factors determining intercropping by rubber smallholders in sri lanka a logit analysis abstract variables related to farmers awareness and attitudes towards intercropping of immature rubber hevea brasiliensis stands extension contacts education level and experience with farming other crops are positively associated with the probability of adoption higher levels of off farm income are associated with reduced intercropping in immature rubber stands farmers who are sole owners of the land and engaged in full or part time rubber farming show lower adoption rates than other land ownership groups social participation family size experience with farming rubber immature and mature rubber stands size and the nature of the land flat sloped do not significantly influence adoption these conclusions were obtained from a logit model estimated by employing the results of a survey of 588 smallholder rubber farmers from five major rubber growing regions in sri lanka

adoption of new tobacco varieties in greece impacts of empirical findings on policy design abstract greece is a major international tobacco producer flue cured tobacco varieties constituted the major alternative crop to greek farmers growing certain oriental tobacco varieties diffusion of flue cured tobacco was rapid due to its high yields and the depressed market for certain oriental tobacco varieties currently the common organisation of the tobacco market is undergoing substantial changes and the farmers response will be a vital factor of success a portfolio selection model reveals that the major factors influencing the adoption decision of tobacco growers are the size of the farm measured in annual work units the farm s proximity to urban centres the farm s diversification and the farmer s age the number of contacts with institutions is surprisingly inversely related to adoption future tobacco policies impinging on factors influencing decisions to adopt new varieties or production practices may be more cost effective

generating real persistent effects of monetary shocks how much nominal rigidity do we really need abstract this paper attempts to assess whether money can generate persistent economic fluctuations in dynamic general equilibrium models of the business cycle we show that a small nominal friction in the goods market can make the response of output to monetary shocks large and persistent if it is amplified by real wage rigidity in the labor market we also argue that for plausible levels of real wage rigidity a small degree of nominal stickiness is sufficient for money to produce economic fluctuations as persistent as those observed in the data

the role of farming experience on the adoption of agricultural technologies evidence from smallholder farmers in uganda abstractthis article investigates the relationship between adoption of and experience with agricultural technologies we use both non parametric and parametric estimations on data from rural farmers in uganda we find an inverted u relationship between adoption of and experience with agricultural technologies in banana coffee and maize this suggests that farming experience is useful in early stages of adoption of a given technology when farmers are still testing its potential benefits which later determine its retention or disadoption over time thus gradual advances in technology development and continuous retraining of farmers are essential for sustainable adoption of agricultural technologies for some crops

optimal monetary policy in an economy with inflation persistence abstract this paper studies optimal monetary policy in a model where inflation is persistent two types of price setters are assumed to exist one acts rationally given calvo type constraints on price setting the other type sets prices according to a rule of thumb this results in a phillips curve with both a forward looking term and a backward looking term the phillips curve nests a standard purely forward looking phillips curve as well as a standard purely backward looking phillips curve as special cases a cost push supply shock is derived from microfoundations by adding a time varying income tax and by making the elasticity of substitution between goods stochastic a central bank loss function for this model is derived from a second order taylor approximation of the household s welfare function optimal monetary policy for different relative values of the forward and backward looking terms is then analyzed for both the commitment case and the case of discretion

monetary policy and uncertainty in an empirical small open economy model this paper explores optimal policy design in an estimated model of three small open economies australia canada and new zealand within a class of generalized taylor rules we show that to stabilize a weighted objective of output consumer price in ation and nominal interest variation optimal policy does not respond to the nominal exchange this is despite the presence of local currency pricing and due in large part to observed exchange rate disconnect in these economies optimal policies that account for the uncertainty of model estimates as captured by the parameters posterior distrbution similarly exhibit a lack of exchange rate response in contrast to brainard 1967 the presence of parameter uncertainty can lead to more or less aggressive policy responses depending on the model at hand

the impact of carbon emission costs on manufacturers production and location decision abstract this paper investigates how emerging carbon emission costs may affect the joint production and location decisions for a manufacturer across the world s regions specifically we develop a new theoretical model which explicitly links product demand production costs and carbon emission levels to location decisions and investigate the manufacturer s optimal decisions between two distinct regions the results show that the influence of carbon emissions on manufacturers decisions can vary greatly under different circumstances both off shoring and near shoring are possible under rising carbon emission costs manufacturers with high or low demand have different tolerance levels to the rising carbon emission costs when considering an alternative location trade costs can change the pattern of relocation to gain policy insights for those who pursue reducing carbon emissions different product examples are used to calculate the critical carbon price which triggers different location choices the results suggest that if production technology is stable raising carbon cost itself has only limited effects on reducing total carbon emissions especially for high value low emission industries the location shift which is more sensitive to changes in variable carbon emissions may lead to a significant emission reduction when completed additional pricing decision from the manufacturer shows no significant effect on the location decisions however if demand is linked directly to carbon emission footprint of the product then it is more hopeful that a raised carbon price would reduce the carbon emissions significantly through relocation

estimates of output gaps in four southeast asian countries abstract the output gaps derived for four countries using a generalized hamilton model are compared with conventional output gap estimates further research is needed to explain why the output gap identifies crisis episodes as slowdowns instead of recessions in some countries

