Perception evaluation kit: a case study with materials and learning styles

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Materials are elements that configure our built environment and are key components in design and engineering education. This research aims...     

System of crop intensification for more productive,resource-conserving,climate-resilient,and sustainable agriculture: experience with diverse crops in varying agroecologies

With continually increasing demand for food accompanied by the constraints of climate change and the availability and quality of soil and water, the world’s farmers are challenged to produce more food per hectare with less water, and with fewer agrochemical inputs if possible. The ideas and methods of the system of rice intensification which is improving irrigated rice production are now being extended/adapted to many other crops: wheat, maize, finger millet, sugarcane, tef, mustard, legumes, vegetables, and even spices. Promoting better root growth and enhancing the soil’s fertility with organic materials are being found effective means for raising the yields of many crop plants with less water, less fertilizer, reduced seeds, fewer agrochemicals, and greater climate resilience. In this article, we review what is becoming known about various farmer-centred innovations for agroecological crop management that can contribute to agricultural sustainability. These changes represent the emerging system of crop intensification, which is being increasingly applied in Asian, African, and Latin American countries. More research will be needed to verify the efficacy and impact of these innovations and to clarify their conditions and limits. But as no negative effects for human or environmental health have been identified, making these agronomic options more widely known should prompt more investigation and, to the extent justified by results, utilization of these methodologies.     

Capital adjustment cost and inconsistency in income‐based dynamic panel models with fixed effects

After the seminal work of Nickell (1981), a vast literature demonstrates the inconsistency of ‘conditional convergence’ estimator in income‐based dynamic panel models with fixed effects when the time horizon (T) is short but the sample of countries (N) is large. Less attention is given to the economic root of inconsistency of the fixed effects estimator when T is also large. Using a variant of the Ramsey growth model with long‐run adjustment cost of capital, we demonstrate that the fixed effects estimator of such models could be inconsistent when T is large. This inconsistency arises because of the long‐run adjustment cost of capital which gives rise to a negative moving average coefficient in the error term. Income convergence will be thus overestimated. We theoretically characterize the order of this inconsistency. Our Monte Carlo simulation demonstrates that the size of the bias is substantial and it is greater in economies with higher capital adjustment costs. We show that the use of instrumental variables that take into account the presence of the negative moving average term in the error will overcome this bias.     

Redistributive innovation policy,inequality, and efficiency

We examine the efficiency and distributional effects of regressive and progressive public R&D policies that target high‐tech and low‐tech sectors using a heterogenous‐agent growth model with in‐house R&D and incomplete capital markets. We find that such policies have important implications for efficiency and inequality. A regressive public R&D investment financed by income tax could boost growth and welfare via a positive effect on individual savings and effort. It could, however, also lower growth and welfare via its effect on the efficiency–inequality trade‐off. Thus, the relationship between public R&D spending and welfare is hump‐shaped, admitting an optimal degree of regressivity in public R&D spending. Using our baseline model, and the US state‐level GDP data, we derive the degree of regressiveness of public R&D investment in US states. We find that US states are more regressive in their R&D investment than the optimal regressiveness implied by our growth model.     

Returns to Farm-Level Soil Conservation on Tropical Steep Slopes: The Case of the Eritrean Highlands

This study conducts an economic analysis of investment in simple soil conservation technologies in the highlands of Eritrea. The data used in the analysis were obtained from a farm survey and supplemented with data from secondary sources. Risk analysis techniques are used to take account of the uncertainties regarding the relationship between soil erosion and crop yield. The financial analysis reveals negative net present values (NPV_s) and internal rates of return (IRR_s) below 12 per cent for various slope categories. On the other hand, the economic analysis returns positive NPV_s and IRR_s of over 20 per cent. The results clearly indicate that investment in soil conservation technology may not be a viable short-term proposition from the farmer's point of view and yet the net social benefits are positive. There is a strong case for government to provide incentives for soil conservation in view of the economic benefits.     

Distributional effects of public policy choices

This paper examines the effects of a budget-neutral public spending allocation between public investment and private investment subsidy on inequality dynamics and intergenerational mobility in an environment with heterogeneous households and incomplete capital market.     

Impact of Ethiopia's productive safety net program on manure use by rural households: Evidence from Tigrai,Northern Ethiopia

Although development intervention programs can have far-reaching impacts beyond their stated objective, there have been few careful studies on associated but unintended outcomes of such programs. This study assesses the impact of membership in the public works component of Ethiopia's productive safety net program (PSNP) on whether households use manure and the amount of it they use. This is done using the double-hurdle method based on survey data of 2015 on 11 agro-climatically diverse districts of the Tigrai region in Northern Ethiopia. Results show that PSNP member households are not different from their nonmember counterparts in terms of manure use. This may indicate that PSNP is helping member households catch up with nonmember households in terms of manure use, even though they have smaller livestock ownership. This might indicate that PSNP member households are becoming more aware of the benefits of using manure, and hence are using available manure more efficiently. Therefore, this could be taken as one additional positive contribution of the PSNP in Ethiopia's endeavor to improve food security of poor rural farm households by increasing their productivity.     

IDIOSYNCRATIC AND AGGREGATE RISKS,INEQUALITY AND GROWTH

The paper disaggregates productivity shocks at a firm level into idiosyncratic and aggregate risks, and studies their impacts on inequality, growth and welfare. It develops a growth model with human capital and incomplete insurance and credit markets that provides a closed‐form solution for income inequality dynamics. We find that uninsured idiosyncratic risks are the most important determinants of inequality, growth and welfare. They are the source of nondegenerate wealth distribution. A lower weight of these shocks leads to lower steady‐state inequality, higher growth and welfare. A redistribution of income that serves as social insurance against such risks increases welfare and decreases inequality. But, it also decreases growth by distorting individual consumption and saving decisions.     

Young peoples’ involvement in global water issues

The world faces severe and growing challenges in maintaining water quality and in meeting the rapidly growing demand for water resources. As the present young people will be playing central roles in the future, the importance of understanding their views and paving way for their participation is of utmost importance. The involvement of young people in the “think globally, act locally” vision is illustrated here with the case of an international youth movement, the Young Water Action Team (YWAT¹).     

Determinants of CSR Reporting and Assurance: An Analysis of Top Cooperative and Mutual Organisations

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has greatly influenced business communication. CSR reporting has become the main tool through which organisations worldwide communicate their economic, social and environmental performance. Just as this practice is consolidated, the need for credible information in this area is critical. As a result, some companies subject their CSR reports to an assurance process. Several studies have analysed CSR reporting and assurance among stock companies, but few authors have developed a non‐stock firm perspective. Given the shortage of prior research, we analyse these practices, focusing on cooperative and mutual organisations because, as social enterprises, they have a special link with CSR, and they represent another kind of firm with different transaction costs. By combining statistical and content analysis methods, we aim to identify the determinants that influence the adoption of CSR reporting and assurance, the choice of assuror and the quality of assurance statements. The findings reveal that size is positively but non‐linearly related to reporting, while country and sector significantly affect the adoption of reporting and assurance. Assurance statements substantially differ across providers and their quality depends on size, sector and assuror, exhibiting interactions between size and assuror and between sector and assuror.