‘Wiped From the Map of the World’? Zanzibar,Critical Geopolitics and Language

This essay uses the case of Zanzibar in its complicated relationship with the United Republic of Tanzania (of which it is a part) as a lens on debates in political geography on empirical and conceptual approaches to critical geopolitics. We test the veracity of a multi-faceted critical geopolitics in the contemporary public contestation of Zanzibar's place in the United Republic from 2008–2012. We analyze Tanzanian media, the speech acts of Tanzanian leaders, and the key events and processes related to what is termed the ‘Zanzibar problem’ during the selected years, to make two points about a critical geopolitics approach: to strengthen critical geopolitics by broadening the analysis of language to engage political acts and languages beyond the Global North; and taking ‘subaltern geopolitics’ more seriously via engagement with critical geopolitical voices on discourses, events and processes from the Global South.     

Was the Australian Meat and Live‐stock Corporation’s advertising efficient?

A theory of the allocation of producer levies earmarked for downstream promotion is developed and applied to quarterly series (1970:2–1988:4) on red-meats advertising by the Australian Meat and Live-stock Corporation. Robust inferences about program efficiency are contained in the coefficients of changes in promotion effort regressed against movements in farm price and quantity. Empirical evidence of program efficiency is inconclusive. While the deeper issue of efficient disbursement of funds remains an open question, there is evidence, at least, of efficient taxation.     

Tobit Estimation with Unknown Point of Censoring with an Application to Milk Market Participation in the Ethiopian Highlands

Data augmentation is a powerful technique for estimating models with latent or missing data, but applications in agricultural economics have thus far been few. This paper showcases the technique in an application to data on milk market participation in the Ethiopian highlands. There, a key impediment to economic development is an apparently low rate of market participation. Consequently, economic interest centers on the “locations” of nonparticipants in relation to the market and their “reservation values” across covariates. These quantities are of policy interest because they provide measures of the additional inputs necessary in order for nonparticipants to enter the market. One quantity of primary interest is the minimum amount of surplus milk (the “minimum efficient scale of operations”) that the household must acquire before market participation becomes feasible. We estimate this quantity through routine application of data augmentation and Gibbs sampling applied to a random‐censored Tobit regression. Incorporating random censoring affects markedly the marketable‐surplus requirements of the household, but only slightly the covariates requirements estimates and, generally, leads to more plausible policy estimates than the estimates obtained from the zero‐censored formulation. Augmenter le nombre de données est une technique puissante permettant d'estimer les modèles pour lesquels les données manquent ou sont latentes, mais, jusqu'à présent, on n'y a guère recouru en économie rurale. L'article que void illustre une application de cette technique aux données se rapportant à la participation des producteurs au marché laitier dans les hauts plateaux de l'Éthiopie. Le faible taux de participation apparent constitue un obstacle de taille au développemenl économique de la région. Par conséquent, pour l'économiste, il est inléressanl de savoir où les « non‐participants » se trouvent par rapport au marché et de jauger leurs « réserves » en fonction des autres variables. Les valeurs de ce genre présenlenl de l'intérêt au niveau de l'élaboration des politiques, parce qu'elles donnent une idée des intrants supplémenlaires qui convaincraient les non‐participants de faire leur entrée sur le marché. Une valeur d'un intérêt primordial est le volume minimal de lait excédentaire («échelle minimale d'efficacité») que le ménage doit acquérir avant de participer au marché. On a eslimé cette valeur en appliquant la technique d'augmentation des données de la façon habituelle et en appliquant l'échanlillonnage de Gibbs à une régression Tobit censurée au hasard. L'intégration d'une censuration aléaloire affecte de maniére appréciable le volume de lait excédentaire commercialisable dont le ménage a besoin, mais ne louche que légèrement la valeur estimative des covariables requises et, en général, débouche sur des estimations plus plausibles que celles oblenues sans censuration en ce qui concerne l'élaboration des politiques.     

