credit market constraints consumption smoothing and the accumulation of durable production assets in low income countries investments in bullocks in india in this paper we formulate and estimate a finite horizon structural dynamic model of agricultural investment behavior that incorporates the major features of low income agricultural environments income uncertainty constraints on borrowing and rental markets and the use of investment assets to generate income and smooth consumption the model is fit to longitudinal indian household data on farm profits bullock stocks and pump sets the estimated structural parameters are used to assess the effects on the life cycle accumulation of bullocks agricultural profits and welfare associated with complete markets and bullock liquidity and with second best policies that provide assured sources of income to farmers and weather insurance

progress in renewable energy under clean development mechanism in india abstract kyoto protocol was the first agreement regarding control of climate change problems clean development mechanism cdm was included in the kyoto protocol to promote sustainable development in developing countries non annex i countries and assist developed countries annex i countries to achieve their emission reduction targets cdm allows trading of emissions reductions and helps to increase sustainable development in a developing country and reduce global emissions in developed country renewable energy sources are the appropriate alternatives for sustainable development through cdm india is one of the emerging nations in renewable energy sector government of india is trying to enhance energy generation through renewable and carbon trading this paper shows the current status and progress of renewable energy through cdm in india

encouraging the implementation of small renewable electricity cdm projects an economic analysis of different options abstract apart from contributing to the mitigation of ghg emissions the deployment of renewable electricity clean development mechanism projects re cdm may provide substantial local economic social and environmental sustainability benefits to host countries however in spite of these advantages a wide array of barriers prevents the realisation of these projects they compete with other cdm options which lead to cheaper ghg emissions reductions but which do not provide as much opportunities for sustainable development in developing countries taking into account that in contrast to ghg benefits sustainability benefits are not valued in the market place and that article 12 of the kyoto protocol envisages two objectives for the cdm cost effective emissions reductions and contribution to sustainability this market mechanism might be leading to a market failure in re cdm projects this paper explores the different barriers affecting the implementation of re cdm projects and proposes and analyses several policies and measures that could be implemented to encourage their deployment by tackling those obstacles

risk and insurance in a rural credit market an empirical investigation in northern nigeria credit contracts play a direct role in pooling risk between households in northern nigeria repayments owed by borrowers depend on realizations of random shocks by both borrowers and lenders the paper develops two models of state contingent loans the first is a competitive equilibrium in perfectly enforceable contracts the second permits imperfect information and equilibrium default estimates of both models indicate that quantitatively important state contingent payments are embedded in these loan transactions but that a fully efficient risk pooling equilibrium is not achieved the research is based on a year long survey in zaria nigeria conducted by the author

can voluntary approaches ever be efficient abstract despite their growing use only a few theoretical descriptions on the efficiency of voluntary approaches can be found this paper summarises the findings in this field so far it analyses the efficiency of voluntary approaches in three different ways 1 voluntary approaches as a bargaining process over abatement levels 2 voluntary approaches as a way to diminish informational asymmetries and 3 voluntary approaches as a voluntary over compliance mechanism from the models it seems as if the efficiency of voluntary approaches depends on several factors public supply of information auditing and the exchange of information between the negotiating parties are important elements further positive and negative inducements by the regulator can create incentives for the industry to engage in voluntary approaches also consumers demand for environmental quality can affect the environmental performance by industry either by the lobbying of interest groups or by a demand for products produced under environmental considerations

migration to the united states and mexican rural development a case study an analysis of the impact of migration to the united states on the sending community and on the labor market in the receiving country is presented based on a case study of las animas mexico as the community becomes increasingly involved in migration tendencies can be identified regarding changing migration patterns class differentiation among villagers impact of migration on village economy and the changing role of mexican workers in california labor markets results indicate the importance of social networks in determining the outcome of migration while migration is individually rational it is a factor of stagnation for village economy and it helps reproduce segmented california labor markets excerpt

cdm potential of spv pumps in india so far the cumulative number of renewable energy systems such as solar photovoltaic spv irrigation pumps in the agriculture sector in india is far below their theoretical potential despite government subsidy programmes one of the major barriers are the high costs of investments in these systems the clean development mechanism cdm provides industrialized countries with an incentive to invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries to achieve a reduction in co2 emissions at lowest cost that also promotes sustainable development in the host country solar photovoltaic spv irrigation pumps could be of interest under the cdm because they directly displace greenhouse gas emissions while contributing to sustainable rural development however there is only one spv project under the cdm so far

