DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF SMALL FARMERS AND LANDLESS IN INDIA*

The small farmers and landless in India are faced with the vicious cycle of low incomes, low savings, low investment and uneconomic size of operational holdings and often are nonviable. Using data for the Haryana State of Northern India for 1977/78, the linear discriminant function was used to identify those factors which will make the majority of small farmers and landless in India a viable entity. Analysis of these data indicated that per hectare fertiliser use, area under high yielding crop varieties, operational size of holding and working capital are the factors which affect the viability of the small farmers and landless. As compared to the simple regression analysis discriminant function approach has been found an effective tool for discriminating the two social groups and for predicting the sponsored social change. However, the use of the discriminant function may be limited if the qualitative independent variable has more than two classes and its orderings are not in sequence.     

Mapping the benefits and costs associated with process innovation: The case of RFID adoption

The successful implementation of any innovation requires an understanding of its benefits and costs. This study examines the changes in the magnitude of costs and benefits associated with technology process innovation adoption as the innovation diffuses across different industries. Using RFID as an exemplar technology, the study shows that the magnitude of benefits and costs associated with technological process innovation adoption within different industries varies as technology diffuses beyond early adopters to the early majority. During the early stages of technology evolution, the development cost, the cost of capital, ethical costs and simple direct implementation costs (in the form of the cost of tags) predominate. As a dominant design emerges the profile of costs changes with the emphasis on initiation costs, more holistic direct implementation costs and indirect implementation costs. A similar change in the emphasis of benefits is observed, with a shift from direct to indirect benefits being noticeable as the technology moves from early adopters to early majority adopters. Our findings help to explain the difficulties in consistently measuring innovation outcomes observed in the innovation implementation literature, and emphasize the need to take into consideration the stage of technology development as a significant factor that influences the realised outcomes from innovation implementation.     

Conditional Dependence in Precious Metal Prices

This study investigates the time-series properties of gold and silver spot prices. Both precious metal price series are found to exhibit time dependence and pronounced generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (GARCH) effects. Splitting the data into similar economic subperiods provides superior explanation of these effects because of the observed long-run nonconstancy of the unconditional variance. Further, the power exponential distribution, as opposed to the Student-t, is found to portray accurately the thick-tailed conditional variance that remains after the GARCH effects are removed. These findings imply that constant variance pricing models are inappropriate for securities that are based on precious metal prices.     

旅游需求函数的研究

由于旅游区价格具有一定的刚性和稳定性，采用直接观察法不易得出旅游需求函数。文章通过对旅行成本法的研究，首次提出试用旅游复合成本的变化来替代旅游区价格的变化，综合考虑收入、时间的机会成本等因素，使用出游率和旅游复合成本2个指标，建立旅游需求函数，揭示旅游需求规律，探索出一种简易可行计算旅游需求函数的方法。     

The role of Malawian local government in community development

The promotion of basic elements of good governance including community involvement through a decentralised local governance system has been at the centre stage since the advent of the multiparty democracy in Malawi in the 1990s. This article examines the role of Malawian local government in community development and analyses the context of community involvement in local governance. The article is primarily based on documentary research, which includes journal and newspaper articles, and interviews with senior district assembly officials and local people. The major conclusions drawn are that, firstly, the decentralisation process tends to feature the district assembly very highly, with little clarity on how community-based institutions are integrated into the local government system. Secondly, the political, socio-economic and administrative factors prevailing at the local level need to be addressed pragmatically for efficient and effective community participation in development.     

Signed Central Moments of Integer Random Variables with Decreasing Density

Signed central α-moments of integer valued rv with decreasing density are considered. These are all positive if α≥3/2. We state sharp universal bounds on α depending only on the expectation of the random variable. For special cases the bounds are also evaluated numerically.     

On Bayesian optimum allocation in some two phase sampling problems

Summary For estimating certain parametric functions, we consider the problem of allocatingN _i, the size of the sample from theith population,i=1,2,...,k, at the second phase of sampling of a two phase sampling procedure, given that we taken _i observations from the population at the first phase. We consider that the observations from theith population follow the exponential distribution with mean _i,i=1,2,...,k, and the functions to be estimated are (i) (d_i/_i) and (ii) (d_ii). When the total cost of sampling at the second phase is c _iN_i and is fixed, allocations using the Bayes approach are obtained so that the estimation is as precise as is possible.     

A proposed method for the analysis of public health policy in less developed countries

The study of public health policy in the less developed countries (LDCs) is handicapped by both lack of adequate data and gaps in conceptual apparatus. A new conceptual model is proposed that would be used for future policy analyses to assess what changes in health status of population in LDCs can be expected as direct functions of increased health service resources, and of improved environmental and econosociocultural conditions.While direct policy analysis is ill-advised at this time due to data inadequacy, the model is illustrated using data presently available for twenty-five relatively homogeneous sub-Sahara African countries. Within the limitations of available data, the findings suggest that reductions in mortality in the region might best be achieved by making appropriate health resources available to the populations. Study findings also suggest that physicians contributed more during the study period to the variance in physical health status than did medical assistants.