Reworking the NAFTA: Departures from Traditional Frameworks

This paper reviews the treatment of intellectual property rights in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and considers the welfare‐theoretic bases for innovation transfer between member and nonmember states. Specifically, we consider the effects of new technology development from within the union and question whether it is efficient (in a welfare sense) to transfer that new technology to nonmember states. When the new technology contains stochastic components, the important issue of information exchange arises and we consider this question in a simple oligopoly model with Bayesian updating. In this context, it is natural to ask the optimal price at which such information should be transferred. Some simple, natural conjugate examples are used to motivate the key parameters upon which the answer is dependent. L'article que void analyse comment I' Accord de libre‐échange nord‐américain (ALENA) traite la protection de la propriété intellectuelle et s‘attarde sur les principes théoriques du bien‐Aêtre résultant du transfert de I' innovation entre etats membres et non membres. Plus précisément, I'auteur examine les consequences de I'élaboration d'une nouvelle technologie au sein de I'union économique et s'interroge sur I'efficacité (sous I'angle du bien‐être social) du transfert de cette technologie aux états non membres. L'importante question du partage de l'information surgit dès que la nouvelle technologie inclut des elements stochastiques. L'auteur étudie cette question en prenant pour modèle un simple oligopole actualisé par la méthode bayesienne. Dans un tel contexte, il est naturel de réclamer le prix optimal auquel il devrait y avoir partage de I' information. Quelques exemples simples, à conjugué naturel, servent à faire ressortir les principaux paramètres sur lesquels repose la réponse è la question examinée.     

Optimising foreign investments

Discussion about the positive and negative effects of foreign private investment has been going on for years. In the opinion of the authors, the varying benefits and costs of foreign investments to a host country suggest specific policies to optimise their mix.     

Does China's demand boom curb Australian iron ore mining depletion?

Australia's resources boom is underpinned by increased demand from industrialising China and a rise in export prices. Current depletion rates will soon exhaust currently known reserves of iron ore and coal. This paper presents a dynamic optimisation model of a growing open economy where a social planner chooses the time path for depletion of a non‐renewable resource during a demand‐led resources boom. We find that for particular functional forms and in the absence of extraction and social costs, the optimal depletion rate equals the difference between the price elasticity of export demand times the world interest rate and growth in export demand. In contrast to the existing literature, we show that the optimal depletion rate is unaffected by a temporary increase in price, but reduced by growth in demand which is in turn sustained by offshore steel production and urbanisation. The main theoretical implication is that growth in export demand from China reduces the depletion rate. Australian iron ore exports, simulated using this theory, move together with actual volumes over the period 1995–2011, and the error between simulated and actual iron ore exports is lower for the model in this paper than it is for the model without growth in export demand.     

Learning the master's trade: Apprenticeship and human capital in Ghana

This paper explores the institution of apprenticeship in Ghana. A model is presented where apprenticeship training is idiosyncratic, increasing an individual's productivity in the current firm, but not in any other firm. Still, individuals are willing to fund apprenticeships as they can reap the returns to the specific training of apprenticeship if they manage to acquire the capital required to start their own firms, and replicate the technology and business practice of the apprenticeship firm. Predictions of the model for the productivity and remuneration of different workers are developed and tested using both a linked employer–employee survey of manufacturing firms and a national household survey.     

用于在芯片直接贴装工艺中使用的连接和保护材料

在电子工业中，人们已经充分地认识到器件封装的发展趋势是引脚的间距会越来越小，最终的结果将是采用芯片直接贴装。为了便于转到使用裸芯片进行装配，连接和保护芯片的材料应当适合于装配可靠性要求甚高的集成电路，提供这种材料乃是材料供应商当仁不让的工作。     

Explosion in a nitric acid tail gas duct

This article relates the events leading to an explosion in the tail gas duct exit the expander, the probable explanation which allowed the formation of nitrites and the steps taken to ensure future safe operation.