Child injury prevention in Vietnam: achievements and challenges

As with other South Asian countries, injury is becoming a leading cause of death and morbidity among children in Vietnam. In response to the increasing burden of child injury, government and non-government agencies in Vietnam have combined efforts during the last decade to develop and implement various child injury prevention strategies and programmes. This article provides, through a review of relevant documents and interviews with major stakeholders, an overview of these efforts and highlights major challenges to child injury prevention in the country. The findings point to notable achievements in terms of increasing awareness of injury facing children at all levels in the community and developing a sound injury prevention policy framework in a relatively short period of time. However, much needs to be done to implement necessary environmental and legislative changes, strengthen child injury surveillance and injury prevention research; and to improve access to health services. The insight into the experience of Vietnam could benefit other low- and middle-income countries with a high burden of child injury.     

Payoffs from research and development along the Australian food value chain: a general equilibrium analysis

The payoffs and distribution of payoffs from research and development (R&D) along the food value chain depend on many interacting economic factors. To quantify these, we have developed a general equilibrium model of the Australian economy with detailed farming, processing and marketing information. We use the model to assess potential payoffs and distributions from various R&D scenarios that lead to demand expansion and productivity improvement. We find that productivity improvement caused by R&D is unambiguously beneficial to the whole economy while the benefits of export or domestic market demand expansion mainly accrue to the primary producers and processing industry, when the economy is at full employment. Also, productivity improvement from R&D on‐farm may benefit processors while improvements postfarm may benefit farmers.     

The transfer of training: what really matters

Although organizations invest billions of dollars in training every year, many trained competencies reportedly fail to transfer to the workplace. Researchers have long examined the ‘transfer problem’, uncovering a wealth of information regarding the transfer of training. Inconsistencies remain, however, and organizations may find it difficult to pinpoint exactly which factors are most critical. Using Baldwin and Ford's model of transfer, we identify the factors relating to trainee characteristics (cognitive ability, self‐efficacy, motivation, perceived utility of training), training design (behavioral modeling, error management, realistic training environments) and the work environment (transfer climate, support, opportunity to perform, follow‐up) that have exhibited the strongest, most consistent relationships with the transfer of training. We describe our reasoning for extracting such variables from the literature and conclude by discussing potential implications for practice and future research.     

Tracing the evolution of the aggregate U.S. milk supply elasticity using a herd dynamics model

The U.S. dairy sector is characterized by increasing volatility of milk prices, and consolidation in production as evidenced by declining number of dairy farms with an increasingly larger share of milk supplied from a small number of very large farms. Using aggregate national data, we build a mixed‐frequency herd dynamics econometric model of the U.S. milk supply that updates and substantially amends the model first proposed by Chavas and Klemme. We implement a dynamic residual‐based bootstrap technique that can be used in testing for changes in nonmarginal simulated long‐run supply responsiveness, and trace the evolution of long‐run milk supply elasticity from 1975 through 2010. Several papers in the past have suggested that long‐run supply elasticity increases with dairy farm size, which implies that increased importance of large farms would increase aggregate long‐run supply responsiveness. Contrary to this conclusion, we find a declining trend in long‐run supply elasticity from 1975 through 2005. Persistence of such a decline would be a major cause for worry, as ever larger price swings would be needed to equilibrate the market in face of demand shocks. However, we find that milk supply is becoming more responsive since 2005 both to milk and feed price changes. Increasing responsiveness to feed prices further justifies focusing the next generation of the dairy policy instruments on managing dairy profit margins rather than just revenue streams.     

Time zone-related continuity and synchronization effects on bilateral trade flows

This paper finds the first empirical evidence of the time zone-related continuity effects on international trade. Several recent studies in the fragmentation/distance literatures provide theoretical justification for both positive (continuity) and negative (synchronization) effects of increased time zone differences on global export flows. This paper explicitly tests for the presence of both effects using bilateral manufacturing and service trade for 20 countries and 56 partner countries from 2000 to 2008. Results consistent with the theoretical expectations are found using a Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator. The general time zone difference effect on total exports is negative, suggesting the synchronization effect dominates. However, for services trade, the positive continuity effect is noted, indicating that time zones affect manufacturing and service trades differently. These results are robust to changes in the time zone, distance, and language measures, as well as alternate estimation techniques.     

Evidence of Distortionary Effects of Decoupled Payments in U.S. Indica Rice Production

Using a generalized method of moments technique for dynamic panels we estimate the acreage response of indica rice production in the U.S. to decoupled payments under the 1996 and 2002 farm bills. We find that these payments exert significant effects on the number of acres planted and, although the response is inelastic, a given change in decoupled payments may have a greater effect on acreage planted than an equal change in payments directly linked to output. Thus, even purely decoupled payments may be vulnerable to WTO sanction or de minimis limits. This research also suggests that the subsidy formula in the proposed 2014 farm bill will have a reduced distortionary effect compared to existing policies.