A Question of Integrity: Variants of Bt Cotton,Pesticides and Productivity in Pakistan

Bt cotton remains one of the most widely grown biotech crops among smallholder farmers in lower income countries, and numerous studies attest to its advantages. However, the effectiveness of Bt toxin, which depends on many technical constraints, is heterogeneous. In Pakistan, the diffusion of Bt cotton occurred despite a weak regulatory system and without seed quality control; whether or not many varieties sold as Bt are in fact Bt is also questionable. We utilise nationally representative sample data to test the effects of Bt cotton use on productivity. Unlike previous studies, we invoke several indicators of Bt identity: variety name, official approval status, farmer belief, laboratory tests of Bt presence in plant tissue, and biophysical assays measuring Bt effectiveness. Only farmer belief affects cotton productivity in the standard production model, which does not treat Bt appropriately as damage‐abating. In the damage control framework, all Bt indicators reduce damage from pests. Biophysical indicators have the largest effect and official approval has the weakest. Findings have implications for impact measurement. For policy‐makers, they suggest the need, on ethical and productivity grounds, to improve variety information and monitor variety integrity closer to point of sale.     

On the economics of nonprofit sellers: Output policies in community hospitals

In applications of the theory of the nonprofit firm it is commonly assumed that output and sales are equal. This paper proposes that the nonprofit firm may plan to produce, and actually produce, an output larger than it sells. We call such a strategy an "excess output" production policy. The policy can lead to chronic excess capacity, and it always implies that seller average revenue exceeds unit costs evaluated at the level of sales. Using the nonprofit community hospital as an example, the paper examines the characteristics of excess output policies and the possibilities for controlling their performance impacts. Data on a sample of U.S. community hospitals are used to test for the existence of excess output policies in the hospitals are used to test for the existence of excess output policies in the hospital sector. The results give qualified support for the conclusion that some hospitals follow excess output production policies.     

EQUIVALENCE SCALE SENSITIVITY OF POVERTY STATISTICS FOR THE MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Using microdata from Household Budget Surveys of the Member States of the European Community, this paper examines the sensitivity of poverty statistics with respect to the choice of the equivalence scale. The results show that the ranking of the countries with respect to the overall poverty incidence is hardly affected when different equivalence scales are used. However, the composition of the poor population shows considerable changes when e.g. subjective equivalence scales are used instead of the OECD equivalence scale. The poverty incidence among specific household groups, such as single elderly and households with children, is particularly sensitive to the choice of the equivalence scale.     

New Evidence on Active Ageing in Europe

Ensuring active ageing, i.e. the optimisation of opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age, is an important growth strategy for the EU. Achieving a successful active ageing policy will require a sea change in thinking about what ageing means in both economic and social terms.     

Ports in multi-level maritime networks: evidence from the Atlantic (1996–2006)

While maritime transport ensures about 90% of world trade volumes, it has not yet attracted as much attention as other transport systems from a graph perspective. As a result, the relative situation and the evolution of seaports within maritime networks are not well understood. This paper wishes verifying to what extent the hub-and-spoke strategies of ports and ocean carriers have modified the structure of a maritime network, based on the Atlantic case. We apply graph measures and clustering methods on liner movements in 1996 and 2006. The methodology also underlines which ports are increasing their position by carriers’ circulation patterns on various scales. This research demonstrates that the polarization of the Atlantic network by few dominant ports occurs in parallel with the increased spatial integration of this area by shipping lines.     

Unemployment,Vacancies and Conditions of Excess Demand for Labor in Canada

The explanation of state and local government expenditures has received considerable attention since Fabricant's study Trends in Government Activity Since 1900. These studies have been subject to at least two important shortcomings. One of their limitations stems from the estimation procedures used, while the other is the result of an incomplete model of the process underlying the determination of such expenditures. For the most part, past studies have used either cross-sectional data for a particular year or time series data for a single state. Consequently, the explanations resulting from these analyses either fail to capture the dynamic aspects of the problem in the first case, or remain localized to a particular state in the second. Since expenditure decisions are influenced by both historical events acting through time and economic, political, and demographic factors working at a point in time, studies which fail to integrate both types of information into the estimation process are imcomplete.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a methodology for using both types of information. Accordingly, the resulting technique is a more efficient approach for estimating state and local government expenditure determinants. The technique is a generalized Aitken estimator for a system of unrelated regressions and was first introduced by ZELLNER (1962). The second problem with past research is the result of the inadequacy of our models for public goods and collective consumption in general, the decision process underlying public provision of goods and services has not been subjected to comprehensive modeling. ^{1 1} Some work has begun in this area. See HAEFELE (1970, 1971, 1972) as well as the references he cites. Therefore empirical analyses of expenditure patterns have been based on incompletely developed models. Our approach will be to suggest a model which is representative of the existing literature, sketch its theoretical foundation, and discuss the areas for future research. The present paper will not, however, attempt to develop a more complete model of the public decision process.

Section I of the paper briefly summarizes the primary research efforts in this area. It is followed by an explanation of the model and of the technique used for this study. Section IV presents the results for nine expenditure categories for state and local governments in the U.S. in 1957, 1962, and 1967. The last section summarizes the conclusions of the paper and discusses the scope for further research.     

The role of customer satisfaction in enhancing customer loyalty in Malaysian Islamic banks

This study examines the role of customer satisfaction in enhancing the loyalty of Muslim and non-Muslim customers in the Malaysian Islamic banking industry. Respondents are the customers (Muslim and non-Muslim customers) visiting the bank counters and have an account with Islamic banks. A total of 660 questionnaires were distributed, and 440 were returned. The results indicate that customer satisfaction has a statistically significant positive effect on customer loyalty and intentions to switch for Muslim and non-Muslim customers. However, there were significant differences in the effects of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty and intention to switch for Muslim and non-Muslim customers. The effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty and intention to switch is greater for the non-Muslim than the Muslim customers.     

The balance sheet channel of monetary policy: the panel evidence of Egypt

This paper examines the effects of monetary policy on firms’ investments in Egypt using disaggregated data and generalized method of moments (GMM) technique. It develops the neoclassical investment model by adding the interaction between user cost of capital and cash flow (CF). Therefore, monetary policy affects investment through three effects: user cost of capital, CF and interaction between them. Using a sample of 124 firms, the empirical finding supports the relevance of balance sheet channel (BSC) and the heterogeneous effect of monetary policy on investment. This finding signals that monetary authority should take cognizance of the stability of interest rate to stabilize firm-level investment.