Price or Quantity Competition? Oligopolistic Structures in International Commodity Markets

International commodity markets may be characterized by price or quantity competition and by product differentiation. As an illustration, this paper presents a set of models of the Japanese market for imported beef. The models are evaluated using a non-nested econometric test. The one which best fits the data is a Stackelberg model with price leadership by Australia. This result provides evidence on the explicit nature of the game being played by exporters, unlike the applied conjectural variations approach which provides only an index of how competitive the market is.     

A statistical identity linking folded and censored distributions

This paper models expected future values of Gaussian stochastic processes that are bounded by reflecting barriers. Such expectations are of course crucial to any model with forward looking agents. The approach is illustrated by applying it to an exchange rate target zone. By adopting a distributional approach, the formal analysis can be both simple and somewhat elegant. In doing so, we show that the first moments of folded and censored distributions are related in a surprisingly neat way. The setting is discrete-time, though where appropriate we extend the analysis to the continuous-time analogue of reflected Brownian motion.     

Pesticide Productivity and Transgenic Cotton Technology: The South African Smallholder Case

This paper empirically investigates how the productivity of pesticide differs in Bt versus non‐Bt technology for South African cotton smallholders, and what the implications for pesticide use levels are in the two technologies. This is accomplished by applying a damage control framework to farm‐level data from Makhathini flats, KwaZulu‐Natal. Contrary to findings elsewhere, notably China, that farmers over‐use pesticides and that transgenic technology benefits farmers by enabling large reductions in pesticide use, the econometric evidence here indicates that non‐Bt smallholders in South Africa under‐use pesticide. Thus, the main potential contribution of the new technology is to enable them to realise lost productivity resulting from under‐use. By providing a natural substitute for pesticide, the Bt technology enables the smallholders to circumvent credit and labour constraints associated with pesticide application. Thus, the same technology that greatly reduces pesticide applications but only mildly affects yields, when used by large‐scale farmers in China and elsewhere, benefits South‐African smallholder farmers primarily via a yield‐enhancing effect.     

The Indonesian Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal): Its Role,Development and Future

This paper looks at the setting up and initial growth of the new Indonesian Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal). Coming into being at a crucial time in the development of Indonesia's overall environmental management policy, Bapedal is the first national specialised environmental regulatory body to be established in Indonesia with implementation powers to monitor pollution and the negative impacts of development on the environment. As with any new agency in Indonesia, it has faced some major hurdles in its early development. However its ultimate success as an agency is of crucial importance if Indonesia is going to effectively handle its growing environmental problems over the next decade.     

Advertising and Natural Vacancies in Rental Housing Markets

We formulate a model that explains vacancy durations arising from lags in matches between the suppliers and demanders of housing units. We emphasize rental housing markets in this exposition although the model could be extended to competitive or noncompetitive rental or home-ownership markets. In the case of rental markets, if tenants do not immediately inform landlords upon initiating search for a new unit, landlords are delayed in their search for a new tenant. These matching delays induce a positive natural vacancy rate that cannot be reduced to zero, even in competitive markets. Price-taking landlords are, however, able to affect the resulting vacancy duration through advertising in a Cournot-Nash equilibrium and will, in general, invest in inefficient levels of advertising. As a consequence, there may be a role for public policy to provide incentives that would induce noncooperative landlords to choose the vacancy cost-minimizing advertising solution.     

A case‐study of an organisation for creche teachers in a rural area of South Africa

Early childhood educare programmes can aid development through their impact on young children, their mothers and the community. The stages of development of the Hlanganani Crèche Teachers’ Organisation are outlined. The lessons for development and the effectiveness of the organisation in addressing educare issues are examined. An organisation for educare workers can be effective in dealing with problems facing educare workers if it is approached with the aim of developing and empowering its members.