Household‐level Impacts of Dairy Cow Ownership in Coastal Kenya

This study uses heteroskedastic Tobit and Censored Least Absolute Deviations models to examine the impacts of dairy cow ownership on selected outcomes for a sample of 184 households in coastal Kenya. The outcomes examined include gross household cash income, gross non‐agricultural income, consumption of dairy products, time allocated to cattle‐related tasks, number of labourers hired and total wage payments to hired labourers. The number of dairy cows owned has a large and statistically significant impact on household cash income; each cow owned increased income by at least 53% of the mean total income of households without dairy cows. Dairy cow ownership also increases consumption of dairy products by 1.0 litre per week, even though most of the increase in milk production is sold. The number of dairy cows has no significant effect on total labour for cattle‐related tasks. However, in contrast to previous studies, labour allocation to cattle by household members decreases and labour requirements for dairy cows are met primarily by an increase in hired labour. Dairy cow ownership results in relatively modest increases in payments to hired labourers and the number of hired labourers employed. The large positive impacts on income and the substitution of hired for household labour in cattle care suggest that intensification of smallholder dairying can be beneficial as a development strategy in the region if disease and feed constraints are addressed.     

Estimating Bargaining Effects in Hedonic Models: Evidence from the Housing Market

Bargaining is common in markets for heterogeneous goods and differences in bargaining power between buyer and seller affect the negotiated transaction price. Previous research has found systematic evidence in the housing markets that weak buyers pay higher prices and weak sellers receive lower prices for their homes. Earlier work has modeled the bargaining effect as a parallel shift in the hedonic function, implicitly assuming that attribute shadow prices were unaffected by the bargaining process. In this paper, we use a sample of home sales where the seller's bargaining power is weakened by the fact that the home is vacant at the time of sale to test whether the effect of bargaining is best captured by a shift in the hedonic constant or whether the attribute shadow prices vary as well. The question is significant for property valuation where estimation of the marginal value of an attribute is commonly used to adjust comparable sales data. We find strong confirmation that bargaining power influences the negotiated price. We also find evidence that bargaining power alters attribute prices, although we do not find a consistent pattern across markets.     

Requiem for a lightweight: The Northrop f-20 strategic initiative

This study focuses upon the recently discontinued F-20 program of the Northrop Corporation. Northrop's strategic initiative is analyzed historically and comparatively, and the implications of the program failure are discussed with respect to government procurement policy, defense contracting, international trade and arms transfer, and global competition in aerospace.     

Regulatory initiatives and related activities in the United States

Prevention of chemical incidents is an important issue in the chemical petroleum industries. This issue is receiving focus and attention from a wide spectrum—Industry, Labor, Professional Associations, Environmental Groups Government and the Public. The purpose of this paper is to review the various regulatory initiatives and related activities regarding chemical process safety.     

Strategic Internet application trends in supply chain management

The Internet is evolving as a powerful force in the new marketplace where the nexus of competition has changed from individual firms to efficient supply chain networks both between firms and within industries. This study explores Internet adoption patterns and operational applications in US supply chain networks. The data reveal that the integration of the Internet into supply chain management applications has increased and has moved away from indiscriminate application of novel Internet technologies towards becoming a focused endeavor with precise expectations and measurable goals. Specifically, the study finds that Internet usage within supply chains is maturing as evidenced by enhanced and increased productivity, reduced costs and increased profit for participating firms.     

Factors that influence the length of industrial channels

This article is concerned with the length of channels utilized to market industrial products. Several marketing scholars have proposed that the appropriate channel structure is a function of conditions associated with the market for the product, the nature of the product itself, and characteristics of the producer and middlemen. By means of a survey of industrial product manufacturers, this study identified six characteristics of middlemen, industrial markets, and industrial customers that appear to be significant influences on the length of channels used to distribute industrial products.