an empirical analysis of post merger organizational integration we study post merger organizational integration using linked employer employee data integration is implemented by reassigning a small number of high skilled workers especially in r d and management workforce mixing is concentrated to establishments set up after merger rather than to previously existing establishments worker turnover is high after merger but new hiring yields stable total employment target employees have higher turnover and reassignment particularly if the target firm is small relative to the acquiring firm these findings might suggest that integration is costly but can be achieved by focusing on key employees alternatively the reassignment of a few key employees is sufficient for achieving integration

on the patterns and wealth effects of vertical mergers we use industry commodity flows information to measure vertical relations in completed mergers from 1962 to 1996 almost one third of the mergers display vertical relatedness vertical merger activity is more intensive in the 1980s and 1990s and less so in the 1960s and the 1970s vertical mergers generate positive wealth effects that are significantly larger than those for diversifying mergers the wealth effects in vertical mergers are comparable to those in pure horizontal mergers

marriage bequest and assortative matching in rural ethiopia abstract this article examines the determinants of human and physical capital at marriage using detailed data from rural ethiopia we find that assets brought to marriage are distributed in a highly unequal manner for first unions assets brought to marriage are positively associated with parents wealth indicating that a bequest motive affects assets at marriage parental wealth affects the inheritance of neither groom nor bride sibling competition from brothers affects grooms inheritance but sisters have no effect the marriage market is a major conduit for rural and gender inequality although avenues do exist for couples to accumulate wealth over their life cycle

private food safety and quality standards for fresh produce exporters the case of hortico agrisystems zimbabwe abstract there is evidence that the challenges of complying with stricter food safety and quality standards are acting to exclude small scale producers from export supply chains for high value agricultural products the case of hortico agrisystems illustrates the considerable challenges and costs faced by supermarket suppliers in sourcing from a broad base of small scale producers in the context of evolving food safety and quality standards while small scale producers are able to achieve levels of compliance at least equal to those of large scale producers multi tiered and dynamic systems of control are required to maintain control these need to include measures that facilitate compliance incentives to reward good performance and penalties to punish non compliance in establishing a sustainable supply system in this context both exporters and small scale producers face a steep learning curve in adjusting to new requirements further emphasising the need for supply chains to be responsive to change

oil and natural gas prospects in south america can the petroleum industry pave the way for renewables in brazil abstract a large share of brazil s current investments is concentrated in the development of petroleum resources in new frontiers perspectives for large offshore pre salt fields are particularly good however challenges are also huge on one hand pre salt resources development will draw vast amounts of economic and human resources and pose significant macroeconomic risks on the other hand the petroleum industry can generate multiplicative effects into the country s economy and even more importantly generate rents that can be diverted towards the promotion of renewable energy sources this paper simulates the rent generation of brazil s petroleum development up to 2030 according to the country s current fiscal regime projections of petroleum supply and a probability analysis of brent price evolution and assesses how these economic resources if properly allocated can pave the way for an increased use of renewables in brazil findings show that an ambitious energy innovation program based on a target oriented agency plus a program for solar development would cost less than half the minimum average annual petroleum rent free for investing in renewables between 2013 and 2030 the remaining budget could improve the security of ethanol fuel supply by avoiding the negative impacts of sugar prices spikes on brazil s ethanol production

speculation and the 2008 oil bubble the dcot report analysis abstract this article analyzes the cftc s disaggregated commitments of traders dcot report to get more insights into the behavior of different traders during the 2008 oil bubble the analysis shows that 1 the money manager category perfectly played the oil bubble got in early and started selling shortly before the bubble peak 2 the producer merchant processor user category and the nonreportable category were covering their short positions into the peak of the bubble 3 the swap dealer category benefited while the price of oil was rising but incurred heavy losses as the price of oil collapsed 4 we find no indications of speculation by any group of traders via the positive feedback trading or rational destabilization and 5 we do however criticize the commercial hedgers for failing to arbitrage the soaring oil prices in 2008

dynamics of smallholder participation in horticultural export chains evidence from ecuador we study the dynamics of smallholder participation in export value chains focusing on the example of small scale broccoli producers in the highlands of ecuador combining cross sectional data from a household survey with 11 year longitudinal data on export market transactions we explain the hazards of dropping out of a high value export chain we apply a multispell cox duration model that allows us to consider multiple entries and exits from the supply chain we also provide evidence on the welfare impacts associated with participation the results suggest that small scale farmers exit from the export sector is accelerated by high transaction risks experienced in the past while we find no particular evidence for the exclusion of small scale farmers from the export sector we do find that poorer households and female headed households tend to drop out faster especially as long as the sector is still prospering finally when considering welfare effects we do not find evidence that participation translates into tangible benefits for broccoli farmers we discuss some measures that could help improve the long term sustainability of smallholder integration in high value chains