peasant household behaviour with missing markets some paradoxes explained a model of peasant household behavior under varying degrees of household specific food and labor market failures is constructed to show that these structural features can explain several well known patterns of peasant response which have often been attributed to peculiar motives presumed specific to peasants the model explains sluggish response to cash crops prices and high instability in perceived food and labor scarcities the key role of manufactured consumer goods prices in stimulating peasants effort in cash crops production the effectiveness of taxation as opposed to incentives in stimulating cash crops production and the key role of technological change in food production to enhance cash crop production results are obtained analytically in the case of one market failure and by numerical simulation with more than one

progress and challenges in utilization of palm oil biomass as fuel for decentralized electricity generation it has been broadly accepted worldwide that global warming indeed is the greatest threat of the time to the environment renewable energy re is expected as a perfect solution to reduce global warming and to endorse sustainable development progressive release of greenhouse gases ghg from increasing energy intensive industries has eventually caused human civilization to suffer realizing the exigency of reducing emissions and simultaneously catering to needs of industries researchers foresee the re as the perfect entrant to overcome these challenges re provides an effective option for the provision of energy services from the technical point of view while biomass a major source of energy in the world until before industrialization when fossil fuels become dominant appears an important renewable source of energy and researches have proven from time to time its viability for large scale production being a widely spread source biomass offers the execution of decentralized electricity generation gaining importance in liberalized electricity markets the decentralized power is characterized by generation of electricity nearer to the demand centers meeting the local energy needs researchers envisaged an increasing decentralization of power supply expected to make a particular contribution to climate protection this article investigates the progress and challenges for decentralized electricity generation by palm oil biomass according to the overall concept of sustainable development

determinants and effects of income diversification amongst farm households in burkina faso using four years of household data from three agroecological zones in burkina faso sahelian sudanian and guinean the article examines the determinants and effects of household income diversification harvest shortfalls and terms of trade are found to drive diversification but land constraints do not income diversification is associated with higher incomes and food consumption and more stable income and consumption over years

development challenges under the clean development mechanism cdm can renewable energy initiatives be put in place before peak oil abstract the sustainable development aspect of the clean development mechanism cdm under the kyoto protocol is examined with regard to its current impact on crucial developmental issues the paper discusses the immediate and urgent global concerns of developmental needs energy and climate change whilst highlighting their influence on the poor in the developing world the global responses to address the above concerns in terms of renewable energy technologies policies and strategies that can be instrumental in addressing the issues are discussed with main emphasis on the cdm under the kyoto protocol the critical issue of whether the cdm can address poverty alleviation and sustainable development in developing countries is discussed in the context of existing market principles transparency of the mechanism economics and the daunting bureaucratic procedures involved the paper concludes that the cdm if suitably modified can go some way to address sustainable development and alleviate poverty for poor rural areas and not increase emissions by a focus on renewable energy technologies this result can be achieved as the energy consumption of rural sectors is currently so small relative to developed economies that only small additional renewable energy generation capacities are needed to make a measurable difference

a review of renewable energy investment in the brics countries history models problems and solutions abstract this paper reviews the history of renewable energy development in the brics countries the financing models for renewable energy development of brics countries include bank financing institutional loans industry funds and international financing this paper identified several problems with financing in brics countries including a lack of financing channels investment shortage for small and medium sized enterprises and imperfect government policies the solutions to these problems include expanded capital markets the financing of leasing services and build operate transfer and build own operate projects further a financial citizen participation model should be employed similar to that as germany and european union emissions trading system eu ets a financial citizen participation model means that legal entities private individuals and agricultural enterprises invest in renewable energy infrastructure through equity a regional reserve ratio monetary policy is suggested to allow regions to develop renewable energy

technical coefficients for bio economic farm household models a meta modelling approach with applications for southern mali abstract in recent years different types of bio economic models have been developed to support the analysis of the potential impact of agrarian policies on changes in land use sustainable resource management and farmers welfare most bio economic models rely on series of discrete input output coefficients for current and improved cropping and livestock activities whereas mathematical programming procedures are usually applied to analyse optimum allocative choice adequate procedures for the smooth integration of biophysical information into economic decision models are however not readily available this article provides a new and comprehensive framework for the incorporation of technical input output coefficients derived from agroecological simulation approaches into bio economic farm household models therefore continuous production functions are estimated for the production side of the farm household model making use of meta modelling principles it is shown that meta modelling offers considerable scope for improving the specification and behaviour of bio economic farm household models this procedure is applied in a farm household model developed for the analysis of farmers response to agrarian policies in southern mali results are presented for the behaviour of a typical household focusing attention on the trade offs between farm income and soil nutrient balances under free market conditions and with constraints on labour capital and animal traction markets the stability and robustness of the model is analysed through a simulation of the impact of higher input costs for land use and fertiliser applications

