Improving the speed of adoption of agricultural technologies and farm performance through farmer groups: evidence from the Great Lakes region of Africa

The article examines the effect of membership in farmer groups (MFG) on adoption lag of agricultural technologies and farm performance in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. We use duration and stochastic production frontier models on farm household data. We find that the longer the duration of MFG, the shorter the adoption lag and much more so if combined with extension service delivery. Farmer groups function as an important mechanism for improving farm productivity through reduced technical inefficiency in input use. We discuss policy implications under which farmer groups are a useful channel to reduce adoption lag, and the means through which improved farm performance can be achieved.     

Taking agricultural technologies to scale: experiences from a vegetable technology dissemination initiative in Tanzania

One of the widely suggested approaches to meet the increasing food demand of a substantially growing world population is sustainable intensification. We present a unique agricultural research and scaling programme in Tanzania, focusing on the key elements necessary for results related to: gender analysis; private sector engagement; social capital; improvement and adaptation; and programme performance monitoring and evaluation. Since 2014, more than 6000 farmers have benefited from either the adaptive research or the scaling component of the programme. Preliminary impact analysis results from six pilot locations indicate that programme participants realized significantly higher yields compared to non-participants. In addition to productivity improvements, introducing resistant and drought-tolerant elite vegetable varieties improved the resilience of the existing farming systems. Finally, considering the needs of both male and female participants had a positive impact on technology adoption rates and reach.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on “The Intersection Between Industrial Organization and Healthcare Economics”

This article introduces the special issue on the intersection between industrial organization and healthcare economics. This intersection has received increasing research interest, growing from 2% of the industrial-organization literature in 1991 to 6% in 2016. We describe the nine included articles, which cover a range of healthcare markets that include hospital services, insurance, and pharmaceuticals.     

Rejoinder to Peltzman

Since 2008, the U.S. economy has been mired in the second worst economic crisis in its history. Conceivably, massive government spending could bring the economy out of this slump as massive war spending ultimately ended the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, a far superior strategy exists: guaranteeing employment accompanied by retraining to enable all unemployed workers to become absorbed into the regular work force. Beyond ending the crisis, the superiority of this strategy is that it would institutionalize a procedure for insuring that, in an increasingly technologically dynamic and open economy, workers would possess the necessary skills for available jobs. Guaranteeing employment would also eliminate the ecological costs associated with the need to seek growth to generate employment at practically any cost. Finally, it would establish a new moral social contract, whereby everyone is granted the dignity that accompanies being a productive member of society. Welfare for those able to work could disappear, along with the degradation and humiliation accompanying it.     

A Five-Year Review, Update, and Assessment of Ethics and Governance in Strategic Management Journal

Although business ethics has a long history as a core theme within the realm of strategic management it has not received considerable attention in top strategy journals until recently. In this paper, we assess the state of business ethics research published over a 5-year period (2006–2010) in Strategic Management Journal to ascertain whether there has been an increase in business ethics research published in the top strategy outlet. The results of our content analysis reveal that ethics research in SMJ is indeed on the rise yet this research stream is still underrepresented with only 5.8 % of all articles published over the five-year period having an ethics theme. Moreover, the link between Corporate Social Performance and Financial Performance was identified as the top theme during the review period.