Vertical integration in West Africa's cotton industry: are parastatals a second best solution?

This article provides a framework to compare market outcomes among vertically integrated monopsonies in the cotton sector of West Africa and alternative, more competitive market structures. Based on a principal agent framework, in the presence of factor market constraints, as well as capital market failure, efficiently operated cotton parastatals increase sector welfare and efficiency by providing input credits. In equilibrium, outcomes with the principal agent model suggest growers receive the reservation income to participate in cotton production while the principal (cotton company) extracts the surplus above the reservation income. Competitive markets entail more equitable distribution of benefits than with parastatal vertical integration, but credit and factor market constraints can still persist. Promotion of a competitive market system will not support cotton productivity growth unless stakeholders pursue complementary programs to develop credit markets and research and extension institutions. In the presence of current market failures, parastatals may be a second‐best solution.     

Optimal annuitization, uncertain survival probabilities, and maxmin preferences

We consider a life-cycle model with bequest motives, and assume that the individual does not know his/her survival probability and has maxmin utility preferences; we show that it is optimal not to annuitize but to purchase pure life insurance policies instead.     

The Organization of Marketing: A Study of Decentralized,Devolved and Dispersed Marketing Activity*

ABSTRACT Despite a priority research grading by the Marketing Science Institute, the issue of marketing organization is bewilderingly under explored. Whilst advances have been made in conceptualizing marketing organization in networks of large trans‐national corporations, recent research has highlighted the paucity of empirical work into the intra‐firm dispersion of marketing activities. This study is designed to examine just this issue. The aim is to develop data‐grounded insights into the organization and dispersion of marketing activities. A case study finds an unusual form of marketing organization. This form of marketing organization is characterized by the decentralization, devolution and dispersion of community‐oriented marketing management activities driven by empowered operational‐level part‐time‐marketers who either adopt a traditional mix‐management approach or more rarely a relational approach. These findings lead to a range of interesting implications for theorists and practitioners.     

Developing new business-to-business professional services: What factors impact performance?

Business-to-business professional services has been a high growth area for over a decade. Increasing complexity and high technology characterizes this sector, making new product development both essential and risky for firms. Surprisingly little research has been done to understand the industrial professional services sector and, in particular, to discover what factors lead to new product success or failure, however. This article reports the results of an investigation that examines how professional services firms develop new products and what factors impact the performance of these ventures.     

On One Forgotten Cause of the Arab Spring: the Lack of Economic Freedom

Had the Arab Spring been widely interpreted as a revolution for ‘laissez faire’, it would certainly have stimulated more reflection on the central place of the entrepreneur in economic development, and the fundamental role of economic freedom to let this prosperity‐generating entrepreneurship flourish. The future of the Arab Spring depends on the capacity of the new democratically elected governments to implement measures to prevent crony capitalism, restore the rule of law and promote economic freedom in order to ensure general prosperity.     

MODIFIED LELAND’S STRATEGY FOR A CONSTANT TRANSACTION COSTS RATE

In 1985 Leland suggested an approach to price contingent claims under proportional transaction costs. Its main idea is to use the classical Black–Scholes formula with a suitably adjusted volatility for a periodical revision of the portfolio whose terminal value approximates the pay‐off. Unfortunately, if the transaction costs rate does not depend on the number of revisions, the approximation error does not converge to zero as the frequency of revisions tends to infinity. In the present paper, we suggest a modification of Leland’s strategy ensuring that the approximation error vanishes in the limit.     

A better job thanks to personal networks? An evaluation for migrants who arrived in France before age 18

It is more difficult for migrants than natives to find a job in their host country, so many of them have to accept, at least temporarily, a job that is below their level of qualification. This represents a waste of human capital for society and can undermine social cohesion. Relying on social relationships might help them to bypass some of the obstacles that prevent them from finding a job that matches their skillset. We focus on migrants who arrived in France before the age of 18 years, who were educated entirely or partially in France. We use the rich French Trajectories and Origins dataset for 2009 to study the impact of personal contacts on the quality of the current employment. We measure the job quality using an indicator based on the educational requirement for a given occupation. To address the endogeneity between our dependent variable (holding a suitable job or not) and the variable of interest (employment found through a personal contact or not), we use the variable ‘sibling(s) in France’ as an instrument: this variable influences an individual’s probability of finding a job through contacts but does not influence directly the quality of the employment. Our results indicate that for these migrants, finding a job through personal contacts strongly and positively impacts the occupational status attained: it raises both women’s and men’s probability of holding a suitable job by more than 0.40 points.     

