Trade-offs between carbon sequestration and rural incomes in the N’hambita Community Carbon Project, Mozambique

This paper presents a preliminary assessment of trade-offs between carbon sequestration and farmers’ incomes from land-use systems implemented in a community-based project, in Mozambique. Systems either focus on carbon sequestration or combine sequestration with cash crop cultivation. The latter provide carbon payments with potential income from cash crop sales. Uncertainty about the future costs and benefits of maintaining and utilizing the land-use systems over time is addressed via application of Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that compared with sequestration-only systems those that combine sequestration and cash crop production have higher net benefits, although they have less carbon-sequestration potential. Homestead planting provides the most attractive balance among competing policy goals. Carbon payments contribute to cash income and may enable smallholders to overcome initial project investment costs.     

Laissez‐faire,the Irish famine,and British financial crisis

The decision in 1847 to cut Treasury spending on public relief efforts during the Irish famine is generally attributed by economic historians to the pervasive influence of ‘laissez‐faire’ ideas on the Whig government of Lord John Russell. This article draws on the papers of political leaders and contemporary financial information to argue that economic reasons were the trigger for the change in policy. Robert Peel and Charles Wood's macroeconomic policies of the 1840s, including the gold standard, the Bank Charter Act, and corn law repeal, left the Whigs unable to borrow to finance relief efforts in Ireland without panicking markets. The scaling back of public assistance programmes that resulted from this—and which increased mortality at the height of the Irish famine—was the unintended result of Peel and Wood's economic policies, in the context of the Whig government's parliamentary weakness.     

Performance of land reform projects in the North West province of South Africa: Changes over time and possible causes

Anecdotal evidence as well as selected studies on the performance and progress of South Africa’s land reform programme generally present mixed to rather negative results. Few longitudinal studies exist on the progress of redistributed farms, resulting in an incomplete picture of the performance and progress of land reform projects. In this article, we report on the progress and performance of a group of land reform projects in the North West province of South Africa over five years. As part of a comprehensive audit of land reform projects in the North West province, 43 farms were studied in 2005 to assess their performance, based on their production status. Five years later, in 2010, 37 of these farms were visited again to review their progress. The results indicate that the production status (and thus performance) of land reform projects is not static. Although some projects either improved or maintained their initial production status, the overall trend shows deterioration in performance. Numerous factors are responsible for the decline, including group characteristics where farms are owned by groups of beneficiaries. This article is thus the first to use two surveys of a group of land reform projects to show the true status of farms in their post-transfer phase in South Africa.     

The determinants and long-term projections of saving rates in Developing Asia

In this paper, we present data on trends over time in domestic saving rates in twelve economies in Developing Asia during the 1966–2007 period and analyze the determinants of these trends. We find that domestic saving rates in Developing Asia have, in general, been high and rising but that there have been substantial differences from economy to economy, that the main determinants of these trends appear to have been the age structure of the population (especially the aged dependency ratio), income levels, and the level of financial sector development, and that the impacts of income levels and the level of financial sector development have been nonlinear (convex and concave, respectively). We then project future trends in domestic saving rates in Developing Asia for the 2011–2030 period based on our estimation results and find that the domestic saving rate in Developing Asia as a whole will remain roughly constant during the next two decades despite rapid population aging in some economies in Developing Asia because population aging will occur much later in other economies and because the negative impact of population aging on the domestic saving rate will be largely offset by the positive impact of higher income levels.     

Much ado about nothing: the limitation of liability and the market for 19th century Irish bank stock

Limited liability is widely believed to be a prerequisite for the emergence of an active and liquid securities market because the transactions costs associated with trading ownership of unlimited liability firms are viewed as prohibitive. In this article, we examine the trading of shares in an Irish bank, which limited its liability in 1883. Using this bank’s archives, we assemble a time series of trading data, which we test for structural breaks. Our results suggest that the move to limited liability had a negligible impact upon the trading of this bank’s shares.     

Ethical Considerations in the Use of Direct-To-Consumer Advertising and Pharmaceutical Promotions: The Impact on Pharmaceutical Sales and Physicians

The influence of direct-to-consumer advertising and physician promotions are examined in this study. We further examine some of the ethical issues which may arise when physicians accept promotional products from pharmaceutical companies. The data revealed that direct-to-consumer advertising is likely to increase the request rates of both the drug category and the drug brand choices, as well as the likelihood that those drugs will be prescribed by physicians. The data further revealed that the majority of responding physicians were either neutral or did not feel that accepting some types of gifts from pharmaceutical companies affected their ethical behaviors.     

An Empirical Evaluation of the Effect of Peer and Managerial Ethical Behaviors and the Ethical Predispositions of Prospective Advertising Employees

An advertising firm's ethical culture (as defined by the firm's managerial and peer ethical behaviors) may affect the employees' comfort levels and ethical behaviors. In this research, scenarios were used to describe advertising firms with various ethical cultures. Respondents' perceived comfort levels in working for the firms described in the scenarios and the respondents' behavioral intentions when faced with various advertising situations were assessed. Results of the study indicate that peer ethical behavior exerts a strong influence on the comfort or discomfort level and the ethical behavioral intentions of potential advertising employees. Further, the strong influence exerted by peers seems to transcend the ethical behavior of the manager and carry over to the attitude toward the entire corporate advertising environment. This study provides insights for firms and researchers interested in assessing the impact of an advertising firm's ethical culture on potential employees.