Measuring progress in agricultural sustainability to support policy-making

The concept of sustainability is one of the forefront issues in discussions of the challenges facing global agriculture, given the mounting pressure to increase food production in both socially responsible and environmentally friendly ways. From the perspective of Irish agriculture, sustainable intensification is of particular relevance, given ambitious targets to increase milk production in the context of European Union (EU) milk quota removal in 2015. A series of farm-level sustainability indicators are developed here using the Teagasc National Farm Survey FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) data for Ireland from 2012. Three dimensions, reflecting the multifaceted nature of sustainability (environmental, economic and social) are considered. Given the environmental challenges inherent in the sustainable intensification of agriculture, it is encouraging to observe that the more intensive, top performing farms (in an economic sense) emit relatively less greenhouse gases when compared to their less intensive counterparts. Conversely, the better performing farms in economic terms tend to have a higher nitrogen surplus per hectare on average. This is consistent with their higher rates of production intensity, but poses a challenge in terms of sustainable intensification and expansion. That said this analysis demonstrates that the nitrogen use efficiency of milk production is positively correlated with economic performance, with more intensive farms producing relatively more milk per kilogram of nitrogen surplus. From the perspective of social sustainability, demographic traits also tend to be positively correlated with economic performance. Given a growing recognition of the need for interconnected policy in the area of sustainability, this research should help inform policy debates and provides a guide for the undertaking of similar assessments elsewhere.     

Worth the Risk? The Behavioural Path to Well‐Being

There is increasing interest in the ‘economics of happiness’, reflected in the volume of articles appearing in mainstream economics journals exploring the major determinants of self‐reported well‐being. We contribute by exploring the factors influencing how satisfied farmers are with their quality of life. We find that farm income, subjective perceptions relating to the adequacy of household income, debt, health and personal characteristics such as age and relationship status are significantly associated with farmers’ self‐reported life satisfaction. While significantly associated with farm income, farm structural variables such as farm size, farm type and the presence of a farm successor were not found to be significantly related with life satisfaction. Our results also suggest that farmers who are more risk averse enjoy significantly lower levels of both life satisfaction and farm income than their more risk seeking or risk neutral counterparts. We suggest that, in the same way that risk aversion inhibits farmers from making choices that could lead to an increase in their income, it may also constrain farmers (and the wider public at large) from engaging in certain types of behaviours that could lead to an increase in their self‐reported quality of life. Finally, we find that while farm income is significantly related to self‐reported life satisfaction, the direct correlation between these variables is weak, suggesting that farmer life satisfaction can be distinct from business success.     

The use of intellectual capital information in investment decisions: An empirical study using analyst reports

Do financial analysts convey intellectual capital information in their recommendations? This study of a sample of analyst reports on large, listed Spanish companies provides some evidence on the question. Analysts usually report information regarding a company's strategy, customers, and processes; they less often provide information about research, development, and innovation. When controlling for endogeneity, we find that certain firm characteristics appear to influence the use of intellectual capital information. Analysts use this information in the case of highly profitable companies. The results also show a significant effect of growth opportunities on intellectual capital disclosure by financial analysts.     

Exploring the link between cause‐related marketing and brand building

The use of cause‐related marketing (CRM) is increasing around the world and provides benefits to both firms and causes, by linking the two organisations together. Most of the CRM literature examines this strategy from a for‐profit perspective. This paper examines how this literature could be equally applicable to examining CRM from a not‐for‐profit perspective. That is CRM programmes can positively and negatively impact on a not‐for‐profit's brand, which is frequently its most valuable asset. In this way CRM can be related to a number of not‐forprofit brand and brand equity issues including brand awareness, brand attitude and intention to support the CRM programme. Copyright © 2000 Henry Stewart Publications     