the adoption of reduced tillage the role of human capital and other variables this paper presents a model of adoption behavior and explains differences econometrically in farmers decisions to adopt reduced tillage practices and in the efficiency of farmers adoption decisions the empirical results obtained from microdata show that the probability of adopting reduced tillage in corn enterprises differs widely across farms and depends on soil characteristics cropping systems and size of farming operation the results also show that farmers schooling enhances the efficiency of the adoption decision

household level determinants of adoption of improved natural resources management practices among smallholder farmers in western kenya abstract integrated natural resources management inrm of which integrated soil fertility management isfm is a component offers considerable promise for increasing food production in kenya it nonetheless remains unclear whether isfm inrm techniques lend themselves easily to adoption by smallholder farmers using panel data collected in western kenya in 1989 and 2002 this study finds that resource constraints limit many farmers adoption of isfm inrm techniques the size of the farm owned by a household the value of its livestock off farm income family labor supply and the educational attainment and gender of the household head all had a significant positive effect on the likelihood of adoption similar factors were found to be statistically significant in discouraging abandonment of the practices under study there thus seem to exist reinforcing feedback between investments in soil fertility management and household wealth as measured by asset endowments our findings raise important questions as to whether isfm and related techniques are really affordable to poorer smallholder farmers

empirical evidence on inflation expectations in the new keynesian phillips curve abstract we review the main identification strategies and empirical evidence on the role of expectations in the new keynesian phillips curve paying particular attention to the issue of weak identi

exchange rate pass through exchange rate volatility and exchange rate disconnect abstract this paper explores the hypothesis that high volatility of real and nominal exchange rates may be due to the fact that local currency pricing eliminates the pass through from changes in exchange rates to consumer prices exchange rates may be highly volatile because in a sense they have little effect on macroeconomic variables the paper shows the ingredients necessary to construct such an explanation for exchange rate volatility in addition to the presence of local currency pricing we need a incomplete international financial markets b a structure of international pricing and product distribution such that wealth effects of exchange rate changes are minimized and c stochastic deviations from uncovered interest rate parity together it is shown that these elements can produce exchange rate volatility that is much higher than shocks to economic fundamentals and disconnected from the rest of the economy in the sense that the volatility of all other macroeconomic aggregates are of the same order as that of fundamentals

eoq models for a coordinated two level international supply chain considering imperfect items and environmental impact abstract for a two level supply chain models are presented to determine the optimal production shipment policy for items with imperfect quality in three different scenarios a both the vendor and the buyer are in the same country b the vendor and the buyer are in different countries where the stochastic behavior of the exchange rate between the two countries is modeled using a mean reverting process and c environmental impact is incorporated in determining the optimal production shipment policy by taking into account the fixed and variable carbon emission costs the objective is to minimize the total expected cost per unit time for each scenario considering equal shipment size the total expected cost per unit time is derived and the solution procedure is proposed numerical examples are presented and the results are discussed

the impact of perception and other factors on the adoption of agricultural technology in the moret and jiru woreda district of ethiopia the objectives of this study are to examine both the significance of the impact of farmers perceptions regarding new technology for the adoption decision and how perceptions themselves are influenced by the decision to adopt new technology the study is based on data from 96 wheat farms in the moret and jiru woreda district of ethiopia the probit approach is used to analyse the adoption decision while the variables relevant to farmers perceptions are modelled using the ordered probit methodology a simultaneous equations model combining the probit and ordered probit approaches provides a useful approach to modelling the two way relationship between perception and adoption variables such as farm size farm income and soil type have a key role to play in the model perception is measured by eight different components and as there is a strong collinearity among these various measures a principal components analysis is attempted to draw the best possible linear combination of variables

capital income taxation equilibrium determinacy and the taylor principle abstract the taylor principle disregards nominal capital income taxation the paper derives a tax adjusted taylor principle and shows that empirical studies on monetary policy rules tend to reach too strong conclusions concerning the appropriateness of the monetary policy response to inflation

monetary policy and stagflation in the uk the volatile behavior of inflation output and interest rates in the united kingdom prior to the 1990s helps discriminate between rival explanations for the outbreak of stagflation we examine alternative hypotheses with a new keynesian model of aggregate demand and inflation determination estimated on quarterly uk data for 1959 2000 our model features is and phillips curves based on optimizing behavior and fully incorporates the distinction between detrended output and the output gap stressed by optimizing analysis using simulations of our model as well as information on the real time views of policymakers we test alternative explanations for the outbreak of inflation in the united kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s we find that inaccurate estimates of the degree of excess demand in the economy contributed significantly to the outbreak but we also find a major role for the failure at the time to recognize the importance of monetary policy as opposed to nonmonetary devices in controlling inflation

