Ag econ angst crisis revisited

The present paper was inspired by and is a response to the Rola-Rubzen, Hardaker and Dillon paper 'Agricultural economists and world poverty: progress and prospects' (Rola-Rubzen et al. 2001). It is agreed that the position of agricultural economists in foreign aid and poverty programs has declined over recent decades. Such a feeling of guilt and remorse expressed by the above authors does indeed create considerable 'angst'. A major reason for this state of affairs lies in 'the flavour of the month' approach of the development agencies. These include women in development, gender-based farming systems research, household nutrition and food security, people participation, and targeting the poorest of the poor. These fads have driven disciplinary considerations to the wall and the more widely-defined objectives have reduced the drive for economic efficiency. We argue there is still a place for better designed and delivered assistance programs within the wider framework of assistance that has become fashionable. Greater application of institutional principles in both the political processes associated with assistance and the implementation agencies would improve the outcomes of many projects. Particular attention would need to be given to the interface between the development agencies and recipient governments. The present paper picks up on the market failure aspects of agriculture's rather poor contribution to development, and develops a wider perspective in terms of the new institutional economics and a continuing role for the agricultural economist.     

Possibilities for remote participation in trade unions: mobilising women activists

This paper argues that trade union activism within the new era of information and communication technologies (ICTs) offers the potential for unions to become more inclusive of under‐represented groups. Traditional conceptions of activism, participation and democracy within trade unions require physical presence at meetings at times and in spaces incompatible with caring responsibilities and atypical hours of work. This restricts the participation of women and other ‘atypical’ workers in trade unions. The paper explores the complexities of electronic forms of union activism in practice, indicating that while some positive features are experienced, there are also a range of obstacles, barriers and possible negative consequences.     

Exploring the interaction between incubators and industrial clusters: the case of the itri incubator in Taiwan

This article aims to explore the interaction between incubators and industrial clusters, which is an important linkage for local development but has not been analyzed in the literature. A model is proposed to describe this interaction. The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) Incubator within the Hsinchu industrial cluster, the core of Taiwan's technology industries, is considered to be an empirical case. This case is investigated with the proposed model and methods including data analysis, in–depth interviews, manager surveys and stakeholder analysis. It was found that the clustering effect in the Hsinchu industrial cluster is main factor in the ITRI Incubator's development. The ITRI Incubator in turn reinforces the cluster in some aspects as feedback. This result confirms the existence and importance of this interaction in local development. It is recommended that government officials and incubator managers take account of this interaction in operating an incubator program and utilize the proposed model to analyze the incubator's contributions to its industrial cluster.     

Network Resources for Internationalization: The Case of Taiwan's Electronics Firms*

ABSTRACT This paper illustrates foreign direct investment (FDI) as the management of important network relations, using Taiwan's electronics firms as an example. Through FDI, seemingly small and weak firms propel the process of internationalization by making maximum use of external resources to which they have access. FDI often starts at a location close to the home base where support from the domestic networks can be drawn, subsequently moving on to more distant locations after investors have accumulated new network resources. The location chosen is usually an area rich in network resources or in close proximity to such rich networks. FDI enables the investors to construct a regional, or even global, sub‐network under their control to supply a set of wide‐ranging, differentiated and low‐cost products in a flexible fashion, and sometimes within close proximity to the markets. With this capacity for versatility, investors become valuable partners for multinational firms that offer global services.     

Private borrowing during the financial revolution: Hoare's Bank and its customers, 1702–241

The financial revolution improved the British government's ability to borrow, and thus its ability to wage war. North and Weingast argued that it also permitted private parties to borrow more cheaply and widely. We test these inferences with evidence from a London bank. We confirm that private bank credit was cheap in the early eighteenth century, but we argue that it was not available widely. Importantly, the government reduced the usury rate in 1714, sharply reducing the circle of private clients that could be served profitably.     

Hedging,Financing and Investment Decisions: A Simultaneous Equations Framework

We empirically investigate the interactions among hedging, financing, and investment decisions. We argue that the way in which hedging affects a firm's financing and investing decisions differs for firms with different growth opportunities. We find that high growth firms increase their investment, but not leverage, by hedging. However, we also find that firms with few investment opportunities use derivatives to increase their leverage.     

Risk Sharing in a World with Processing Costs: Trading versus Banking

We analyze the bank versus exchange problem in a Diamond Dybvig (1983) economy with exogenous transaction processing costs. We find that processing costs in the market enables the bank to overcome the side trade threat ( Jacklin (1987) ) and offer some desirable liquidity insurance. Moreover, in the bank equilibrium processing costs are proportional to consumption, while in the market economy early and late consumers incur equal costs. These two effects explain that for a given level of aggregate processing costs, the bank economy is superior. On the other hand, the number of transactions in the bank economy is larger. It is for this reason that if processing costs are proportional to transaction value, and independent of the mechanism used, the exchange economy is superior.     

Through Trial and Error to Collusion*

In this article we study a very simple trial and error learning process in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. Without any knowledge of the payoff functions players increase, respectively decrease, their quantity as long as this leads to higher profits. We show that despite the absence of any coordination or punishing device this process converges to the joint‐profit‐maximizing outcome.