Bootstrap refinements for QML estimators of the GARCH(1,1) parameters

This paper reconsiders a block bootstrap procedure for Quasi Maximum Likelihood estimation of GARCH models, based on the resampling of the likelihood function, as proposed by Gonçalves and White [2004. Maximum likelihood and the bootstrap for nonlinear dynamic models. Journal of Econometrics 119, 199–219]. First, we provide necessary conditions and sufficient conditions, in terms of moments of the innovation process, for the existence of the Edgeworth expansion of the GARCH(1,1) estimator, up to the k$k$-th term. Second, we provide sufficient conditions for higher order refinements for equally tailed and symmetric test statistics. In particular, the bootstrap estimator based on resampling the likelihood has the same higher order improvements in terms of error in the rejection probabilities as those in Andrews [2002. Higher-order improvements of a computationally attractive k$k$-step bootstrap for extremum estimators. Econometrica 70, 119–162].     

Localization of staff in a hostile context: an exploratory investigation in Afghanistan

Abstract

Hostile environments pose a distinct threat to international organizations and their staff and yet they are under researched within the literature on IHRM. Localization of staff may present a means to manage some of the risks and also to provide the resources needed to achieve competitive advantage. Drawing on the resource-based view and institutional theory, we explored resource- and capability-based and institutional influences in relation to the decision of whether to localize professional staff in a hostile environment (Afghanistan). Using in-depth semi-structured interviews with representatives from four organizations in Afghanistan, our investigation identified new influences on localization at the societal and organizational level. These include ongoing security issues as well as influences on localization such as corruption, impartiality and the need for outside experiences as well as perspectives not identified in previous work. In addition, we emphasize the importance of both picking appropriate valuable local human resources and using appropriate internal capabilities to develop and deploy them in such a way to build firm-specific assets which are also rare, inimitable and non-substitutable, thus leading to sustainable competitive advantage.     

Discrete representations of a continuum economy

We consider an atomless economy in which the continuum of agents is represented by a real interval. By dividing the interval and associating to every agent in each subinterval the same initial endowments and preferences, we define sequences of discrete economies as approximations to the initial continuum economy. We obtain convergence results for the core (or, alternatively, for the set of Walrasian allocations) of the continuum economy in terms of the cores of the approximating discrete economies. Finally, we state some counterexamples which provide a boundary for more general results in this framework. Received: 29 December 2000 / Accepted: 28 April 2002 C. Hervés and E. Moreno acknowledge support by Research Grant BEC2000-1388-C04-01 from the Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica (DGICYT), Spanish Ministry of Education.?E. Moreno acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Education through a post-doctoral fellowship in 1997 and from a Training and Mobility of Researchers (E.C.) fellowship in 1998 while visiting Universidade Nova de Lisboa.     

Spatial Price Adjustment with and without Trade*

We investigate the possibility that price transmission between spatially distinct markets might vary during periods with and without physical trade flows. We test for differences between trade and non‐trade regimes by using generalized reduced rank regression (GRRR) techniques suggested by Hansen (2003) . We apply these techniques to semi‐weekly price and trade flow data for tomato markets in Zimbabwe and find that intermarket price adjustment occurs in both trade and non‐trade periods. Indeed, the adjustments are generally larger and more rapid in periods without physical trade flows. This finding underscores the importance of information flow for market performance.     

Effect of type 1 diabetes on school performance in a dynamic world: new analysis exploring Swedish register data

This paper investigates if the effect of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) on school performance, documented in prior research, has changed in more recent birth cohorts of children using national Swedish population register data. The issue is of interest because management and treatment of the disease have improved over the last decades and, furthermore, because of changes in the educational grading system. Despite these changes, data indicate a persistent negative effect of T1DM on compulsory and upper secondary school grades with a standardized effect size of ?0.109 and ?0.070, respectively, and the results appear only marginally smaller compared to earlier findings in cohorts completing school under the previous grading system. Moreover, the results are consistent for alternative model specifications and econometric estimation strategies. Whereas access to new treatment technologies and improved diabetes management strategies has reduced the burden of diabetes in daily life, the results from this study indicate that continued efforts are needed to improve the situation in school for children with T1DM to prevent potential long-term socio-economic consequences.