adoption of agricultural innovations in developing countries a survey this paper reviews various studies which have provided a description and possible explanation to patterns of innovation adoption in the agricultural sector the survey points out that the tendency of many studies to consider innovation adoption in dichotomous terms adoption nonadoption may not be appropriate in many cases where the actual decisions are defined over a more continuous range more attention needs to be given to the socio cultural and institutional environment in area studies so that their interrelation with economic factors affecting adoption can be inferred the presence of several interrelated innovations is another aspect that needs to be considered more carefully in future research since a number of simultaneous decisions may be involved furthermore the possibility of regular sequential patterns in adopting components of a new technological package should be specifically addressed in future studies finally the impact of differential adoption rates on land holding distribution merits attention in future research

agricultural extension and technology adoption for food security evidence from uganda we evaluate causal impacts of a large scale agricultural extension program for smallholder women farmers on technology adoption and food security in uganda through a regression discontinuity design that exploits an arbitrary distance to branch threshold for village program eligibility we find eligible farmers used better basic cultivation methods achieved improved food security given minimal changes in adoption of relatively expensive inputs we attribute these gains to improved cultivation methods that require low upfront monetary investment farmers also modified their shock coping methods these results highlight the role of information and training in boosting agricultural productivity among poor farmers and indirectly improving food security

carbon leakage from unilateral environmental tax reforms in europe 1995 2005 abstract studies of the effects of the kyoto protocol have shown carbon leakage typically from tax and permit schemes with lump sum revenues recycling to be in the range of 5 20 using static computable general equilibrium models however in practice researchers have found that carbon leakage from the implementation of the eu ets is unlikely to be substantial because transport costs local market conditions product variety and incomplete information all tend to favour local production this study investigates potential carbon leakage from six eu member states mss that implemented environmental tax reform etrs unilaterally over the period 1995 2005 the study uses the large scale multisectoral integrated energy environment economy e3 model of 27 european countries energy environment economy model of europe e3me to undertake a dynamic comparative analysis to assess any carbon leakage effects over the longer term 1995 2012 a counterfactual reference case is constructed assuming that the six countries did not introduce etrs then alternative scenarios are developed to assess the effects of the etrs including effects on co2 emissions for the eu25 economies most mss recorded a reduction in co2 emissions when comparing the baseline case to the reference case the results show that carbon leakage is very small and in some cases negative due to technological spillover effects

habit formation in consumption and its implications for monetary policy models this paper explores a monetary policy model with habit formation for consumers in which consumers utility depends in part on current consumption relative to past consumption the empirical tests developed in the paper show that one can reject the hypothesis of no habit formation with tremendous condence largely because the habit formation model captures the gradual hump shaped response of real spending to various shocks the paper then embeds the habit consumption specication in a monetary policy model and nds that the responses of both spending and inflation to monetary policy actions are signicantly improved by this modication jel d12 e52 e43

competition and outsourcing with scale economies scale economies are commonplace in operations yet because of analytical challenges relatively little is known about how firms should compete in their presence this paper presents a model of competition between two firms that face scale economies i e each firm s cost per unit of demand is decreasing in demand a general framework is used which incorporates competition between two service providers with price and time sensitive demand a queuing game and competition between two retailers with fixed ordering costs and pricesensitive consumers an economic order quantity game reasonably general conditions are provided under which there exists at most one equilibrium with both firms participating in the market we demonstrate in the context of the queuing game that the lower cost firm in equilibrium may have a higher market share and a higher price an enviable situation we also allow each firm to outsource their production process to a supplier even if the supplier s technology is no better than the firms technology and the supplier is required to establish dedicated capacity so the supplier s scale can be no greater than either firm s scale we show that the firms strictly prefer to outsource we conclude that scale economies provide a strong motivation for outsourcing that has not previously been identified in the literature

are there systematic gender differences in the adoption of sustainable agricultural intensification practices evidence from kenya this paper uses sex disaggregated survey data at the plot level to test whether there are systematic gender differences in the adoption of multiple sustainable intensification practices sips in kenya we analyze plot level adoption decisions of sips by male female or joint plot managers within the household controlling for household characteristics asset wealth and land quality factors that condition investments in intensification options using a multivariate probit model we find gender differences in the adoption pattern for some sips compared to male plot mangers female managers are less likely to adopt minimum tillage and animal manure in crop production indicating the existence of certain socioeconomic inequalities and barriers for female farmers however we find no gender differences in the adoption of soil and water conservation measures improved seed varieties chemical fertilizers maize legume intercropping and maize legume rotations

gendered social networks agricultural innovations and farm productivity in ethiopia summary this paper examines the existence of social learning in agriculture in ethiopia to be specific we use a random matching within sample technique to collect data on social networks and to elicit details of the relationships and information exchange between network members we find that shared kinship or membership in certain groups informal forms of mutual insurance and having frequent meetings with network members are all associated with a higher probability of forming an information link with a network member furthermore we find evidence for a statistically significant and positive relationship between networks and the adoption of row planting as well as yields for both male and female networks however the evidence for an inverse u shaped relationship of social learning that is between the number of adopters in the network and the adoption of row planting is strongest for female networks our results thus suggest that extension services and other programs that promote agricultural innovations and seek yield improvement can benefit from social networks but that their success depends on identifying the right networks such as those of female household members in the case of row planting