creating an enabling environment policy conditions for less favored areas abstract within the rural areas those with a low productive potential usually home to poor agricultural households with limited access to assets are often the core of rural poverty and under constant threat of resource degradation there is ample evidence that neither trickle down effects in high potential areas nor structural adjustment measures have generated much poverty reduction in these less favored areas lfas often due a lack of attention to the development of factor and commodity markets sustainable and pro poor development of lfas therefore poses formidable challenges and requires special measures to achieve an enabling institutional and policy environment it needs to be based on viable sources of growth that imply considerable investments in physical and human capital and appropriate technology recognize positive externalities and add equity and natural resource management concerns in a context of heterogeneity to establish policy conditions that favor such development the role of and experience with major policy interventions incentives and institutions relevant to lfas is reviewed and an attempt is made to generalize these findings to this effect the different interventions are grouped into three broad categories viz price and market policies public services and investment and institutions and governance while countries should adopt the relevant market and trade policies the case is made for greater awareness of the adverse impact these policies can have in lfas and on their poor and complementary policies and investments need to be put in place to buffer or offset adverse outcomes key complementary interventions include public investments in infrastructure human capital and technology to enhance the competitiveness of lfas and policies to improve their market access there is also need for appropriate phasing of policy and market reforms to give people time to adjust and effective safety nets to cushion loss of livelihood options

extending environmental management beyond the firm boundaries an empirical study of dutch food and beverage firms consumer demand for environmental sustainability and for affordable prices calls for cooperation and information exchange in food chains to reduce joint environmental impact known as externally oriented environmental management e em e em is increasingly regarded as a management tool to simultaneously improve environmental operational and business performance understanding the factors that influence managers to develop e em helps to design environmentally and economically sustainable food chains the prior research regarding these factors is not exhaustive and demanded a multi period approach this study expands the understanding of the factors that influence managers to develop e em with a multi period empirical research we address the effects of external institutional pressures regulative normative and culturally cognitive and the level of in company environmental management i em on e em which involves information exchange in the chain cooperation with suppliers and customers the analysis relies on survey data of 255 and 96 dutch food and beverage f b processors from 2002 and 2010 respectively the findings indicate that respondents have considerably improved i em over time i em requires in company pzrocedures ranging from environmental strategy formulation to the managerial review of achieved results to assure continuous improvement of environmental performance f b processors that had already achieved a high level of i em are more likely to develop e em also growing normative and culturally cognitive pressures from supply chain partners and increasingly from long term public private environmental covenants significantly influenced e em implementation however regulative pressure from public authorities had no impact it appeared that e em is influenced mostly by institutional pressures when the firms are less experienced with i em

combining voluntary agreements and taxes an evaluation of the danish agreement scheme on energy efficiency in industry abstract in this paper the danish agreement scheme on energy efficiency in industry is described and evaluated the basis for this evaluation is an implementation study of the agreement scheme and five evaluation criteria examining the practical considerations related to the choice of policy instruments a distinct feature of the danish scheme is that it is closely connected to a co2 tax on trade and industry this connection is important for the understanding and the functioning of the scheme the scheme has certain advantages the prevention of free riding is effective the scheme is flexible over time and the agreements do actually have an impact on firm behaviour but there are also drawbacks the administrative costs and search costs are high and the impact on innovation and networking among firms is low

industrial long term agreements on energy efficiency in the netherlands a critical assessment of the monitoring methodologies and quantitative results abstract long term agreements ltas with industry were added to the mix of energy policy instruments in the netherlands at the beginning of the 1990s within a few years these agreements have become very important for the industrial energy conservation policy in this study we assessed the extent to which the targets set out by the government were achieved to this end we studied 1 whether the original policy targets for industry were adequately translated to the contracted ltas 2 whether the ltas achieved the contracted goals and 3 whether the monitoring methodologies that were developed ensure a complete comparable and objective monitoring of the energy intensity developments in manufacturing industry the policy target for manufacturing industry was to decrease energy intensity by 19 in the period 1989 2000 excluding feedstocks it turned out to be possible to contract ltas that cover 72 75 of the energy consumption in manufacturing industry the average of the contracted lta targets amounts to an 18 intensity decrease the average goal achievement of the ltas in the period 1989 1997 turned out to be in accordance with the contracted targets although more than half of the lta sectors are lagging behind the agreed rate of intensity decrease for each of the ltas a monitoring methodology was developed some aspects of these monitoring methodologies have resulted in the fact that the lta monitoring does not ensure a comparable and objective monitoring of the energy intensity results in the ltas overall we conclude that the monitoring of the energy intensity developments in the long term agreements sectors is insufficiently transparent we recommend a stricter enforcement of uniform monitoring requirements in a new generation of ltas and independent supervision and verification of the monitoring results

