An Investigation of Industry Associations,Association Loops and Economic Complexity: Application to Canada and the United States

Various methods were proposed to understand the linkages in an input-output system; however, many have focused only on the identification of key sectors in the economy. An alternative approach, identifying analytically the importance of elements and combinations of elements was proposed as a field of influence theory (Sonis et al. , 1996). The purpose of this paper is to offer a complementary approach to the field of influence and the so-called 'Matrioshka principal' (Sonis & Hewings, 1990); the objectives are to identify simple row-column associations (i.e. statistical dependence), seek hierarchical associations between supply and demand in input-output systems and the decomposition of economic complexity into finite stages. For the identification of simple dependencies between rows and columns, we use a log-linear regression and for hierarchical associations and the identification of complexity stages, we use the data analysis technique known as dual scaling. Results of both approaches will be applied to input-output tables of the US and Canada.     

Ranking of Research Output of Agricultural Economics Departments in Canada and Selected U.S. Universities

In this paper, we rank agricultural economics departments in Canada on the basis of research output as measured by citations, publications, and publications weighted by journal impact factors. The data we employ are from the ISI Web of Science and cover the period 2000–07. In this ranking we include three departments from the United States to assess the performance of Canadian institutions relative to U.S. departments. We also investigate how publication output is affected by academic rank. Several Canadian departments compare favorably to some of the U.S. departments. Dans cet article, nous classant les départements d’économie agricole au Canada sur la base du nombre de citations, de publications et de publications pondéré par les coefficients d’impact des revues scientifiques. Les données sont disponibles à partir de ISI Web of Science^® et couvrent la période 2000–07. Dans ce classement, nous incluant trois départements des Etats-Unis pour évaluer la performance des départements Canadiens par rapport à ceux-ci. Nous examinons aussi l’effet du rang académique sur les publications. Plusieurs départements Canadiens sont très comparables à quelques départements des Etats-Unis.     

Marketing Olive Oil Products in the Tunisian Local Market: The Importance of Quality Attributes and Consumers' Behavior

This article is, to the best of our knowledge, the first investigation of Tunisian olive oil consumer behavior by the use of the conjoint analysis technique. The conjoint experiment was based on carefully selected olive oil attributes: type, taste, color, packaging, region of origin, and price. The results have important implications to improve the marketing of olive oil in the local market by focusing on key preferred attributes. Consumers were found to prefer more extra-virgin, followed by virgin olive oil, to pomace oil. They also showed higher preference for green colored olive oil with strong flavored taste. Contrary to a common belief in Tunisia, the region of origin attribute did not show significant effect on consumers’ purchasing decisions. The results show also that Tunisian olive oil consumers are price sensitive and therefore any price strategy to introduce bottled products should take into account consumers’ preferences for bulk purchase.     

Irrigation Technology Adoption and Gains from Water Trading under Asymmetric Information

We develop a water allocation and irrigation technology adoption model under the prior appropriation doctrine with asymmetric information among heterogeneous farmers and between farmers and water authorities. We find that adverse selection reduces the adoption of modern irrigation technology. We also show that even with asymmetric information, incentives for water trade exist and lead to additional technology adoption with gains to all parties. This suggests that under asymmetric information, a thin secondary market improves the allocation of water resources and induces additional adoption of modern irrigation technologies.     

Optimal pricing of a two-sided monopoly platform with a one-sided congestion effect

This paper studies the optimal pricing of a two-sided monopoly platform when one side is affected by congestion. We show that the divide-and-conquer pricing strategy (or skewed pricing) depends not only on the relative magnitude of the sides’ price elasticities of demand but it also depends on the marginal congestion cost that an agent imposes on the others. Compared with the no-congestion case, this pricing strategy gives rise to some interesting features that violate the results of Rochet and Tirole (J Eur Econ Assoc 1:990–1029 in 2003, Rand J Econ 37:645–667 in 2006). In the case of equal price elasticities of demand, the no-congested side is charged the highest price. On the other hand, in the case of different price elasticities, the platform congestion pricing depends on a certain threshold of the marginal congestion cost. We show, under some conditions, that the divide-and-conquer pricing strategy is reversed. In the social context, the Rochet and Tirole’s (J Eur Econ Assoc 1:990–1029 in 2003) cost allocation condition is modified by the congestion cost. We show that the congestion does not only affect the buyers’ contribution to the sellers’ surplus, but it also affects the sellers’ contribution to the buyers’.