Impacts of monetary and macroeconomic factors on food prices in eastern and southern Africa

Eastern and southern Africa has been experiencing relatively large increases in real food prices since the early 1980s. Real food prices in some African countries grew as much as 11% per year during the 1980-1996 period. The huge volatility in food prices coincided with the implementation of structural adjustment programmes in several African countries. This study examines the impacts of monetary and macroeconomic factors on real food prices in eastern and southern Africa. Using the technique of cointegration and error correction modelling to test the long-run relationship between real food prices and the factors that influence their behaviour in selected African countries. Demand elasticities for food are estimated for selected countries. The empirical results show that changes in domestic food production, coupled with income, trade, exchange rate and monetary policies have significant impacts on real food prices, with wide implications for food availability and food security in the region.     

Consequences of carbon offset payments for the global forest sector

Long-term effects of policies to induce carbon storage in forests were projected with the Global Forest Products Model. Offset payments for carbon sequestered in forest biomass of $15–$50/t CO₂e applied in all countries increased CO₂ sequestration in world forests by 5–14 billion tons from 2009 to 2030. Limiting implementation to developed countries exported environmental damage from North to South, as developing countries harvested more, decreasing their stored CO₂e. Substantially more CO₂e was sequestered by allocating a given budget to all countries rather than to developed countries only. As offset payments increased wood prices relatively more than they decreased production, timber revenues generally increased. In the few countries with timber revenues losses they were more than compensated by the offset payments.     

The effect of institutional quality on firm export performance in emerging economies: a contingency model of firm age and size

It is widely accepted that countries with sound formal and informal institutions create more robust environments for firm performance. However, due to the liabilities faced by firms without available slack and/or market power, we contend that institutions are especially important for new and small firms. Unfortunately, there is little research examining the potential moderating effect of firm size or age on the relationship between institutional quality and export performance. In response, we hypothesize that institutional quality will be more important to increasing the export performance of new and small firms compared with their large, established counterparts. We test our hypotheses using data from the World Bank’s World Business Environment Survey. The results of our analyses offer support for our model, although some institutional variables appear to be more important to export performance than others. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results.     

Economics: Its History,Themes, Approaches

This article is not concerned with “A Theory of Value” or “The Theory of Value.” It is strictly limited to a discussion of the concepts specified in its title and consists of three parts. The first of these is concerned with ideas of Charles Sanders Peirce and is based upon a study of his published and unpublished papers contained in the eight-volume edition of his Collected Works.¹ The second part is concerned with ideas of Clarence Ayres, primarily those presented in his Toward A Reasonable Society [Ayres 1961]. The third part contains some brief concluding remarks.     

THE 'BROKEN WINDOWS' THEORY AND THE NEW YORK EXPERIENCE RECONSIDERED

The undeniable success of order-maintenance policing (also community policing or broken windows policing) is despite the deficiency in the theory which propelled the practice into policy: Wilson and Kelling's broken windows theory. We discuss what is wrong with the theory and why it nevertheless works when put into practice.     

Building long-term orientation in buyer–supplier relationships: The moderating role of culture

This research investigates buyer–supplier relationships in international markets. Research and practice have shown that buyer–supplier relationships benefit when partners to the relationship exhibit a long-term orientation. The extant literature suggests that a buyer's trust of a supplier and the supplier's performance affect the buyer's long-term orientation toward the relationship. We propose that the relative effects of trust and performance on long-term orientation are moderated by culture – specifically the individualism/collectivism dimension. Hypotheses are tested on data from two individualist and two collectivist cultures, using responses from over 600 purchasing professionals in the United States, Anglophone Canada, Francophone Canada and Mexico. Taken together, empirical findings suggest that cultural differences warrant consideration in developing successful purchasing strategies.