voluntary agreements in environmental policy an empirical evaluation for the chilean case abstract in this paper the author assesses and discusses the chilean approach on voluntary environmental agreements based on a survey questionnaire performed in 322 facilities belonging to four industrial sectors the author evaluated the effectiveness and static efficiency of five voluntary agreements vas using the propensity score method the study found out that vas had a significant effect in encouraging the implementation of environmental initiatives although most of them represent incremental rather than radical improvements moreover whilst it confirms that vas can suffer from regulatory capture it also reveals that capture can coexist with significant environmental improvements in other areas regarding the static efficiency impact it suggests that vas succeeded in encouraging cost minimization in terms of operational and transaction costs furthermore this research documented that participation in an industrial association is by far the most significant variable associated with voluntary agreements and that regulatory threats and governmental funding are incentives of secondary importance finally it concludes by highlighting that the lack of public participation together with several institutional and political factors that subdue the ambitiousness of targets are the most serious drawbacks which should be addressed in order to avoid credibility issues of vas in the near future

how could emissions trading benefit developing countries abstract this paper aims to show how an emissions trading system could work if some participating entities are allocated an emissions budget or non binding target this will allow them to sell allowances if their actual emissions are less than their budget but will not obligate them to buy allowances if their emissions exceed their budget different rules aiming at ensuring the environmental integrity of such a system are considered parties to the framework convention on climate change may wish to consider building a regime where developing countries are allocated emissions budgets on some provisions of the kyoto protocol and in full respect with the principles of the convention in any case such system would be complementary to the clean development mechanism the potential benefits would be to provide non annex i developing countries with substantial capital inflows and stimulate their economic growth to allow annex i industrialised countries achieving their kyoto commitments at the lowest possible cost and to achieve global participation towards the objective of the convention while reducing the risk of creating tropical hot air by giving some developing countries more allowances than they need under a business as usual scenario

dutch sectoral energy intensity developments in international perspective 1987 2005 this paper makes use of a new dataset to investigate energy intensity developments in the netherlands over the period 1987 2005 the dataset allows for a comparison with 18 other oecd countries a key feature of our analysis is that we combine a cross country perspective with a high level of sectoral detail covering 49 sectors particularly innovative is our evaluation of energy intensity developments in a wide range of service sectors we find that across sectors energy intensity levels in the netherlands on average decreased only marginally and increased in services this performance is in general worse than the oecd average especially between 1987 and 1995 changes in the sectoral composition of the economy play an important role in explaining aggregate trends in the manufacturing sector about half of the efficiency improvements were undone by a shift towards a more energy intensive industry structure in contrast in the service sector efficiency decreased which was undone for about one third by a shift towards a less energy intensive sector structure

promoting intersectoral growth linkages in rural africa through agricultural technology and policy reform this paper addresses how increased rural incomes in select african cases are spent on consumption items the implications of these patterns for stimulating rural growth and areas of intervention necessary to sustain demand led growth from improved agricultural technology and economic reforms the country studies utilize panel data collected by the international food policy research institute ifpri in collaboration with african institutions and re

can the clean development mechanism cdm deliver abstract the paper investigates whether the clean development mechanism cdm under the kyoto protocol has played a significant role in the development of rural communities specifically investigating uptake of small scale renewable energy projects the investigation involved an assessment of 500 registered small scale cdm projects under the kyoto protocol in terms of their potential impact on the envisaged sustainable development goals for rural communities five case studies from the indian subcontinent were also examined the paper concludes that the cdm in its current state and design has typically failed to deliver the promised benefits with regard to development objectives in rural areas successful projects were found to have had good community involvement and such projects were typically managed by cooperative ventures rather than money making corporations the paper puts forward a new framework for the assessment of such benefits in the hope that future projects can be better assessed in this regard the key problem however remains on how to deal with the inherent contradiction between development and sustainability

policies influencing cleaner production the role of prices and regulation abstract low prices of inputs low costs associated with non product outputs and poor regulatory forcing have often not been conducive to diffusion of cleaner production however developments may be noted in the field of taxation subsidies liability and permits that tend to be more favourable to cleaner production extension thereof may favour cleaner production more in the future cleaner production stands to gain much by slashing subsidies and substantial ecotaxation of inputs and non product outputs similarly the regulatory enforcement of best available technologies liability for waste and tradable permits may help the diffusion of cleaner production

