Citizen participation through computer conferencing

As American society grows more diverse and the issues that must be decided grow more complex, the need for new forums and better forms for public debate increases. Is computer conferencing likely to meet this need because of its potential for facilitating public participation in government? To shed light on this question, we constructed, ran, and observed a computer conference on recombinant DNA among four participants with no previous experience in using computers and no scientific training. Results indicate that not only was this topic successfully discussed by lay people in this way, but that the conferencing mode of discussion was preferred by certain types of people. Our experience also gave us insights that may improve management of computer conferences for inexperienced users.     

Rural development policy in the Ivory Coast

The Ivory Coast has been the scene of a remarkable economic upsurge since it gained independence in 1960. Agriculture and forestry have been the mainstay of growth. The evolvement of socio-economic structures in the rural areas is outlined in the following article which also discusses aspects of the present reorientation of the policy of rural development.     

A structural model of price and exchange rate dynamics in a small open economy

Conclusions A major result following from the analysis of ourstructural model of inflation under flexible exchange rates is that there is no such thing asstructural inflation in the long run. Long-run inflation rather becomes a purely monetary phenomenon if exchange rates are flexible and if on an international level functioning capital markets are postulated. While, in the light of the assumptions made in Part III, this finding is not nearly as paradoxical as it may appear at first sight, it can hardly be overemphasized considering the ongoing theoretical discussion and the empirical research on the Scandinavian approach to inflation and recalling that the Scandinavian model is basically intended to picture equilibrium dynamics.The results concerning equilibrium price and exchange rate dynamics also apply to the equilibriumlevels of prices and the exchange rate, i. e., the equilibrium price level depends exclusively on monetary factors while the equilibrium exchange rate is determined by a purchasing power parity element and the structural productivity gap component.Turning to the results of our analysis of disequilibrium dynamics, the overall picture does not change very much. Here the qualitative pattern of adjustment of both prices and the exchange rate is again completely independent of structural variables, but is exclusively determined by four adjustment coefficients. However, the particular quantitative values assumed by prices and the exchange rate during the adjustment process do indeed reflect the impact of the productivity gap.No conclusions can be derived from our model on the amount of time it takes to return to the neighbourhood of equilibrium once the economy has been subjected to some kind of external shock. A casual examination of post-1973 developments and especially the Swiss experience suggest, however, that in the case of a disturbance as, e. g., in the form of a monetary contraction (relative to the rest of the world), the economy may take so long to return to the neighbourhood of long-run equilibrium that the negative real consequences of the overvaluation of the domestic currency during the adjustment process provide a momentous rationale for short-run stabilization interventions in the foreign exchange market.We should like to thank Peter Bernholz and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.     

Reducing the ecological footprint of urban cars

This study develops the policy-making capabilities of the Ecological Footprint. The new capabilities we introduce in our Ecological Footprint model allow us to clarify policy options in the face of the increasing management complexity due to a more interconnected and uncertain world. We investigate the effectiveness of three illustrative policy options for reducing the Ecological Footprint of urban car transport: (1) improvements in efficiency/technology, (2) substitution with alternate fuel mixes, and (3) the reduction in demand by altering urban form. We investigate the success of policy options for a subnational case study jurisdiction in Australia, but in the uncertain global context. We use a resilience framework that considers critical social, economic, and environmental variables, multiple scales, and multiple possible futures. We find that delaying policy options to mitigate CO₂ emissions from the transport sector will increase the risks borne by society as a result of future global uncertainty, the uncertain timing of globally coordinated action on climate change and the timing of peak oil. We also find that the success of local policy is affected by the global future which prevails. The use of the Ecological Footprint allows policy to be informed by the consequences of both CO₂ emissions and increasing demand for land. The study provides a decision-making framework that allows local decision makers to make robust policy despite global uncertainty. This framework has wider applicability to other nations and/or subnational jurisdictions worldwide.     

Efficiency Defense in EU and US Horizontal Merger Control if Costs are Endogenous

If fixed costs are endogenous, following from profit maximization, horizontal mergers are always profitable. They cause the price to rise and consumer surplus to decrease. A case of horizontal merger in which, according to the requirement of US and EU Merger Guidelines for an efficiency defense to be acceptable, the price declines or remains constant does not exist and therefore cannot be expected by profit maximizing partners to arise following a merger. Merger control should be guided by focusing on total welfare. Permitting cooperation in R&D, although profitable, is likely to be detrimental to welfare.     

Market access by smallholder farmers in Malawi: implications for technology adoption,agricultural productivity and crop income

In Malawi, maize is the major crop and food staple. Given limited off-farm employment opportunities, much-needed increases in household income for improving food security must come from gains in agricultural productivity through better technology and more profitable crops. In the past, hybrid maize and more recently, tobacco were promoted by policy for increasing smallholder income. An analysis of determinants of adoption of these two crops and related income effects is presented. Apart from factor endowment and exposure to agroecological risks, differences in the household's access to financial and commodity markets significantly influence its cropping shares and farm income.     

Monopoly Welfare Losses in the Long Run

Irrespective of the merit of any previous approaches to assess the deadweight loss due to monopoly they are all static in character and disregard the long term effects of monopoly power. Taking into account the long run consequences of monopoly power within the framework of the new growth theory yields startling new insights. In contrast to the Schumpeterian view that there is a tradeoff between static inefficiency and dynamic progressiveness monopoly power is shown to entail not only static welfare losses but also to exert an adverse influence on economic growth. Once this is granted the long run welfare loss due to monopoly can be shown to dwarf the static losses so far treated in the economics literature.     

Comparing system visions of farmers and experts

The goal of this paper is to identify farmers’ future in terms of the pesticide management of potato growing farmers in Vereda la Hoya (Boyacá, Colombia).To achieve this goal we applied the Future-Structured Mental Model Approach (Future-SMMA) and interviewed 10 farmers concerning their future perspectives and expectations to derive their future visions. Subsequently, 10 experts were interviewed about the feasibility and the consequences of farmers’ future visions.Applying the Future-SMMA, we analyzed farmers’ future visions and found that farmers take account of social and environmental threats and that their visions are optimistic. In addition we compared farmers’ and experts’ perceptions of external constraints on farmers’ future and discovered that the future visions of farmers and experts were inconsistent. Finally, we determined how farmers’ livelihood assets and self-perception influence the formation of farmers’ future visions and found that the more a person was able to differentiate his livelihood assets the more differentiated were the future visions of that person.In discussing our findings, we deduce that the inconsistency of future visions found is due to diverging attitudes towards future scenarios and differing opinions about who should take responsibility for the knowledge management of farmers.