SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT: THE MOBILE HYDROGEN FUEL CELL

Sustainable technology development implies large changes in technological systems. The illustrative process ‘hydrogen fuel cell in a boat’ is used here as an example of a learning process concerning a transition towards a hydrogen economy. Theoretically the concepts of constructive technology assessment, back-casting and social niche management are combined in this approach.     

Can Direct Payments Facilitate Agricultural Commercialisation: Evidence from a Transition Country

We investigate the impact of direct payments on agricultural commercialisation in Kosovo. Kosovo is one of the poorest countries in Europe but, with European assistance, provides substantial funds to support agriculture, made up of many small and often semi‐subsistence farms. Thus, the effect of this support is a central policy issue. Identifying the effect of direct payments on market participation faces endogeneity issues arising from the possible simultaneous determination of participation in support programmes and market participation. In order to achieve proper identification of the endogenous direct payments, we use a strategy of targeted identification search that employs several different methodological approaches. We find that direct payments for fruit and vegetables, and those for cereals and oilseeds have a positive effect on market participation. However, we cannot identify any definite effect of livestock payments.     

Host tourism aspirations as a point of departure for the sustainable livelihoods approach

The sustainable livelihoods (SL) approach offers a holistic framework and a practical toolkit to analyze tourism's impacts and interactions within a community. This study argues that the usefulness of the SL approach in tourism can be enhanced by ensuring that the approach is built on a genuine people-centered starting point. The exploration of the local community's representations of, and aspirations for, their roles in tourism as a future livelihood choice meets this need. To verify the value of this approach empirically, this study examined the case of Lhasa, Tibet, and local youth as the research respondents. The findings suggest that the young hosts in Lhasa urban area were heterogeneous in their responses to tourism as a future livelihood choice. They fell into four subgroups: in-betweeners, ambivalent supporters, alternative supporters, and lovers. Further, this study examined the profiles of these four subgroups and explored their responses. The study enhances the SL approach by taking tourism as an example and clearly defining the departure point for its adoption within the context of broader livelihoods portfolios. Additionally, it suggests some potential directions for tailored management strategies to meet youth and community perspectives.     

Consuming dark tourism: A Thanatological Perspective

Despite increasing academic attention paid to dark tourism, understanding of the concept remains limited, particularly from a consumption perspective. That is, the literature focuses primarily on the supply of dark tourism; less attention, however, has been paid to the demand for ‘dark’ touristic experiences. This theoretical paper seeks to address this gap in the literature. Drawing upon the contemporary sociology of death, it explores the relationship between socio-cultural perspectives on mortality and the potential of dark tourism as a means of confronting death in modern societies. In so doing, it proposes a model of dark tourism consumption within a thanatological framework as a basis for further theoretical and empirical analysis of dark tourism.     

A typology of students based on academic entitlement

Two hundred ninety-three university business students were surveyed using an academic entitlement (AE) scale updated to include new technologies. Using factor analysis, three components of AE were identified: grade entitlement, behavioral entitlement, and service entitlement. A k-means clustering procedure was then applied to identify four groups based on the relative strength of the AE components: the model student, under the radar, instructor as servant, and the privileged. These groups were further characterized by additional demographic (i.e., parental income) and classroom variables (i.e., instructor response times). Findings can help business educators gain better insight into the AE construct and devise more effective instructional strategies.     

Post-War Productivity Patterns in U.S. Agriculture: Influences of Aggregation Procedures in a State-Level Analysis

Annual data for forty-eight states are used to account for changes in the composition of input and output aggregates over space and time, and thereby to obtain new evidence on changes in inputs, outputs, and productivity in U.S. agriculture. The measures change significantly when we use state-specific rather than national prices and when we allow for changes in the composition of the aggregates, especially of labor and capital inputs. We compare our estimates and those reported by Ball et al. ( American Journal of Agricultural Economics 81(1999):164–79). The national estimates are similar but substantial differences are found in state-level productivity growth.     

Factors explaining the diffusion of hybrid maize in Latin America and the Caribbean region

If future demand for maize in Latin America and the Caribbean region (LAC) is to be met from local sources, domestic production must continue to increase. Because further expansion in the area planted to maize is precluded by the limited availability of arable land, future increases in production will have to rely heavily on the spread of productivity‐enhancing hybrid technology. Until now, the diffusion of hybrid maize in LAC has been quite variable. Using data from 18 countries, we investigate factors affecting the hybrid maize diffusion rate. Our findings validate conventional profitability‐based explanations of producer adoption behavior, but they also confirm the importance of supply‐side factors, thereby providing empirical support for the life cycle theory of seed industry development. We conclude that if policy makers in LAC are to accelerate the diffusion of hybrid maize, they will have to ensure an environment in which it is not only profitable for producers to adopt improved germplasm, but also profitable for the seed industry to produce and sell high‐quality seed.