Revealing the willingness to pay for income insurance in agriculture

In spite of its minor and decreasing share in EU GDP, agriculture still plays a fundamental and strategic role in the economy. This is why EU institutions have supported for decades a series of policies to guarantee a stable agricultural income, including insurance. With different degrees of public support, insurance policies covering an increasing number of risks have been developed across the EU. Eventually, EU institutions have started to encourage the development of income insurance. Income insurance covers more risks and has higher uncertainty and costs than conventional single risk or combined yield insurance. Assessing and enhancing the viability of income insurance demands an in depth knowledge of farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for this product. This study develops a methodology to calculate the WTP for different degrees of income protection using a revealed preference model and the certainty equivalent theory. The methodology is applied in a drought prone area in southeastern Spain. Results show that WTP for income insurance in the area is higher than observed insurance premiums. This may play in favor of the development of more comprehensive income insurance systems.     

Knowledge management practices and absorptive capacity in small and medium‐sized enterprises: is there really a linkage?

Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are more vulnerable to globalization and rapid technological change due to their scarcity of resources. SMEs' absorptive capacity allows them to access knowledge and plays a key role in their ability to explore and exploit opportunities in their environment. Therefore, this study aims to identify and categorize knowledge management practices which SMEs can adopt to develop absorptive capacity. From a population of 4,534 Portuguese SMEs, 260 usable completed questionnaires were returned. We concluded that Portuguese SMEs are engaged in knowledge management practices, through collaboration with business partners, favoring learning processes based on experience, knowledge transfer to employees and knowledge absorption by employees, reflecting the importance given by SMEs to the tacit nature of knowledge which helps them in efficiency improvements, strategic adaptation, and the launch of new products and services. Our study contributes to advancing theory in the fields of knowledge management and absorptive capacity. We combine and extend previous research which allows us to reconcile the sometimes contradictory findings concerning knowledge management practices which SMEs can adopt to reinforce absorptive capacity. Some theoretical and practical implications are also presented.     

Analysing the correlation between social network analysis measures and performance of students in social network-based engineering education

Social network-based engineering education (SNEE) is designed and implemented as a model of Education 3.0 paradigm. SNEE represents a new learning methodology, which is based on the concept of social networks and represents an extended model of project-led education. The concept of social networks was applied in the real-life experiment, considering two different dimensions: (1) to organize the education process as a social network-based process; and (2) to analyze the students’ interactions in the context of evaluation of the students learning performance. The objective of this paper is to present a new model for students evaluation based on their behavior during the course and its validation in comparison with the traditional model of students’ evaluation. The validation of the new evaluation model is made through an analysis of the correlation between social network analysis measures (degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and average tie strength) and the grades obtained by students (grades for quality of work, grades for volume of work, grades for diversity of work, and final grades) in a social network-based engineering education. The main finding is that the obtained correlation results can be used to make the process of the students’ performance evaluation based on students interactions (behavior) analysis, to make the evaluation partially automatic, increasing the objectivity and productivity of teachers and allowing a more scalable process of evaluation. The results also contribute to the behavioural theory of learning performance evaluation. More specific findings related to the correlation analysis are: (1) the more different interactions a student had (degree centrality) and the more frequently the student was between the interaction paths of other students (betweenness centrality), the better was the quality of the work; (2) all five social network measures had a positive and strong correlation with the grade for volume of work and with the final grades; and (3) a student with high average tie strength had a higher grade for diversity of work than those with low ties.     

Amino acid formula as a new strategy for diagnosing cow’s milk allergy in infants: is it cost-effective?

Aims: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of a new strategy that uses an amino acid formula in the elimination diet of infants with suspected cow’s milk allergy (CMA).

Materials and methods: This pharmacoeconomic study was developed from the perspective of the Brazilian Public Healthcare System. The new strategy proposes using an amino acid formula in the diagnostic elimination diet of infants (≤24 months) with suspected CMA. The rationale is that infants who do not respond to the amino acid formula do not suffer from CMA. Patients with a positive oral challenge test receive a therapeutic elimination diet based on Brazilian Food Allergy Guidelines. This approach was compared to the current recommendations of the Brazilian Food Allergy Guidelines. A decision model was constructed using TreeAge Pro 2012 software. Model inputs were based on a literature review and the opinions of a panel of experts. A univariate sensitivity analysis of incremental cost-effectiveness ratios was performed.

Results: The mean cost per patient of the new amino acid formula strategy was R$3,341.57, while the cost of the current Brazilian guidelines strategy was R$3,641.08. The mean number of symptom-free days per patient, which was used as an indicator of effectiveness, was 900.6 and 875.7 days, respectively. The new strategy is, therefore, dominant. In the sensitivity analysis, the dominance was maintained with parameter variation.

