Livestock and land share contracts in a Hindu society

This article examines factors related to a livestock rental market in western Nepal and assesses whether this market is associated with caste differentiation and land rental market participation. Theoretical models for asset‐rich (i.e., high‐caste) households, rich in land and livestock, and asset‐poor (i.e., low‐caste families) households are presented to provide logical explanations for the existence of a livestock rental market and the synergy between livestock and land rental markets participation. A combination of double hurdle models and bivariate‐ordered probit models were used to test the implications of the models. Consistent with the theoretical models, land‐ and livestock‐rich high‐caste households were more likely to rent out land and/or livestock, whereas land‐ and livestock‐poor and credit constrained low‐caste households were more likely to rent livestock and land from others. Participation in the two markets was positively correlated, indicating a synergistic relationship that may be due to production and transaction costs reducing benefits. Policies that can enhance the allocative efficiency of livestock and land rental markets can improve equity as well as efficiency of land use in Nepal. Provision of livestock credit to land‐poor low‐caste households is also crucially dependent on their access to more long‐term contracts for land.     

Market Imperfections and Land Productivity in the Ethiopian Highlands

This study analyses how market imperfections affect land productivity in a degraded low‐potential cereal‐livestock economy in the Ethiopian highlands. A wide array of variables is used to control for land quality in the analysis. Results of three different selection models were compared with least squares models using the HC3 heteroskedasticity‐consistent covariance matrix estimator. Market imperfections in labour and land markets were found to affect land productivity. Land productivity was positively correlated with household male and female labour force per unit of land. Female‐headed households achieved much lower land productivity than male‐headed households. Old age of household heads was also correlated with lower land productivity. Imperfections in the rental market for oxen appeared to cause overstocking of oxen by some households. Conservation technologies had no significant positive short‐run effect on land productivity. The main results were consistent across the different econometric models.     

Learning from Doing Participatory Rural Research: Lessons from the Peak District National Park

Understanding the socio‐economic and environmental implications of rural change requires the active participation of many research disciplines and stakeholders. However, it remains unclear how to best integrate participatory and biophysical research to provide information useful to land managers and policy makers. This paper presents findings of a RELU scoping study that has formulated and applied a research framework based on stakeholder participation and adaptive learning to model rural change in the Peak District National Park in the north of England. The paper describes a learning process that integrates different types of knowledge to produce future scenarios that describe possible economic and environmental changes due to a national review of burning practices on heather moorland and blanket bogs. We stress the need for using social network analysis to structure stakeholder engagement and outline how a range of participatory approaches can facilitate more inclusive environmental planning and policy development.     

Understanding the determinants of environmentally conscious behavior

An understanding of the various motivational determinants of environmental consumer behavior is developed based on Batson's (1987) model of prosocial behavior. A correlational study finds support for two independent determinants of environmental behavior, the first being motivation based on internal responses of distress, the second being motivation based on empathy. The advantage of motivating environmental behavior through distress and empathy, over the more standard approaches based on attitudes and rewards or punishments, are discussed. In addition, the research supports the role of perceived consumer effectiveness and faith in others as determinants of some environmentally conscious consumer behaviors. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Do liquidity measures measure liquidity?

Given the key role of liquidity in finance research, identifying high quality proxies based on daily (as opposed to intraday) data would permit liquidity to be studied over relatively long timeframes and across many countries. Using new measures and widely employed measures in the literature, we run horseraces of annual and monthly estimates of each measure against liquidity benchmarks. Our benchmarks are effective spread, realized spread, and price impact based on both Trade and Quote (TAQ) and Rule 605 data. We find that the new effective/realized spread measures win the majority of horseraces, while the Amihud [2002. Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects. Journal of Financial Markets 5, 31–56] measure does well measuring price impact.