the un importance of forward looking behavior in price specifications the seminal work of edmund s phelps 1978 john b taylor 1980 and guillermo a calvo 1983 developed forward looking models of price determination that imparted inertia to the price level these models incorporate expectations of future prices and excess demand by imposing constraints typically lag lead symmetry constraints that force future variables to enter the specification in this paper the author tests the empirical significance of future prices in specifications like those of taylor he finds that expectations of future prices are empirically unimportant in explaining price and inflation behavior however the dynamics of a model that includes a purely backward looking inflation specification differ substantially and not altogether pleasingly from those with a forward looking specification copyright 1997 by ohio state university press

optimal production planning with emissions trading emissions trading is a market based mechanism for curbing emissions and it has been implemented in europe north america and several other parts of the world to study its impact on production planning we develop a dynamic production model where a manufacturer produces a single product to satisfy random market demands the manufacturer has access to both a green and a regular production technology of which the former is more costly but yields fewer emissions to comply with the emissions regulations the manufacturer can buy or sell the allowances in each period via forward contracts in an outside market with stochastic trading prices while needing to keep a nonnegative allowance account balance at the end of the planning horizon we first derive several important structural properties of the model and based upon them we characterize the optimal emissions trading and production policies that minimize the manufacturer s expected total discounted cost in particular the optimal emissions trading pol

an open economy new keynesian phillips curve for the u k abstract we estimate a pricing equation or new keynesian phillips curve nkpc obtained from a structural dynamic model of price setting based on rotemberg 1982 sticky prices in the united states journal of political economy 90 6 1187 1211 and extended to capture employment adjustment costs and the openness of the united kingdom this model nests the baseline gali and gertler 1999 inflation dynamics a structural econometric analysis quarterly journal of economics 110 127 159 and sbordone 2002 prices and unit labor costs a new test of price stickiness journal of monetary economics 49 265 292 relationship between inflation and marginal cost in the limiting case of no employment adjustment costs no impact of relative prices of imported inputs on real marginal cost and a constant equilibrium markup our findings indicate that each of our modifications to the baseline nkpc model is important for u k data so that inflation in the u k is explained both by changes in employment and by changes in real import prices in general and real oil prices in particular external competitive pressures also seem to affect u k inflation via their impact on the equilibrium price markup of domestic firms

do expected future marginal costs drive inflation dynamics abstract this article discusses a more general interpretation of the two step minimum distance estimation procedure proposed in sbordone 2002 the estimator is again applied to a version of the new keynesian phillips curve where inflation dynamics are driven by the expected evolution of marginal costs the article clarifies econometric issues addresses concerns about uncertainty and model misspecification raised in recent studies and assesses the robustness of previous results while confirming the importance of forward looking terms in accounting for inflation dynamics it suggests how the methodology can be applied to extend the analysis of inflation to a multivariate setting

the naicu and the phillips curve an approach based on micro data in this paper we propose a straightforward method to derive a non accelerating inflation capacity utilisation rate naicu based on micro data we condition the current capacity utilisation of firms on their current and planned price adjustments the non accelerating inflation capacity utilisation rate is then defined as the rate where a firm feels no price adjustment pressure one of the main advantages is that this methodology uses structural aspects and does not make it necessary to operate with often rather arbitrary statistical filters we show that our aggregate naicu performs remarkably well as an indicator of inflationary pressure in a phillips curve estimation

factor hoarding and the propagation of business cycles shocks this paper analyzes the role of variable capital utilization rates in propagating shocks over the business cycle to this end we formulate and estimate an equilibrium business cycle model in which cyclical capital utilization rates are viewed as a form of factor hoarding we find that variable capital utilization rates substantially magnify and propagate the impact of shocks to agents environments the strength of these propagation effects is evident in the dynamic response functions of various economy wide aggregates to shocks in agents environments in the statistics that we construct to summarize the strength of the propagation mechanisms in the model and in the volatility of exogenous technology shocks needed to explain the observed variability in aggregate u s output other authors have argued that standard real business cycle rbc models fail to account for certain features of the data because they do not embody quantitatively important propagation mechanisms these features include the observed positive serial correlation in the growth rate of output the shape of the spectrum of the growth rate of real output and the correlation between the forecastable component of real output and various other economic aggregates allowing for variable capital utilization rates substantially improves the ability of the model to account for these features of the data

a multiple source of innovation model of agricultural research and technology promotion abstract two models of agricultural research and technology diffusion are described and contrasted the central source of innovation model frequently underlies the theories and rhetoric of agricultural research and extension institutions the multiple source of innovation model places agricultural research and diffusion processes in the historical political economic agroclimatic and institutional context in which technological change takes place the paper discusses the evidence and reasons for the dominance of the central model and reviews the significance of the multiple source model for agricultural research policy

