Trade,Technology and the Labour Market: The Case of South Africa*

This study advances previous work on the effects of trade and technological change on labour markets within the framework of Heckscher–Ohlin trade theory. We provide evidence for an unskilled labour abundant developing country by employing dynamic heterogeneous panel estimation techniques. For South African manufacturing, trade‐mandated increases in earnings are positive for labour and negative for capital whilst technology‐mandated increases are negative for both factors. We also find it important to take account of endogeneity issues in analysing the impact of technology and price changes on factor returns and in isolating factor‐ and sector‐bias of technological changes.     

An Economic Analysis of Tenure in East Anglia Using Qualitative Data

For many years, the most commonly used data concerning tenure in England and Wales has dichotomised between two types: tenancy and owner occupation. However, other contract forms have become highly popular and landowners and farmers are faced with more than a simple two-way choice. This paper focuses on the share farming agreement which has proven to be very popular in East Anglia. Economic models have shown the efficiency of choosing share agreements when some market imperfection exists. In particular, when there are unmarketed inputs into the production process and two agents have a complementary distribution of these inputs, a contract which apportions the profits of farming - such as the share arrangement - would prove efficient given the presence of transactions costs. The endowments of the unmarketed input is often unobservable and agents only have subjective indicators of their distribution in a prospective contractor. The paper explores this qualitative feature of share farming. The research uses results from tape-recorded interviews to highlight the existence of unmarketed inputs and the importance farmers attach to accurately assessing this variable. The qualitative analysis also provides evidence that contract transactions costs are reduced through reputation building and signalling.     

Changing factor market conditions in South Africa: The capital market – a sectoral description of the period 1970–97

This article explores changing conditions in South African real capital markets. Noteworthy is the evidence of strong restructuring in this market during the 1990s. Whereas the 1970s and 1980s showed the best investment performance among primary commodity sectors and sectors with strong parastatal involvement, the highest investment rates of the 1990s have been associated with the manufacturing industry. We show that the real user cost of capital and capital productitivity contribute plausible determinants of investment rates in South Africa. The extent to which market forces are allowed to bring in line marginal cost and marginal return on capital appears to influence the sustainability of investment.     

Assessing the potential of SRI management principles and the FFS approach in Northeast Thailand for sustainable rice intensification in the context of climate change

The paper describes the facilitated learning process of farmers, its results and implications in addressing the low productivity of Jasmine rice in northeast Thailand using the SRI-FFS approach in a collaborative action research. Other involved included rice traders, millers, researchers, government and non-governmental organizations. Working through an inclusive process of dialogue, observation, diagnosis, experimentation and exposure to different types of innovative agronomic crop management (IACM) practices resulting from the SRI–FFS approach, participants made a thorough analysis of the current management practices and evaluated various IACM practices for their productivity and profitability. The results confirmed the potential of IACM in enhancing crop and water productivity along with soil fertility with relatively low input-use (seed, water and fertilizers) and higher net farm-income compared to existing crop management practices. However, factors such as (i) the age of the farmers and (ii) off-farm employment opportunity are key drivers that affect the crop management decision-making process. Therefore, exploration of value-added production alternatives and favourable policies is required to sustain IACM that can benefit farmers, consumers and the environment. The participation of policy-makers at the action research continuum is essential for effective follow up, scaling up and sustainability of such environmentally sound practices.