Sharecropping efficiency in Ethiopia: threats of eviction and kinship

We tested a theoretical model with the Marshallian inefficiency (H1) and threat of eviction (H2) hypotheses having opposite effects on land productivity on sharecropped plots. The model also assumes that kinship contracts may eliminate or reduce the Marshallian inefficiency (H3) and threat of eviction (H4) effects on land productivity. Our empirical findings were consistent with H2 and H4 being true. We found higher land productivity on sharecropped plots than on share tenants' own plots and higher land productivity on sharecropped plots of nonkin than of kin tenants. The nature of the data allowed controlling for unobservable household characteristics through household fixed effects and for observable plot characteristics. Analyses with and without plot characteristics revealed that these findings were stronger with plot characteristics than without them. Based on the plausible assumption that observable plot characteristics are positively correlated with unobservable plot characteristics this strengthens our conclusion. The results are also supported by first-order stochastic dominance analysis. Sharecropped plots' output value distribution unambiguously dominated the output value distribution from share tenants' own plots. Nonkin sharecropped plots' output value distribution also first-order stochastically dominated the output value distribution from kin sharecrop plots.     

Tenants’ land access in the rental market: evidence from northern Ethiopia

The purpose of this study is to investigate the allocation efficiency in the tenancy market, and thereby the potential of the market to facilitate operational farm size adjustment that can help land‐poor tenant households to transform into smallholder commercial farms. We analyzed three rounds of balanced panel data for the production seasons 2005–2006, 2009–2010, and 2014–2015 collected from 320 smallholder farms in Tigrai region in northern Ethiopia. Random effects dynamic probit and tobit models are used to assess how land‐poor tenants’ access and extent of access to land are affected by state dependency (earlier participation in the market), kinship ties, climate shocks, and legal restrictions. The results indicate that state dependency and kinship ties with the landholder had strong positive effects on participation and intensity of participation. Climate shocks significantly affected the intensity of participation of tenants already in the rental market. Tenants’ overall access to rented land had not improved from 2005–2006 to 2014–2015. The amount of land accessed by those already in the market was insufficient for them to become commercial farmers. The important policy implication is that orchestrated interventions at community level are needed to reduce transaction costs and thereby improve land access of entrepreneurial tenants.     

Forecasters face the future

The Eighth International Symposium on Forecasting was held on June 12–15 1988 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It was sponsored by the International Institute of Forecasters in collaboration with The University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam. This article reports on the proceedings of the conference.     

Using scenarios to explore UK upland futures

Uplands around the world are facing significant social, economic and environmental changes, and decision-makers need to better understand what the future may hold if they are to adapt and maintain upland goods and services. This paper draws together all major research comprising eight studies that have used scenarios to describe possible futures for UK uplands. The paper evaluates which scenarios are perceived by stakeholders to be most likely and desirable, and assesses the benefits and drawbacks of the scenario methods used in UK uplands to date. Stakeholders agreed that the most desirable and likely scenario would be a continuation of hill farming (albeit at reduced levels) based on cross-compliance with environmental measures. The least desirable scenario is a withdrawal of government financial support for hill farming. Although this was deemed by stakeholders to be the least likely scenario, the loss of government support warrants close attention due to its potential implications for the local economy. Stakeholders noted that the environmental implications of this scenario are much less clear-cut. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the full implications of this scenario, so that upland stakeholders can adequately prepare, and policy-makers can better evaluate the likely implications of different policy options. The paper concludes that in future, upland scenario research needs to: (1) better integrate in-depth and representative participation from stakeholders during both scenario development and evaluation; and (2) make more effective use of visualisation techniques and simulation models.     

Woman to women: Social marketing an idea to the new world

In 1971, Kotler and Zaltman developed a formal planning process for social marketing. But this article highlights the marketing of the idea of Britain's moral cause to American women in 1939–41, a clever example of social marketing thinly disguised to avoid the abhorrence attached to propaganda. The authors show how Ruth Drummond's letters in Ladies' Home Journal contain an effective mix of communication elements dedicated to winning women to a way of thinking that they had rejected initially. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The HAMP NPV Model: Development and Early Performance

The foreclosure crisis that began in 2008 triggered the need for new approaches to treat distressed mortgages. A key component of the Obama Administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was the development of a standardized Net Present Value (NPV) Model to identify troubled loans that were value‐enhancing candidates for payment‐reducing modifications. This article discusses the development of the HAMP NPV Model, 1 its purpose and some important constraints that dictated its structure and limitations. We describe the structure and the estimation of the model in detail. We also describe the responsiveness of the model to key characteristics, such as loan‐to‐value and credit score, as well as provide new evidence on the relationship between HAMP modification performance and key borrower and modification characteristics. The article concludes with a discussion of model limitations and the future role of systematic loan modification using NPV analysis.     

Should We Worry about Government Debt? Thoughts on Australia's COVID-19 Response

No. While the COVID-19 crisis has required a dramatic increase in debt-financed government spending, in the current conditions the benefits from this debt are unusually high and the costs unusually low. While conditions can change, the Australian Government can right now hedge against these risks by lengthening the maturity structure of government debt, even at the cost of a modest increase in its current servicing costs.     

“Large” versus “Small” Players: A Closer Look at the Dynamics of Speculative Attacks

What is the role of “large players” (e.g., hedge funds) in speculative attacks? Recent work suggests that large players move early to induce smaller agents to attack. However, many observers argue that large players move late in order to benefit from interest‐rate differentials. We propose a model in which large players can do both. Using data on currency trading by foreign (large) and local (small) players, we find that foreign players moved last in three attacks on the Norwegian krone during the 1990s. During the attack on the Swedish krona after the Russian moratorium in 1998, foreign players moved early. Gains by delaying attack were small, however, because interest rates did not increase.