Examining variation in economic performance using fuzzy-sets

How to account for variation in economic performance across countries and periods? This paper proposes a new substantive and methodological approach. Substantively, we focus on variation in overall performance: the combination of growth, employment, and debt. We construct eight models using these variables and analyze countries’ fit to them. Methodologically, we employ fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The analysis of 19 OECD countries between 1975 and 2005 fails to support traditional hypotheses about partisanship, central bank independence, trade openness, and corporatism. Instead, different combinations of conditions are conducive to good performance and these differ across periods and countries.     

Environmental impacts of fat blends

Environmental Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) has emerged over the past years as a method to assess environmental impacts of products and processes. In this case study we use LCA to obtain an environmental measure for refined oils, which are inputs for fat blends. As a start, an inventory is drawn up of the environmental effects of the oils. Then we use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to aggregate the scores of these effects to one environmental index for each oil. This multiple criteria decision tool involves making pairwise comparisons between the environmental effects, resulting in relative weight factors. Multiplying the effect scores with the relative weights yields an environmental index. It is now possible to improve the environmental impact of a fat blend composition using the environmental index in a linear programming (LP) blending model. With this combination of methods, environmental aspects of products can become part of product portfolio management.     

Public works programmes and agricultural risk: Evidence from India

The agricultural sectors in many low- and middle-income countries remain highly vulnerable to weather risk, a vulnerability that will only intensify under climate change. The globally trending public works programmes have the potential to impact weather-related agricultural risk. I explore the impact of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) on weather-related agricultural risk. My empirical strategy explores the staggered roll-out of NREGA and random weather fluctuations. Using a nationwide panel of data, I find that NREGA makes crop yields more sensitive to low rainfall shocks. I posit that these results are consistent with a labour market channel, by which NREGA increases nonfarm labour supply in low rainfall years, and an income channel, by which NREGA leads to riskier agricultural practices. These results highlight the importance of understanding how social protection programmes shape agricultural risk.