Economic returns to cowpea research,extension, and input distribution in Senegal

This paper calculates the rate of return to a set of cowpea research, extension and distribution projects in Senegal to be between 31% and 92%. The results show that a modestly funded program on a secondary crop can be successful. They also indicate that programs may increase their effectiveness by addressing specific household needs – in this case, by focusing on short-cycle varieties that provide food during the hunger season prior to the traditional harvest.     

European Agricultural Biotechnology Preferences and Policy: Growth and Trade Implications

European Union policies effectively prohibit the production and consumption of genetically modified agricultural products. This paper examines the prohibition's effects on research and development, innovation, trade flows, and economic growth using a Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson trade model with a neo‐ Schumpeterian approach. Restrictive European Union policies on biotechnology production and consumption result in: an effective export subsidy of capital to the South; changing trade flows; North America being the dominant producer of biotechnology research and development; the South being a dominant producer of biotechnology products; and the European Union being the dominant producer of traditional agricultural products.     

Strategic conduct in credit derivative markets

This paper reviews recent research at the intersection of industrial organization and corporate finance on credit default swap (CDS) markets. These markets have been at the center of the financial crisis of 2007–09 and many aspects of their operation are not well understood. The paper covers topics such as counterparty risk in CDS markets, the "empty creditor problem," "naked" CDS positions, super-senior status of credit (and other) derivatives in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and strategic behavior in CDS settlement auctions.     

The Sensitivity of Returns to Research Calculations to Supply Elasticity

Returns to research are thought to be robust under alternative supply elasticity assumptions. We show, both conceptually and numerically, how advances in approximating social benefits make returns to research sensitive to the supply elasticity. Despite this greater sensitivity, these advances retain conceptual and practical advantages. We make recommendations for dealing with the increased sensitivity.     

The Calculation of Returns to Research in Distorted Markets

Most of the empirical literature calculating rates of return to publicly sponsored research assumes that research is the only relevant government intervention. For most countries this assumption is untenable. This paper shows that improperly measuring government induced market distortions can severely bias research rate of return calculations. If the interaction between successful research and other government interventions increases the cost of the other interventions, then neglecting market distortions unambigously increases the calculated rate of return. Three examples of government induced distortions show that the magnitude of the upward bias in calculated rates of return can be extremely large - in some cases more than 100 percentage points. A normative implication is that governments should account for interactions between research and price interventions when determining research support levels. A positive implication is that existing government research funding patterns are more readily explainable as reasonable behavior by a government that accounts for these interactions.     

About the Economic Psychology of Public Debt

Intereconomics - Among the various means of public financing, public debt is a significant as well as controversial instrument. Previous economic research has mainly focused on different...     

An economic evaluation of SPREAD on Rwanda’s rural population

Sustainable Partnerships to Enhance Rural Enterprises and Agricultural Development (SPREAD) was a programme to enhance the value chain for commodities in Rwanda including coffee. The implicit concept was that improving the value chain would increase the incomes for smallholders and, hence, reduce the poverty rate. The results indicate that Rwanda coffee prices increased relative to an index price for traded coffee with the implementation of SPREAD. In addition, the results indicate that participation in the coffee market at this time was associated with higher household income and lower rates of poverty.