Examining rural income and employment in Bangladesh: A case of structural changes in the rural nonfarm sector in a developing country

This study uncovers some important stylised facts about the structural changes in the rural nonfarm (RNF) economy in Bangladesh for the period 2000–2016 and identifies some broad determinants. Our work uses household-level, secondary sources such as Household Income and Expenditure Survey, Labour Force Survey and Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey. We find that the positive relationship between landownership and rural income has become weaker in recent years, indicating the increasing role of nonland inputs in generating rural income. The share of RNF income in total rural income has increased substantially over the years. The increase in nonfarm income is largely driven by the nonfarm wage income of the richer households, indicating adverse distributional consequences. There are also indications for specialisation in nonfarm activities—the share of income from the ‘mixed’ sources of farm and nonfarm has decreased, and the ‘only nonfarm’ source has increased. Households tend to move away from agriculture and specialise in RNF occupations as the education level increases. Our results offer important insights into rural development strategies and contribute to the broader questions of the development discourse on the structural changes in developing countries.     

The Analysis of Welfare Effects of an Environmental Product Tax: An Application to the Taxation of Car Tyres in Hungary

A sophisticated welfare analysis developed by Morris and Kis (1996) is presented here for the study of the effect of a product charge tax on the car tyre market in Hungary. The analysis is extended and complemented in this paper by, first, using the AIDS model and an algorithm developed by Galarraga and Markandya (2000) to estimate demand elasticities from limited data and, second, including the income effects into the analysis. The latter does not have much impact on the results but the generalisation of the model might be useful for the analysis of different goods where the proportion of income spent on them is more important.     

Assessing the effect of alternative land uses in the provision of water resources: Evidence and policy implications from southern Europe

Ecosystem goods and services have been brought to the forefront of policy making all over the world. It is acknowledged that these goods and services underpin human well-being. The provision of water resources is amongst those services that have raised more attention, given its unquestionable value and global threats like climatic change. Nevertheless, the biophysical basis that determines the land-use/water interactions has been often ignored. For the formulation of sound decisions, it is necessary to extend the empirical basis that determines these complex relations. With this aim, the present paper analyses the effect of alternative types of land cover in the provision of water resources. In doing so, we compare hydrological, meteorological and land-cover data obtained in 15 watersheds located in the Basque Country (Northern Spain). Moreover we discuss the implications of including water resources in land-use policy and planning and address areas for further research.     

The Equivalency Principle for Discounting the Value of Natural Assets: An Application to an Investment Project in the Basque Coast

Making decisions about optimal investments in green infrastructure necessitates setting social discount rates. This paper suggests a practical way for determining the discount rate for projects or programmes in which one of the options is to maintain or restore land to an undeveloped state. We propose an “equivalency principle” to derive a simple rule that sets the discount rate. The rule is based on the premise that the long term value of a piece of undeveloped land ought to be at least the same as the value of an identical piece of land in the vicinity to which permission has been granted for development. We illustrate this principle with various case studies and we apply it to a contentious investment project in the Basque Country associated with the regeneration of a large scale harbour that involves reclaiming undeveloped land that has important ecological values, including for the conservation of a marine ecosystem.     

Systematic review of declarative tactical knowledge evaluation tools based on game-play scenarios in soccer

Quality & Quantity - In the last two decades, the analysis of tactical knowledge has become a research channel of increasing interest, contributing to the development of ad-hoc tools to carry...