TECHNICAL,ECONOMIC, AND ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY IN PEASANT FARMING: EVIDENCE FROM THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

This paper presents measures of technical (TE), economic (EE), and allocative (AE) efficiency for a sample of sixty peasant farmers in the Dajabon region of the Dominican Republic. Maximum likelihood techniques are used to estimate a Cobb-Douglas production frontier, which is then used to derive its corresponding dual cost frontier. These frontiers are the basis for obtaining farm level efficiency estimates. The results reveal average levels of TE, AE, and EE equal to 70 per cent, 44 per cent, and 31 per cent, respectively. In a second step analysis, two-limit tobit regression techniques are used to estimate three separate equations where TE, EE, and AE are expressed as functions of the following farm/farmer characteristics: contract farming, agrarian reform status, farm size, schooling, producer's age, and household size.     

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

We explore the innovation performance benefits of alliances for spin-off firms, in particular spin-offs either from other firms or from public research organizations. During the early years of the emerging combinatorial chemistry industry, the industry on which our empirical analysis focuses, spin-offs engaged in alliances with large and established partners, partners of similar type and size, and with public research organizations, often for different reasons. We seek to understand to what extent alliances of spin-offs with other firms (either large- or small- and medium-sized firms) affected their innovation performance and also how this performance may have been affected by their corporate or public research background. We find evidence that in general alliances of spin-offs with other firms, in particular alliances with large firms, increased their innovation performance. Corporate spin-offs that formed alliances with other firms outperformed public research spin-offs with such alliances. This suggests that, in terms of their innovation performance, corporate spin-offs that engaged in alliances with other firms seemed to have benefitted from their prior corporate background. Interestingly, it turns out that the negative impact of alliances on the innovation performance of public research spin-offs was largely affected by their alliances with small- and medium-sized firms.     

Efficiency in agricultural production: the case of peasant farmers in eastern Paraguay

This paper contributes to the productivity literature in developing country agriculture by quantifying the level of efficiency for a sample of peasant farmers from Eastern Paraguay. A stochastic efficiency decomposition methodology is used to derive technical, allocative and economic efficiency measures separately for cotton and cassava. An average economic efficiency of 40.1% for cotton and of 52.3% for cassava is found, which suggests considerable room for productivity gains for the farms in the sample through better use of available resources given the state of technology. Gains in output through productivity growth have become increasingly important to Paraguay as the opportunities to bring additional virgin lands into cultivation have significantly diminished in recent years. No clear strategy to improve farm productivity could be gleaned from an examination of the relationship between efficiency and various socioeconomic variables. One possible explanation for this finding is the existence of a stage of development threshold below which there is no consistent relationship between socioeconomic variables and productivity. If this is the case, then our results suggest that this sample of Paraguayan peasants are yet to reach such a threshold. Hence, improvements in educational and extension services, for example, would be needed to go beyond this threshold. Once this is accomplished, additional productivity gains would be obtained by further investments in human capital and related factors.     

Property taxation in Israel: a non ad valorem approach

The arnona, the system of property taxation in Israel, is a unique form of taxation being based on a property's size (m²) and not on its discrete open market value. The actual use of the property (residential versus non-residential), its location in the municipality, type of property and its age are the determining factors for tax liability. In order to test for equity within the current system, the methodology adopted was to investigate the effect of population size, remoteness and population makeup with respect to some 80 municipalities on the levels of arnona. Although the thresholds of arnona for individual municipalities are approved by a committee of the Knesset, the present analysis indicates that the current differences in per capita amount of arnona collected by local authorities do reflect factors that would normally be expected to influence an ad valorem property tax in a market economy. It is argued that whilst the arnona is an accepted form of local authority property taxation, there are a number of fundamental weaknesses. Its application could be improved by incorporating elements of an ad valorem property tax, which would more fully reflect the socio-economic level of taxpayers and the physical condition of the built environment. However, the arnona, not being based directly on a property's market value should be of interest to countries (e.g. transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe) who are presently introducing property taxes within an environment where property markets are not as yet fully developed.     

Das neue Energiewirtschaftsgesetz—Regelungen für einen erweiterten Zielkatalog

Mehr als ein Jahr nach dem EU-rechtlich vorgegebenen Endtermin wurde im Juli 2005 das neue Energiewirtschaftsgesetz verabschiedet. Von welchen Zielen geht dieses Gesetz aus? Wie lauten seine wichtigsten Neuregelungen? Und welche Auswirkungen sind von ihnen zu erwarten?     

On the ambiguous economic freedom–inequality relationship

Previous research on the relationship between economic freedom and income inequality has produced mixed results. We provide a short survey of this literature, identifying potential causes for this empirical heterogeneity. Next, we replicate the results from two significant studies using six alternative measures of income inequality for an updated dataset of up to 112 countries over the period 1970–2010. Notably, we use the latest release of the Standardized World Income Inequality Dataset, which allows us to account for the uncertainty of the estimated Gini coefficients. We find that the results of previous studies are sensitive to the choice of country sample, time period and/or inequality measure used. We conclude with suggestions for future research in the area.     

How effective are level-based R&D tax credits? Evidence from the Netherlands

This article examines the impact of the R&D fiscal incentive programme on R&D by Dutch firms. Taking a factor demand approach, we measure the elasticity of firm R&D capital accumulation to its user cost. Econometric models are estimated using a rich unbalanced panel of firm data covering the period 1996 to 2004 with firm specific R&D user costs varying with tax incentives. Using the estimated user cost elasticity, we perform a cost–benefit analysis of the R&D incentive programme. We find some evidence of additionality suggesting that the level based programme of R&D incentives in the Netherlands is effective in stimulating firms’ investment in R&D. However, the hypothesis of crowding out can be rejected only for small firms. The analysis also indicates that the level based nature of the fiscal incentive scheme leads to a substantial social deadweight loss.