the poverty impacts of improved cowpea varieties in nigeria a counterfactual analysis adoption of improved agricultural technologies has long been recognized as critical for reducing poverty through increased productivity incomes and asset accumulation using a nationally representative survey data from a sample of over 1500 households in nigeria this paper evaluates the impacts of adoption of improved cowpea varieties on income and asset poverty reduction using an endogenous switching regression model the results showed that adoption of improved cowpea varieties increased per capita household income and asset ownership by 17 and 24 percentage points respectively the results based on the observed and counterfactual income and asset distributions further showed that adoption reduced both income poverty and asset poverty by 5 percentage points the paper concludes with a discussion of the policy options for increasing adoption and impacts of improved cowpea varieties in nigeria

new keynesian economics and the phillips curve models with sticky prices are an important part of new keynesian economics the author shows that several of the new keynesian models imply a formulation that is similar to the expectations augmented phillips curve of milton friedman and edmund phelps he then presents new estimates of the new keynesian phillips curve the author uses two proxies for price expectations survey based measures and an econometric based measure originally developed by bennett mccallum 1976 overall the results are consistent with the model but the survey based results are more precise suggesting that the surveys may be better measures of actual expectations copyright 1995 by ohio state university press

landownership and the adoption of minimum tillage full owner operators and landowners with small holdings have lower minimum tillage adoption rates on cultivated cropland than do other landownership groups after accounting for land quality and regional location nonfamily corporate structure does not significantly influence the adoption decision these conclusions about minimum tillage adoption were obtained from a logit model using 7 649 cultivated cropland observations from across the united states this study indicates that small operating size poses more of an obstacle to minimum tillage adoption than does separation of ownership from farm operation

the taylor rule and optimal monetary policy where it denotes the fed s operating target for the federal funds rate pt is the inflation rate measured by the gdp deflator yt is the log of real gdp and y t is the log of potential output identified empirically with a linear trend the rule has since been subject to considerable attention both as an account of actual policy in the united states and elsewhere and as a prescription for desirable policy taylor argues for the rule s normative significance both on the basis of simulations and on the ground that it describes u s policy in a period in which monetary policy is widely judged to have been unusually successful taylor 1999 suggesting that the rule is worth adopting as a principle of behavior here i wish to consider to what extent this prescription resembles the sort of policy that economic theory would recommend i consider the question in the context of a simple but widely used optimizing model of the monetary transmission mechanism which allows one to reach clear conclusions about economic welfare the model is highly stylized but incorporates important features of more realistic models and allows me to make several points that are of more general validity out of concern for the robustness of the conclusions reached the analysis here addresses only broad qualitative features of the taylor rule and attempts to identify features of a desirable policy rule that are likely to hold under a variety of model specifications

modeling inflation in australia this article develops an empirically constant data coherent error correction model for inflation in australia the level of consumer prices is a markup over domestic and import costs with adjustments for dynamics and relative aggregate demand we address issues of cointegration general to specific modeling dynamic specification model evaluation and testing parameter constancy forecasting and exogeneity we also test this model against existing models of australian prices this model encompasses but is not encompassed by the existing models

managing carbon footprints in inventory management abstract there is a broad consensus that mankind must reduce carbon emissions to mitigate global warming it is generally accepted that carbon emission trading is one of the most effective market based mechanisms to curb the amount of carbon emissions this paper investigates how firms manage carbon footprints in inventory management under the carbon emission trading mechanism we derive the optimal order quantity and analytically and numerically examine the impacts of carbon trade carbon price and carbon cap on order decisions carbon emissions and total cost we make interesting observations from the numerical examples and provide managerial insights from the analytical results

production technologies in ethiopian agriculture abstract this article examines the characteristics of and choice among two production technologies in ethiopian agriculture one with fertilizer and the other without using 1989 90 farm level data for northwest and central ethiopia fertilizer usage determinants are estimated simultaneously with technology specific production functions for southern ethiopia where fertilizer is rarely used a single production function is estimated three conclusions emerge first fertilizer use is not significantly affected by a farm s stocks of capital or land this is consistent with the fact that fertilizer allocation decisions under the deposed mengistu regime were politicized to the point where farmers had little control over use second fertilizer is associated with a smaller factor share for cattle and a larger share for land meaning that those who control land may gain relative to the individual farmers who own cattle as the country develops agriculturally third farms without fertilizer in northwest and central ethiopia tend to be too small a problem due to population pressures on the land and communal methods of land allocation this suggests that land allocation institutions should adjust by distributing land to a smaller but more economically viable number of farmers

the effect of household wealth on the adoption of improved maize varieties in zambia abstract production and price risks that could render input use unprofitable sometimes prevent rural households from benefiting from input technological change the household s ability to cope with such risks and hence benefit from input technological change is often positively related to its wealth or stock of productive assets empirical evidence however suggests a non linear relationship between wealth and adoption of new agricultural technologies so that within a rural community households on the lower wealth continuum behave differently from those on the higher level using farm level data collected from 300 randomly selected households in three districts of zambia in 2004 2005 crop season this paper first stratifies households into poorly and well endowed households based on their access to productive assets and estimates separate double hurdle models for the adoption of improved high yielding maize ihym varieties for each group the results show that factors influencing the adoption and use intensity of ihym varieties differ between the two groups this draws attention to the need for recommending wealth group specific interventions to increase the adoption and use intensity of such varieties and their subsequent impacts on food security and general livelihoods of the households the explicit testing for the possibility that differences in household wealth affect the way in which other variables influence adoption decisions is the paper s unique contribution to the adoption literature

