors contributing to the destruction of forests in Africa. In Sudan, such horizontal expansion comes at the expense of land devoted to trees and other vegetation, thereby inducing conditions that are inimical to sustainable agricultural production. Different factors have contributed to extensification. Although high economic returns from crop (mainly sorghum) production was an important factor encouraging extensification of rainfed mechanized farming, other factors outside agriculture have also contributed to that expansion. This paper uses data from eastern Sudan and an acreage response model, to identify the most important factors influencing acreage expansion. Different measures and forms of risk were used in the acreage response model. The paper shows how policies in the energy sector can indirectly influence acreage expansion in the agricultural sector.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND THE INTERPRETATION OF STRATEGIC ISSUES: A NOTE ON CEOS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT*

This paper explores the relationship between organizational context and the interpretation of strategic issues by examining the hypothesis that CEOs' interpretations of foreign investment in the USA are influenced by the organizational context in which they are embedded. Three aspects of organizational context - the global business experience of the firm; the firm's level of organizational inertia (as represented by firm age and size); and the resources available for responding - are examined as predictors of CEOs' perceptions of foreign investment as a threat or an opportunity. Analysis of data from 320 organizations, controlled by industry, shows that global business experience, firm size, and perceived capability are significant predictors of the perception of threat and opportunity. the discussion addresses the implications of these findings for future research on issue interpretation and organizational context.     

Explaining the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns in Japan: Factors or Characteristics?

Japanese stock returns are even more closely related to their book-to-market ratios than are their U.S. counterparts, and thus provide a good setting for testing whether the return premia associated with these characteristics arise because the characteristics are proxies for covariance with priced factors. Our tests, which replicate the Daniel and Titman (1997) tests on a Japanese sample, reject the Fama and French (1993) three-factor model, but fail to reject the characteristic model.     

Choice of utility function form: its effect on classification of risk preferences and the prediction of farmer decisions

In applications of expected utility analysis, researchers are confronted with a choice among several utility functional forms. Subjective utility values and probability distributions for price and yield were elicited from Sri Lankan producers of minor export crops. Exponential quadratic and cubic utility functions were estimated. The choice of functional form was found to affect both the classification of risk attitudes and the prediction of harvesting strategy. The exponential function was the best predictor of harvesting strategy because it was the best predictor of mature harvesting. All three functions were equally poor predictors of premature harvesting.     

Child malnutrition and school performance in China

Data on the height, weight, age and grade level of over 3,000 children in five quite different locations in China allow computation of how far behind in school each child is, relative to where he should be given his age, as well as of the nutritional status variables of height-for-age, weight-for-age and weight-for-height. This paper uses these data to estimate the impact of the nutritional variables on the available measure of school performance. Children tend to be about one grade further behind in rural areas than in the provincial capitals, and about one-half a grade further behind in the provincial capitals than in Beijing. Even after controlling for location, however, lower nutritional status (particularly height-for-age) was found to affect school performance adversely; a one standard deviation reduction in height-for-age, for example, would result in a child's being about one-third of a year further behind. Though results from a geographically limited sample should be generalized only with substantial caution, and alternative interpretations of the data are possible, it does appear likely that malnutrition in rural China remained sufficiently prevalent in 1979 to retard the school advancement of large numbers of children.     

Interannual Climate Variation, Climate Prediction, and Agricultural Trade: the Costs of Surprise versus Variability

Agriculture remains sensitive to variation in rainfall and temperature. Fortunately, our ability to predict the lower frequency variation in the earth's atmosphere is increasing rapidly. While information cannot affect the underlying source of variability, it allows unexpected shocks to be anticipated and acted upon. This paper develops and analyzes an intertemporal Ricardian trade model with Bayesian beliefs. Results in this paper show that improved climate prediction reduces expected prices, but increases price variability. In addition, trade is crucial to realizing the potential benefits of climate prediction. The value of climate prediction is highest with both storage and trade, and falls by over 300% when a country is in autarky.     

Perceptions of the Ethicality of Consumer Insurance Claim Fraud

It was proposed that ethical evaluation of insurance claim padding behavior would be affected by characteristics of the policyholder, insurance agent, and company. These three factors were manipulated in written scenarios and the premise was tested in a factorial experimental design. No significant support was found for an effect of any of the three factors on ethical perceptions of claim padding. However, females found claims padding to be significantly less ethical than males. Given a claim scenario where the actual loss was $500 and the claimed amount was $3000, subjects awarded an average of $986.91 on the claim. Many respondents were willing to compensate victims for intangible losses as well as tangible losses.     

Can Chinese Discuss Conflicts Openly? Field and Experimental Studies of Face Dynamics in China

Chinese people have been theorized to be particularly sensitive to social face and avoid direct discussion in conflict to promote interpersonal harmony. Social face has been used to explain the proclivity of East Asians to smooth over conflict. More research is needed to study social face empirically and its relationship with direct discussion and the processes by which social face has its impact. Results from a field interview study and an experiment conducted in China support theorizing that confirmation of face induces cooperative goals and open-mindedness. In contrast with common assumptions about Chinese organizations, direct discussion, compared to avoiding, strengthened relationships. Direct controversy, especially when face was confirmed, induced open-mindedness: Participants asked more questions, explored the opposing views, demonstrated more knowledge of the opposing arguments, and worked to integrate views. These results were interpreted as suggesting that Chinese people can discuss their conflicts directly and cooperatively when they are assured that their face is confirmed. Results have implications both for the general theory of cooperation and competition as well as our understanding of social face in China.