Geographic poverty traps? A micro model of consumption growth in rural China

How important are neighbourhood endowments of physical and human capital in explaining diverging fortunes over time for otherwise identical households in a developing rural economy? To answer this question we develop an estimable micro model of consumption growth allowing for constraints on factor mobility and externalities, whereby geographic capital can influence the productivity of a household's own capital. Our statistical test has considerable power in detecting geographic effects given that we control for latent heterogeneity in measured consumption growth rates at the micro level. We find robust evidence of geographic poverty traps in farm‐household panel data from post‐reform rural China. Our results strengthen the equity and efficiency case for public investment in lagging poor areas in this setting. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards an ethical dimension of decision making in organizations

There is a growing need to increase our understanding of ethical decision making in U.S. based organizations. The authors examine the complexity of creating uniform ethical standards even when the meaning of ethical behavior is being debated. The nature of these controversies are considered, and three important dimensions for ethical decision making are discussed: leaders with integrity and a strong sense of social responsibility, organization cultures that foster dialogue and dissent, and organizations that are willing to reflect on and learn from their actions. Leaders with integrity demonstrate consistency between vision and action that promotes trust, regularly concern themselves with developing moral standards, and are proactive agents of change in an increasingly complex world. Organizational cultures that support dialogue suspend judgments and increase their capacity to think together towards new levels of understanding. Ethical concepts evolve in these organizational cultures, and actions are informed and responsible. Organizations that reflect on their actions engage in double loop learning so that the time taken to reflect on the past and present leads to a more judicious and ethical future. In essence, the authors point to organizational guidelines for ethical decision making that lead to an increase in members' capacity to think and act ethically. Jonathan Z. Gottlieb is a consultant to organizations and a Ph.D. Candidate in Organizational Psychology. His interests include organization redesign, leadership and team development, ethics, and role definition for organization development practitioners. Jyotsna Sanzgiri is Dean of Organizational Psychology Programs at the California School of Professional Psychology — Alameda. She received her Ph.D. in business Administration and her M.B.A. Her interests include organizational theory and core values across cultures, and the historical underpinnings of organization development and behavior.     

Effects of Label on Consumer Preferences: Focus on Hawaiian Avocado Industry

This study examines market challenges facing a local agriculture industry in a small island setting. Examination of the Hawai‘i local avocado industry indicates labeling can address the product information gap between consumers and producers, improve market share, and increase import substitution by local products. Currently, local avocados occupy only 33% of market share, compared with 67% captured by imports. Consumer preferences among local labeled, local unlabeled, and imported avocados were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. Statistical results showed that labels influence consumers’ decisions to buy local or imported avocados, and their preferences were also influenced by sociodemographic variables, avocado characteristics, and purchasing behavior. Key market segments to target and policy implications are also discussed.     

Are Farmers' Market Shoppers Different From Cross-Shoppers? The Case of Hawaiian Avocado Purchasers

Small- and medium-size growers use direct marketing and farmers’ markets to access customers and avoid supply chain intermediaries that increase costs of getting products to consumers. This study examined consumers’ use of agricultural product information sources and their shopping outlet patronage preferences for one type of locally grown produce: avocados.

Two farmers’ market segments were identified: 1) shops only farmers’ markets and 2) cross-shops grocery stores. Product information came from a variety of sources: media, retailers, and organizations. “Buy Local” or “product origin” were considered in produce shopping decisions. One dimension, “Buy Local,” was significant in differentiating farmers’ market segments.     

Testing Uncovered Interest Rate Parity and Term Structure Using a Three‐regime Threshold Unit Root VECM: An Application to the Swiss ‘Isle’ of Interest Rates*

In this article, a three‐regime multivariate threshold vector error correction model with a ‘band of inaction’ is formulated to examine uncovered interest rate parity (UIRP) and expectation hypothesis of the term structure (EHTS) of interest rates for Switzerland. Combining both UIRP and EHTS in a model that allows for nonlinearities, we investigate whether the Swiss advantage is disappearing with respect to Europe. Our results favour threshold cointegration and show that both hypotheses hold, at least in one of the three regimes of the process for Switzerland/Germany. The same is not true between Switzerland and the United States.     

Implementing property tax reforms in Bangalore: an actor-network perspective

Many municipal governments in developing countries are experiencing serious difficulties in dealing with the rapid growth of population in cities. Catalysed through processes of globalisation, the growth of cities, especially the so-called ‘mega-cities’, has not been matched by investments in infrastructure like roads and power due to the inability of local government organizations to collect adequate revenues from sources like property tax. Recognizing these difficulties, agencies such as the Asian Development Bank have initiated systems for property tax reforms in a number of Asian cities, including Bangalore. In this paper, we discuss the story of this reform process drawing upon the actor-network perspective on translations. We argue that such a perspective helps to go beyond studying innovation processes through the lens of ‘technology diffusion’, and provides a more interesting and insightful perspective of ‘technology translation’.     

Pooling surveys in the estimation of income and price elasticities: An application to Tunisian households

This paper presents a methodological extension of Deaton's (1990) model for estimating price elasticities, by pooling Tunisian data from several surveys to improve the inter-cluster variability of unit values which is one of the key elements used in the derivation of these elasticities. Since the surveys cover a relatively long period, possible structural changes in consumption behaviour occurring over time are accounted for by postulating that certain response coefficients of the basic model vary from one survey to the other. The own price and cross price elasticities calculated using appropriate estimates of the extended model are satisfactory both from the economic point of view of their sign and the statistical point of view of their significance and superior to those obtained using a single survey. First version received: April 2000/Final version received: June 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  The authors would like to thank Angus Deaton and anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions.     

On Endogeneity Bias: Some General Remarks and Correction of the ROIW Paper by Bourguignon,Ferreira, and Menéndez (2007)

This paper is a short note on the question of correcting for endogeneity bias in a regression. It also points out errors and omissions in the derivation of this bias in Bourguignon, Ferreira, and Menéndez (2007). We show that some assumptions needed for the derivation are not explicit and even under these assumptions, certain simplifications adopted are not valid. We support our points using simulation experiments.     

Examining relational and resource influences on the performance of border region SMEs

At the U.S.–Mexico border, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are embedded in dual natured institutional and cultural contexts that share common functional and morphological characteristics. In this context firms are challenged by moving from one organizing template to another as embedded network influences constrain and enhance strategic outcomes. We develop and test a model of the impact of embeddedness components including social capital, personal relations and economic interaction on firm outcomes. Our results indicate that these components combine to influence the development of valuable resources and firm adaptation. We find that resources and adaptation significantly relate to SME performance.