Limitations: In the absence of information in the literature, some premises were defined by a panel of specialists.

Conclusions: The new strategy, which uses an amino acid formula in the elimination diagnostic diet followed by an oral food challenge, is a dominant pharmacoeconomic approach that has a lower cost and results in an increased number of symptom-free days.     

The Development of Inequality and Poverty in Indonesia, 1932–2008

We estimate inequality in Indonesia between 1932 and 2008. Inequality increased at the start of this period but declined sharply from the 1960s onwards. The increase was due to a shift from domestic to export agriculture over the period up to the Great Depression. During the 1930s, as the price of export crops declined, the income of rich farmers suffered a blow. Yet this was counterbalanced by an increasing gap between expenditures in the urban and rural sectors, causing an overall rise in inequality. As for the second half of the century, we find that the employment shift towards manufacturing and services—combined with an increase in labour productivity in agriculture—accounts for inequality’s decline, which was halted in the 1990s. These inequality trends affected poverty as well, but prior to the 1940s the negative impact of the rise in inequality was offset by an increase in per capita GDP. Between 1950 and 1980 a decline in inequality, combined with increased per capita GDP, rapidly raised a large portion of the population above the poverty line.     

Lost in translation? The relative wages of immigrants in the Portuguese labour market

This article examines the wage gaps between immigrant and Portuguese workers using matched employer–employee data for the 2002–2008 period. We found that most of the wage gap is not due to the worst endowments of the immigrants but to differences in the returns to those characteristics and to the immigrant status effect. In particular, immigrants’ education and foreign experience are significantly less valued in the Portuguese labour market. Overall, the wages of immigrants do not fully converge to those of comparable natives as domestic experience increases. The assimilation rates tend to be stronger in the first years after migration and for immigrants with higher levels of foreign experience. Total immigrants are a heterogeneous group of different nationalities, with immigrants from the EU15 and China starring as the two extreme cases.     

Cooperation between China and Tanzania on ICT: fish,fishing tackle or fishing skills?

Tanzania has ambitions of moving from a mere consumer of information and communication technologies to a designing and manufacturing base. This paper aims to assess the role of public–private partnerships with Chinese institutions in the achievement of this goal. Through an in-depth case study, this paper examines the contributions of three Chinese multinationals in terms of technology transfer and technological capacity building in local firms in Tanzania. The analysis contrasts the organisation of improvements on the manner of technology transfer and capacity building in these partnerships with prior Sino-Tanzanian partnership efforts in technology and industry. The Chinese multinationals had a labour localisation rate of 60% on average, with some training services provided to Tanzanian nationals and supply of services and equipment to Tanzanian firms. However, the overall level of technology transfer continues to be weak. Observed barriers to technology transfer include weak incentives for collaboration between Chinese and Tanzanian firms and low-level technology embedded in activities offshored by the Chinese multinationals to Tanzania.     

Trust,religion, and cooperation in western agriculture, 1880–1930

This article explores the role of culture in encouraging the diffusion of cooperation for the production and marketing of agricultural products, an organizational innovation that can be related to technical progress in the rural sector and higher living standards for farmers. The results of the zero‐inflated negative binomial (ZINB) pooled regressions show that trust and religion were significant determinants of the diffusion of cooperatives among farmers in western countries. Results of the logit portion of these regressions suggest that the density of production was positively related to cooperation and that cooperation decreased where higher inequality in land distribution predominated.     

Researching the entrepreneurial behaviour of new and existing ventures in European agriculture

This study analyzes differences existing between new and established agri-entrepreneurs as well as differences in relation to their counterparts in non-agricultural ventures. This study uses the resource-based view and institutional economics as conceptual frameworks and focuses on the analysis of the resources and capabilities; entrepreneurial orientation (risk-taking, proactiveness and innovativeness); and legitimation affecting the entrepreneurial process. The literature points out that the specific characteristics of the sector (strong family links and institutional support) can condition the entrepreneurship process. Thus, hypotheses are developed to test these relationships. We use random effects models to test our hypotheses with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for 20 European countries. Results show that agri-entrepreneurs have weaker entrepreneurial capabilities than other sectors. However, new entrants into the agricultural sector are not less entrepreneurial in relation to other sectors. On the other hand, established agri-entrepreneurs are less proactive than other sectors. Results suggest that new entrants into agriculture are more entrepreneurially oriented than established ones. Our study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by contextualizing the entrepreneurship process and providing valuable insights for policy-makers to enhance farmers’ entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial orientation.