A note on ‘trade pattern reversals’

Samuelson's 1975 paper investigating the possibilities of immiserizing trade reversals stemming from autonomous variations of the rate of profit strongly criticizes Emmanuel's Unequal Exchange treatment of that issue. The author of the present note believes that the Samuelson theorems are both inconsistent in themselves and irrelevant to his treatment. This note, however, is confined to the second contention: showing the main points of misrepresentation of the Emmanuel analysis.     

Income Risk Analysis of Alternative Tillage Systems for Corn and Soybean Production on Clay Soils

Conservation tillage systems have not been widely adopted on clay soils. There are few empirical studies on the production potential and economic feasibility of conservation tillage systems for com (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max L.) production on clay soils. On some soils in some regions, crop yields and possibly profitability can be increased, and yield and net farm returns risks may be reduced through the use of conservation tillage systems. Stochastic dominance efficiency criteria are used to rank net return distributions for one conventional tillage (CT) and seven conservation tillage (including five reduced tillage and two no‐till) systems, conducted for corn and soybean cropping systems on two clay soils located in the 3050 to 3100 Corn Heat Unit areas of Ontario. Average yields are similar under conventional tillage and reduced tillage systems, although actual corn and soybean yield response to tillage treatment is affected by drought (year). Average net returns differ among tillage treatments due to two factors. First, actual com and soybean yields vary among tillage systems for each soil type, depending on weather (i.e., year) effects. In addition, machinery costs that are crop‐specific increase costs of production and therefore reduce net returns. In general, CT systems dominate both reduced tillage and no‐till systems for almost all risk intervals for both clay soils, except for slightly high‐risk‐preferring intervals. L'adoption des régimes de travail de conservation du sol a étéplutôt restreinte sur les terres argileuses. II n'y a d'ailleurs que peu d'études expérimental sur les potentialités des productions et sur la faisabilitééconomique de ces régimes pour la culture du maïs (Zea mays L.) et du soja (Glycine max L.) dans ces types de sols. Dans quelques régions du pays, leur utilisation dans certains sols peut donner lieu à un accroissement des rendements culturaux et éventuellement de la rentabilité, en plus de réduire les risques afférents aux rendements et aux revenus nets de l'exploitation. Nous avons utilisé des critères d'efficience à dominance stochastique pour classer les niceaux de répartition de la rémunération nette obtenue dans régime de travail classique du sol (TC) et de sept régimes de travail de conservation du sol, soit cinq en travail réduit et deux en semis direct, conduits en culture de maïs et de soja sur des sols argileux situés dans les régions agroclimatiques de 3 050 à 3 100 unités thermiques maï's. Les rendements moyens étaient comparables en régime de travail classique et dans les régimes de travail réduit, bien que les rendements actuels des deux cultures sous les divers régimes étaient déprimés en année de sécheresse. La rémunération nette moyenne différait selon les regimes de travail du sol, et celapour deux raisons: d'abord une variation des rendements réels de maïs et de soja entre régimes de travail pour chaque type de sol selon les conditions météorologiques de l'année, ensuite l'augmentation des coûts de production résultant de celle des coûts d‘utilisation de matériels de culture spécialisés, tout cela se soldant par une baisse de la rémunération nette. Dans l'ensemble, les régimes TC l'emportaient dans les sols argileux pour la quasi‐totalité des niveaux d'attitudes envers les risques, sauf dans le cas des attitudes La gestion de la logistique dans le commerce des céréales a acquis une grande importance maintenant que ce secteur a atteint la maturité. C'est particuliérement important dans le système canadien de mise en marché des céréales lequel, pour diverses raisons, a essuyé bien des perturbations ces demières années. Les problèmes en cause ont fait l'objet de nombreuses évaluations du secteur. ils ont même abouti au dépot d'une plainte sur les obligations de service dans la campagne agricole 1996–1997 et ont étéétudiés par la Commission Estey. Dans la présente communication nous avons construit un modèle détaillé du système canadien de logistique du marché des céréales ainsi que de l'effet de plusieurs strategies importantes de logistique et de commercialisation sur la performance du systéme. Les résultats obtenus montrent qu'il y a sufflsamment d'aléatoire dans les diverses fonctions du système pour conclure que les frais de séjour à quai sur la côte ouest seraient périodiquement un important poste de dépense. La fréquence des perturbations des services et les coûts à quai sont associés à plusieurs facteurs dont la livraison de grain gourd et humide, de grain mal classé et le niveau des disponibilités exportables. Plusieurs variables stratégiques influent sur le fonctionnement du système, notamment l'agressivité manifestée dans la vente par rapport aux stocks disponibles et le niveau des stocks disponibles dans les ports au début de la campagne d'exportation, de recherche prudentes des risques.