the phillips curve in australia abstract in this paper we discuss the development of phillips curves in australia over the forty years since phillips first estimated one using australian data we examine the central issues faced by researchers estimating australian phillips curves these include the distinction between the short and long run trade offs between inflation and unemployment and the changing level of the non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment nairu particularly in the 1970s we estimate phillips curves for prices and unit labour costs in australia over the past three decades these phillips curves allow the nairu to change through time and include a role for import prices and speed limit effects the paper concludes by discussing the changing role of the phillips curve in the intellectual framework used to analyse inflation within the reserve bank of australia over the past three decades

monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a micro founded model of a monetary union abstract this paper analyzes in detail the mechanisms behind fiscal stabilization policy and the role of policy commitment in a micro founded new keynesian model of a two country monetary union which is hit by supply shocks we also explore the determinants of the gains from fiscal stabilization while monetary policy with identical union members is concerned with stabilizing the union wide economy fiscal policy aims at stabilizing inflation differences and the terms of trade besides exploring optimal policies we also consider monetary and fiscal rules we study these rules both under coordination and non coordination by the fiscal authorities

estimation and control of an optimization based model with sticky prices and wages abstract this paper provides estimates of an optimization based equilibrium model with sticky prices and wages the estimated model is used to analyse the welfare properties of various interest rate rules for conducting monetary policy an important feature of this model is that it involves a tradeoff between the variances of price and wage inflation and the output gap this tradeoff implies that it is desirable for the monetary authority to respond to wage inflation in addition to price inflation output and past interest rates when setting the current interest rate the issue whether wages and prices can be indexed to steady state inflation has important implications both for the characterization of optimal interest rate rules and interest rate volatility in particular optimal policy in the presence of indexation induces implausibly high steady state inflation

identifying the new keynesian phillips curve phillips curves are central to discussions of inflation dynamics and monetary policy the hybrid new keynesian phillips curve nkpc describes how past inflation expected future inflation and a measure of real aggregate demand drive the current inflation rate this paper studies the potential weak identification of the nkpc under generalized method of moments and traces this syndrome to a lack of higher order dynamics in exogenous variables we employ analytic methods to understand the economics of the nkpc identification problem in the canonical three equation new keynesian model we revisit the empirical evidence for the usa the uk and canada by constructing tests and confidence intervals based on the anderson and rubin 1949 statistic which is robust to weak identification we also apply the guggenberger and smith 2008 lm test to the underlying nkpc pricing parameters both tests yield little evidence of forward looking inflation dynamics copyright 2008 john wiley sons ltd

european inflation dynamics abstract we provide evidence on the fit of the new phillips curve npc for the euro area over the period 1970 1998 and use it as a tool to compare the characteristics of european inflation dynamics with those observed in the u s we also analyze the factors underlying inflation inertia by examining the cyclical behavior of marginal costs as well as that of its two main components namely labor productivity and real wages some of the findings can be summarized as follows a the npc fits euro area data very well possibly better than u s data b the degree of price stickiness implied by the estimates is substantial but in line with survey evidence and u s estimates c inflation dynamics in the euro area appear to have a stronger forward looking component i e less inertia than in the u s d labor market frictions as manifested in the behavior of the wage markup appear to have played a key role in shaping the behavior of marginal costs and consequently inflation in europe

plastic cars in china the significance of production location over markets for technology competitiveness in the united states versus the people s republic of china abstract this paper demonstrates the significance of location specific differences in manufacturing characteristics and in consumer demand for technology competitiveness it looks in particular at the economic viability of emerging polymer composite automobile body technologies if produced in the united states u s versus if produced in the people s republic of china p r c the results show that polymer composite bodies when produced locally for the local market are competitive for significantly fewer cars in the p r c 7 than in the u s 29 despite consumer demand characteristics in the p r c being more favorable for composites differences in production characteristics between the two locations dominate the overall effect these results suggest that in cases such as automobile bodies where markets and manufacturing location are tightly coupled firms may need to put as much emphasis on understanding the impact of local production differences on technology competitiveness as in understanding local markets

search and matching frictions and optimal monetary policy abstract a recent literature has merged the new keynesian and the search and matching frameworks which has allowed the former to analyze the joint dynamics of unemployment and inflation this paper analyzes optimal monetary policy in this kind of hybrid framework i show that zero inflation is optimal when all wages are nash bargained in every period and the economy s steady state is efficient in the more realistic case in which nominal wage bargaining is staggered a case against price stability arises in response to real shocks the central bank should use price inflation so as to avoid excessive unemployment volatility and excessive dispersion in hiring rates for a plausible calibration the welfare loss under the zero inflation policy is about three times as large as under the optimal policy

