Multifactor productivity and its determinants: an empirical analysis for Mexican manufacturing

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we estimate production functions for the Mexican manufacturing sector and for 14 comprehensive groups, allowing us to construct various measures of multifactor productivity. Second, we analyse some of the determinants of productivity growth. We find that, on the one hand, there is a positive relationship between market concentration and technology adoption; on the other hand, both technology adoption and human capital promote productivity, whilst market concentration exerts a negative influence on it. Our results suggest that, once controlling for the effect on technology adoption, more concentration impacts negatively productivity growth.     

Gaining residents' support for tourism and planning

This research analyses residents' perceptions of the effects of tourism. Economic, cultural and environmental effects are identified as determinants of residents' attitudes towards tourism development and planning. Authors speculate that there are different patterns of resident's support depending on their differential benefits obtained from tourism. A conceptual model is developed and empirically tested in Santiponce, a small community in southern Spain. Our results support our basic hypothesis: resident's level of personal benefits obtained from tourism influence their perceptions regarding tourism impacts, and in consequence, their support for tourism development and for tourism planning. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A note on schooling and wage inequality in the public and private sector

The few studies that have examined the wage impact of education across the earning distribution have focused on high-income countries and show education to be more profitable at the top of the distribution. The implication is that education may increase inequality. Extending the analysis to 16 East Asian and Latin American countries, in Latin America we observe a pattern similar to that of Europe/North America (increasing wage effects), while in East Asia the wage effects are predominantly decreasing by earnings quantile. However, once the analysis is performed separately for the public and the private sector, it is revealed that the strongly decreasing impact of schooling on earnings in the public sectors of East Asian countries is responsible for the overall observed decreasing pattern, while the impact of schooling on earnings in the private sectors of these countries is non-decreasing.     

A time series model of fertility and female labour supply in the UK

Multiple time series procedures suitable for estimation and testing with nonstationary data are applied to UK data on age-specific fertility rates, age-specific female labour force participation rates, and women's and men's wages. Cointegration tests establish the existence of two long-run equilibrium relations, identified as a fertility relation and a labour supply equation, for each age group. Maximum likelihood estimates of these equations are consistent with the new home economics model of fertility, and tests of Granger-causality show evidence of extensive feedback among the variables.     

Measuring the functional efficiency of agricultural futures markets

This article presents a method for measuring the functional efficiency of agricultural futures markets in terms of social welfare using a standard futures market structural model. Employing the concept of social surplus, it can be shown that, when futures prices are used to estimate future spot prices, the errors in prediction produce to some degree resource misallocation, which in turn results in welfare losses. Therefore, the social welfare associated with the presence of futures markets can be measured using a Social Loss index. The indicator was calculated for the period 1975–2015 and for several subperiods, which allow us to analyse functional efficiency before and after the 2007–2008 spikes in the prices of agricultural commodities. Futures contracts for 12 products are evaluated. The products are grouped in three different categories: ‘soft products’, ‘livestock’ and ‘grains and oilseeds’. The results indicate that livestock contracts tended to be more efficient than the rest of the contracts during the whole period, but in 2008–2015 their efficiency decreased vis‐á‐vis the rest of the products. Nevertheless, 2008–2015 proved to be the most efficient subperiod, confirming the remarkable development of agricultural futures markets over time.     

Optimal Drug Control under Risk of Drug Resistance – The Case of African Animal Trypanosomosis

We examine two widely used treatment strategies for African animal trypanosomosis in West Africa: preventive drug control ex‐ante trypanosomosis infection and curative drug control ex‐post trypanosomosis infection. We investigate which combination of these alternative strategies is economically optimal for cattle farmers. We apply a dynamic optimisation framework to consider both the negative externality of drug resistance development and human behaviour. We develop a bio‐economic model to simulate the economic consequences of treatment strategies in a dynamic scenario that takes into account the interactions among the vector, host and livestock farmers. This model allows for the evolution of drug‐resistant trypanosomes through trypanocide misuse and simulates the observed behaviours of cattle farmers based on the elicited risk and time preferences of a sample of 202 cattle farmers in Mali and Burkina Faso. The results show that the private optimal mix of treatment strategies for a risk averse and patient farmer involves preventive treatment for susceptible cattle, supported by a small number of curative treatments for infected cattle. Compared with the treatment strategies observed in the field, this optimal mix of treatment strategies would save approximately 5% of the annual income of a livestock farmer in the study area and would reduce the prevalence of trypanosomosis. In addition, we demonstrate that a reduction in a farmer's risk aversion is associated with higher treatment rates that can avoid additional losses. By contrast, a decrease in a farmer's patience is related to lower treatment rates that thwart additional benefits. Our results suggest that individual risk and time preferences need to be considered in the development process of disease control interventions.