saving in developing countries theory and review in the literature on economic development much of the interest in saving has been focused on the relation between saving and growth but saving is not only about accumulation it is about smoothing consumption in the face of volatile and unpredictable income and helping to ensure the living standards of poor people whose lives are difficult and uncertain this paper develops a model of households which cannot borrow but which accumulate assets as a buffer stock to protect consumption when incomes are low such households dissave as often as they save do not accumulate assets over the long term and have on average very small asset holdings but their consumption is markedly smoother than their income much of the evidence is as consistent with this view of saving as it is incosistent with standard views of smoothing over the life cycle and with explanations of the link between saving and growth in terms of life cycle saving behavior consumption smoothing is also a useful way of thinking about government policy where volatility in the world prices of taxed commodities can generate sharp fluctuations in government revenues as well as reallocations of revenue between the private and public sectors many important policy issues in developing countries hinge on issues of consumption and smoothing and research on these issues is currently likely to be more productive than work on the relation between saving and growth

clean development mechanism cdm after the first commitment period assessment of the world s portfolio and the role of latin america abstract the clean development mechanism cdm represents the main effort to help developing countries develop sustainably and developed countries to reach their emission reductions targets set under the kyoto protocol with the ending of the first commitment period there is an opportunity to assess the state of the cdm portfolio 2008 2012 this article is the first effort to evaluate the cdm portfolio throughout the first commitment period as well as the first paper focused on latin america s cdm portfolio as a whole concentrating on renewable energy projects moreover a special analysis is performed for chile latin america s third most important cdm country after brazil and mexico 6th worldwide after china india korea brazil and mexico and first in cers registered among the small countries an ideal host because of its high political stability government effectiveness access to capital and regulatory quality in addition a study was performed on 180 renewable energy projects in latin america revealing that the additionality assessments performed under the cdm are too subjective hindering the validation of the projects and their transparency the main policy implication of this research is to expose the need for a radical change to the succeeding document to the kyoto protocol in order to reduce the inequality amongst host countries and ensure that cdm fulfills its sustainable development claim some of the proposed measures include establishing uniform benchmarks to be used against similar projects a thorough validation for declared barriers simplifying the registering process and providing international aid for the least developed countries that have historically lacked the ability to participate in the cdm

a selectivity model of household food marketing behavior in sub saharan africa the agricultural household s discrete decision of whether to participate in coarse grain markets is separated here from the continuous decision of how much to sell or buy conditional on participation failure to participate in markets results from high fixed transactions costs a selectivity model endogenously switches households into alternative market participation states correcting for bias caused by the exclusion of unobservable variables affecting both discrete and continuous decisions improved market information increases the probability of participation by sellers while access to cereals processing technology increases quantities transacted by both sellers and buyers conditional on participation

agent based modeling for ex ante assessment of tree crop innovations litchis in northern thailand this study uses an agent based model for ex ante assessment of agricultural innovations the model builds on whole farm mathematical programming mp and extends the methodology with a spatial representation of the system the heterogeneity of farm households and landscapes and the interaction between farm households we apply the model in a northern thai watershed to study the potential of four innovations to increase the profitability of litchi orchards cost benefit analysis shows that each innovation would increase the profitability of litchi growing however the results of the agent based model show that at current price levels these innovations alone would not be enough to stem the decline in the area under litchis the model was validated and the sensitivity of the results tested for variations in the irrigated water supply and liquidity we report on how farmers responded to these results and discuss the implications for other areas in northern thailand

technology market policies and institutional reform for sustainable land use in southern mali to identify appropriate interventions that support sustainable land use a farm household modelling approach is applied to analyze micro economic supply reactions to various policy measures the modelling framework links agro technical and economic data and takes both production and consumption decisions into account allowing land use and production technology adjustments in accordance with farm household objectives different types of farm households are distinguished on the basis of their resource endowments savings coefficients and time discount rate actual and alternative sustainable cropping and livestock activities for different weather regimes are defined for southern mali the effects on sustainable land use and expected farm household welfare of adopting alternative technologies and modifying prices transaction costs access to credit and land taxes are demonstrated even with full information on sustainable technologies strong policy interventions are required to halt soil degradation structural policies proved to be more effective than price policies to reduce soil degradation while maintaining positive income effects when prices are determined endogenously structural policy loses some effectiveness as an incentive for sustainable land use due to the effect of additional supply on local cereal and meat prices