crossbred cow adoption and its correlates countable adoption specification search in sri lanka s small holder dairy sector considerable specification choice confronts countable adoption investigations and there is need to measure formally the evidence in favor of competing formulations this article presents alternative countable adoption specifications hitherto neglected in the agricultural economics literature and assesses formally their usefulness to practitioners reference to the left side of de finetti s 1937 famous representation theorem motivates bayesian unification of agricultural adoption studies and facilitates comparisons with conventional binary choice specifications such comparisons have not previously been considered the various formulations and the specific techniques are highlighted in an application to crossbred cow adoption in sri lanka s small holder dairy sector

unpacking postharvest losses in sub saharan africa a meta analysis summary reducing postharvest losses phl is a key pathway to food and nutrition security in sub saharan africa however knowledge of phl magnitudes is limited a meta analysis has been conducted to expose nature and magnitude of phl and the kinds of interventions that have been attempted to mitigate the losses findings reveal inadequacies of loss assessment methodologies that result in inaccurate phl estimates moreover losses are often economic rather than physical product losses overall technologies for loss mitigation fail to address dynamics of supply chains consequently rigorous phl assessment using systematic methodologies as well as holistic approaches for losses mitigation are in need 2014 published by elsevier ltd

agricultural technology adoption and child nutrition enhancement improved maize varieties in rural ethiopia adoption of improved crop varieties can lead to multiple benefits to farm households including increased productivity incomes and food consumption however possible impacts of adoption on child nutrition outcomes are rarely explored in the literature this article helps bridge this gap through an impact assessment of the adoption of improved maize varieties imvs on child nutrition outcomes using a recent household survey from rural ethiopia the conceptual linkage between imv adoption and child nutrition is first established using an agricultural household model instrumental variable estimation suggests the overall impacts of adoption on child height for age and weight for age z scores to be positive and significant quantile instrumental variable regressions further reveal that such impacts are largest among children with poorest nutrition outcomes finally by combining a decomposition procedure with system of equations estimation it is found that the increase in own produced maize consumption is the major channel through which imv adoption affects child nutrition

globalization and location choice an analysis of us multinational firms in 1980 and 2000 in this paper we examine foreign location choices of the top 100 us multinational corporations mncs in 1980 and 2000 we first ask whether there has been a change in mnc foreign location choice in this two decade period second we explore the underlying reasons of location change by focusing on country level factors accounting for firm industry and regional level explanations our findings suggest first that the extent of mncs activities around the globe is more extensive than assumed by regionalists arguments and well beyond ohmae s triad but still less widespread than claimed by the globalists the two main traditions within the globalization regionalization debate second we uncover an interesting de location pattern in this period third we develop an integrative framework where both economic and institutional cultural arguments are shown to influence mncs foreign location choice in different ways we conclude with a discussion of our findings and provide suggestions for future research

inflation dynamics marginal cost and the output gap evidence from three countries recent studies have argued that the new keynesian phillips curve calvo pricing model is empirically valid provided that real marginal cost rather than detrended output is used as the variable driving inflation one interpretation of this result is that real marginal cost is not closely related to the output gap and so models for monetary policy need to include labormarket rigidities an alternative interpretation is that marginal cost and the output gap are closely related but that the latter needs to be measured in a manner consistent with dynamic general equilibrium models to date there has been little econometric investigation of this alternative interpretation this paper provides estimates of the new keynesian phillips curve for the u s the u k and australia using theory consistent estimates of the output gap using this theory to measure the output gap leads to a considerable improvement in the empirical performance of output gapbased phillips curves

improving the speed of adoption of agricultural technologies and farm performance through farmer groups evidence from the great lakes region of africa the article examines the effect of membership in farmer groups mfg on adoption lag of agricultural technologies and farm performance in burundi the democratic republic of congo and rwanda we use duration and stochastic production frontier models on farm household data we find that the longer the duration of mfg the shorter the adoption lag and much more so if combined with extension service delivery farmer groups function as an important mechanism for improving farm productivity through reduced technical inefficiency in input use we discuss policy implications under which farmer groups are a useful channel to reduce adoption lag and the means through which improved farm performance can be achieved

consequences of a coexistence policy on the adoption of gmht crops in the european union this article examines the adoption of genetically modified herbicide tolerant gmht crops in the european union eu prior to its commercial release a set of potential drivers including the implementation of coexistence measures by farmers farmers own motivational factors e g economic environmental and technical factors and perceived social pressure to accept or reject adoption may influence european union farmers willingness to adopt gmht oilseed rape and gmht maize the analysis includes economic and sociological factors results show that coexistence measures may hamper gmht adoption in the eu

the workweek of capital and its cyclical implications abstract the neoclassical growth model studied in the kydland and prescott time to build paper is modified to permit the capital utilization rate to vary the effect of this modification is to increase the amplitude of the aggregate fluctuations predicted by theory as the equilibrium response to technological shocks if following solow the changes in output not accounted for by changes in the labor and tangible capital inputs are interpreted as being the technology shocks the statistical properties of the fluctuations in the postwar united states economy are close in magnitude and nature to those predicted by theory

