Strengths and Weaknesses of Crosscompliance in the CAP

Cross-compliance has increasingly been used to integrate environmental considerations into the CAP. From 2005 it became compulsory for all Member States to ensure that recipients of Single Farm Payments adhered to Statutory Management Requirements (SMRs), stemming from 19 EU regulations and directives, and kept their whole agricultural holding in 'Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition' (GAEC), to be defined by Member States or regional authorities. The potential for cross-compliance to enhance implementation of EU environmental legislation and reach a large area of farmland seems good, although there are some questions remaining over whether it will reach the agricultural land at most risk of environmental damage or with the highest nature value. In addition, farmers could react in several ways to exempt themselves or some area of their holding from cross-compliance conditions. Member States or regional authorities have taken a variety of approaches to setting cross-compliance standards, some of which seem minimal and vague. There is scope for the SMRs and GAEC to cover more environmental issues. Better guidance at EU level and increased communication could enhance implementation of cross-compliance. Self-audits, co-operation with private assurance schemes or other methods of monitoring should be explored to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of administrative efforts.     

Co-operation in Risky Environments: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia

The semi-arid and arid rangelands of Sub-Saharan Africa arecharacterised by high variability and by heavy reliance of herderson access to common resources, predominantly pasture and water.In these systems, the capacity of the community to co-operateover resource management is critical and the effectiveness ofmanagement has a direct impact on exploitation rates and landallocation patterns. In this paper, we develop a model to capturethe impact of climatic variability on capacity to co-operateand on resulting land use and allocation patterns, and applythe model to data collected from communities located on theBorana Plateau in southern Ethiopia. Results indicate that rainfallvariability has a negative impact on stock densities, consistentwith risk-averse producer behaviour, but has no statisticallysignificant impact on land allocation patterns in this marginalarea. Furthermore, co-operation has a direct negative impacton stock densities and land allocated to private pastures. Theresults support the hypothesis that individual incentives toovergraze and encroach on common pastures can be mitigated incommunities with high co-operative capacity.     

Introduction to and overview of SFAS No. 158: A visual presentation

This short teaching note introduces a visual exhibit to help accounting students understand and learn SFAS No. 158 accounting for defined pension plans.     

The Private Finance Initiative: Has the Accounting Standards Board Reduced the Scheme's Value for Money?

This article examines the state of PFI in the UK following an amendment published by the ASB to FRS 5. It was predicted that this amendment would mean that most properties constructed by the private sector, on behalf of the public sector, would have suddenly to appear on the balance sheets of the latter. This would have led to an unacceptable level of public sector borrowing and could have undermined the entire rationale for the scheme. Having outlined the objectives of PFI and explained the attitude adopted by the ASB, the article examines the reaction of HM Treasury. The article then demonstrates the likely consequences of the main parties in PFI contracts passing on as much risk as possible to the private sector so as to ensure that the assets remain off balance sheet. It concludes by assessing the expected impact that these actions will have on value for money.     

Limits to Ecological Modernisation as a framework for sustainable fresh water governance

An important point of debate in contemporary environmental governance literature is the design of institutional arrangements for natural resource governance in Western democracies in the face of long-term ecological challenges. Informed by this debate, we ask in this paper to what extent does Ecological Modernisation precepts provide a governance framework for resolving freshwater management conflicts in the context of New Zealand's political economy? The paper draws on the region of Canterbury whose water resources have become the site of intense political conflict due to the rapid growth of dairy farming. We firstly argue how the precepts of Ecological Modernisation are promoted in natural resource governance through the discourses of a variety of stakeholders at both the national and regional level and secondly, demonstrate how the adoption of these precepts in institutional design reflect a broadly techno-corporatist interpretation of Ecological Modernisation theory which struggles to sustain ecological carrying capacity of freshwater resources.     

The effect of the human pheromone androstenol on product evaluation

The chemical communication between humans has received considerable attention recently. Among the findings in psychology and anthropology have been the effects of putative human pheromones on the evaluation of persons. This article investigates if the finding that the pheromone androstenol influences person evaluation extends to the evaluation of products. In a laboratory experiment, 120 participants randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group rated three magazines. It was found that male consumers evaluate male magazines as more masculine and more positively under the influence of the putative male pheromone androstenol, whereas no such effects were found for magazines rated neutral or feminine and with respect to female consumers. Possible contextual and other factors influencing these results are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.