environmental impacts of technological change in bangladesh agriculture farmers perceptions determinants and effects on resource allocation decisions this article measures the impact of modern technology adoption in raising farmers environmental awareness and the impact of farmers environmental awareness on resource use by utilizing survey data from 21 villages in three agro ecological regions of bangladesh the econometric analysis is based on the application of the tobit model explaining farmers environmental awareness in the first stage and a profit function examining environmental awareness and resource use relationships in the second stage results reveal that the level and duration of involvement with modern technology raises farmers environmental awareness and that farmers environmental awareness reduces resource use including chemicals farmers who are aware of the adverse environmental impacts of modern agricultural technology use lower amounts of all inputs in order to avoid further environmental damage therefore efforts to raise farmers environmental awareness are expected to enhance intangible benefits accruing from a relatively less chemical intensive environment

how does gender affect the adoption of agricultural innovations the case of improved maize technology in ghana why do men and women adopt agricultural technologies at different rates evidence from ghana suggests that gender linked differences in the adoption of modern maize varieties and chemical fertilizer result from gender linked differences in access to complementary inputs this finding has important policy implications because it suggests that ensuring more widespread and equitable adoption of improved technologies may not require changes in the research system but rather introduction of measures that ensure better access for women to complementary inputs especially land labor and extension services

identifying the influences of nominal and real rigidities in aggregate price setting behavior we formulate a generalized price setting framework that incorporates staggered contracts of multiple durations and that enables us to directly identify the influences of nominal vs real rigidities we estimate this framework using macroeconomic data for germany 1975 1998 and for the u s 1983 2003 in each case we find that the data are well characterized by nominal contracts with an average duration of about two to three quarters we also find that new contracts exhibit very low sensitivity to marginal cost corresponding to a relatively high degree of real rigidity finally our results indicate that backward looking price setting behavior such as indexation to lagged inflation is not needed in explaining the aggregate data at least in an environment with a stable monetary policy regime and a transparent and credible inflation objective

on integrating theories of international economics in the strategic planning of global supply chains and facility location abstract this paper relates three theories of international economics comparative advantage competitive advantage and competitiveness and formulates the thesis that incorporating them in the form of readily available individual competitiveness indicators in or ms models offers promise to enhance decision support for the strategic planning of global supply chains in general and for locating facilities in particular the purpose of this paper is to relate these theories from the field of international economics to give a roadmap of related measures that are provided by annual competitiveness reports and to pose several research questions as challenges to the or ms community as it seeks to improve models to support the strategic planning process accordingly specific objectives of this paper are to relate each of these theories and to describe their interrelationships to describe measures provided by two well known annual competitiveness reports and to illustrate application of the theories as a means of supporting the thesis of the paper and justifying the research questions we pose for future research while this paper discusses topics relative to the broader background of global supply chain design it illustrates applications associated with facility location a component of the global supply chain design since it has a rich history within the or ms community and since it is central to strategic planning in the global economy

farmers perceptions and adoption of new agricultural technology evidence from analysis in burkina faso and guinea west africa economists investigating consumer demand have accumulated considerable evidence showing that consumers generally have subjective preferences for characteristics of products and that their demand for products is significantly affected by their perceptions of the product s attributes however the role of farmers preferences in adoption decisions have received very limited attention in adoption studies conducted by economists this paper tests the hypothesis that farmers perceptions of technology characteristics significantly affect their adoption decisions the analysis conducted with tobit models of modern sorghum and rice varietal technologies in burkina faso and guinea respectively strongly supports this hypothesis our results provide a strong case for future adoption studies to expand the range of variables used away from the broad socio economic demographic and institutional factors to include farmers subjective perceptions of the characteristics of new agricultural technologies

from participation to adoption comparing the effectiveness of soil conservation programs in the peruvian andes many efforts are made to promote soil conservation in developing countries this paper compares the effect of two programs promoting soil conservation in peru on the adoption decision of households one program applies a top down approach with soil conservation as its core activity the other program applies a participatory approach offering a portfolio of activities in order to improve rural livelihoods the decisions on participation and adoption are estimated with a trivariate probit model the results show that each program attracts different types of households and achieves different outcomes in terms of soil conservation

incentive payments to encourage farmer adoption of water quality protection practices farmers can be encouraged to voluntarily adopt environmentally sound management practices through the use of incentive payments this paper uses both a bivariate probit with sample selection model and a double hurdle model on data from a survey of farmers to predict farmer adoption of the practices as a function of the payment offer the five management practices addressed here are integrated pest management legume crediting manure testing split applications of nitrogen and soil moisture testing also estimated are models that predict the acreage on which these practices would be applied given the decision to accept the incentive payments estimated

monetary policy under model and data parameter uncertainty abstract empirical taylor rules are much less aggressive than those derived from optimization based models this paper analyzes whether accounting for uncertainty across competing models and or real time data considerations can explain this discrepancy it considers a central bank that chooses a taylor rule in a framework that allows for an aversion to the second order risk associated with facing multiple models and measurement error configurations the paper finds that if the central bank cares strongly enough about stabilizing the output gap this aversion leads to significant declines in the coefficients of the taylor rule even if the central bank s loss function assigns little weight to reducing interest rate variability furthermore a small degree of aversion can generate an optimal rule that matches the empirical taylor rule