agricultural commercialization and nutrition revisited empirical evidence from three african countries the transition from subsistence to commercial agriculture is key for economic growth but what are the consequences for nutritional outcomes the evidence to date has been scant and inconclusive this study contributes to the debate by revisiting two prevailing wisdoms a market participation by african smallholders remains low and b the impact of commercialization on nutritional outcomes is generally positive using nationally representative data from three african countries the analysis reveals high levels of commercialization by even the poorest and smallest landholders with rates of market participation as high as 90 female farmers participate less but tend to sell larger shares of their production conditional on participation second we find little evidence of a positive relationship between commercialization and nutritional status as countries and international agencies prioritize the importance of nutrition sensitive agriculture better understanding of the transmission channels between crop choices and nutritional outcomes should remain a research priority

control and ownership of assets within rural ethiopian households this article investigates how the control and devolution of productive assets are allocated among husband and wife theory predicts that bargaining power within marriage depends on the division of assets upon divorce and on control over assets during marriage using detailed household data from rural ethiopia we show that assets brought to marriage ownership of assets control within marriage and disposition upon death or divorce are only partly related productive resources are controlled by the household head disposition upon death or divorce only loosely depends on individual ownership during marriage but control is associated with larger claims upon divorce assets brought into marriage have little impact on disposition upon death but matter in case of divorce

cash crops and food security evidence from ethiopian smallholder coffee producers one of the central questions in food policy debates has been the role of cash cropping for achieving food security in low income countries we revisit this question in the context of smallholder co

spillovers from modern supply chains to traditional markets product innovation and adoption by smallholders there is an emerging body of literature analyzing how smallholder farmers in developing countries can benefit from modern supply chains however most of the available studies concentrate on export markets and fail to capture spillover effects that modern supply chains may have on local markets here we analyze the case of sweet pepper in thailand which was initially introduced as a product innovation in modern supply chains but which is now widely traded also in more traditional markets using survey data from smallholder farmers and econometric techniques we show that sweet pepper cultivation contributes significantly to higher household incomes strikingly at this stage participation in modern supply chains does not lead to higher incomes than supplying sweet pepper to traditional markets however the results also indicate that missing land titles weak infrastructure conditions and limited access to information constituted serious constraints during the early phases of sweet pepper adoption such constraints need to be overcome so that smallholder farmers are better prepared for the prompt reactions needed under rapidly changing market conditions

takeover motives during the conglomerate merger wave this article examines the stock market response to acquisition announcements during and immediately after the conglomerate merger wave of the late 1960s the main finding is that acquirer shareholders benefited from diversification acquisitions which implies that diversification was not driven by managerial objectives it is also shown that the market responded positively to bidders who retained the management of target companies and negatively to bidders who replaced target management this is consistent with the hypothesis that the market favored acquisitions intended to exploit managerial synergies it suggests that the market disliked takeovers that were motivated to discipline target management evidence on buyer and target price earnings ratios is presented that is inconsistent with the conjecture that conglomerates were able to mislead investors by earnings per share manipulation

the non linear impact of oil price on the oil demand a panel smooth transition regression model was adopted to analyse the non linear impact of oil prices on oil demand data for 42 countries was obtained from the international energy agency for the

women empowerment and economic development women empowerment and economic development are closely related in one direction development alone can play a major role in driving down inequality between men and women in the other direction empowering women may benefit development does this imply that pushing just one of these two levers would set a virtuous circle in motion this paper reviews the literature on both sides of the empowerment development nexus and argues that the interrelationships are probably too weak to be self sustaining and that continuous policy commitment to equality for its own sake may be needed to bring about equality between men and women

when will occur the crude oil bubbles abstract in this paper we apply a recursive unit root test to investigate whether there exist multiple bubbles in crude oil price the method is best suited for a practical implementation of a time series and delivers a consistent date stamping strategy for the origination and termination of multiple bubbles the empirical result indicates that there exist six bubbles during 1986 2016 when the oil price deviate from its intrinsic value based on market fundamentals specifically oil price contains the fundamentals and bubble components the dates of the bubbles correspond to specific events in the politics and financial markets the authorities should actively fight speculative bubbles or just observe their evolutions and speculation activities may decrease which is favour of the stabilisation of the staple commodities including crude oil price these findings have important economic and policy implications to recognise the cause of bubbles and take corresponding measures to reduce the impact on the real economy cause of the fluctuation of crude oil price

cash crop production food price volatility and rural market integration in the third world large farmers in the third world often devote to cash crops a larger share of their land than do small farmers this paper suggests a possible explanation even in the presence of food markets third world farmers food security is best assured by food self sufficiency a model of crop portfolio choice under multivariate risk is used to show that reasonable assumptions regarding risk and preferences reproduce the observed pattern simulations further indicate that food market integration reduces the need for food self sufficiency policy implications are drawn regarding domestic trade liberalization and agricultural technology

speculative bubbles in recent oil price dynamics evidence from a bayesian markov switching state space approach abstract motivated by repeated spikes and crashes during previous decades we investigate whether the heavily financialized market for crude oil has been driven by speculative bubbles in our theoretical modeling we draw on the convenience yield approach in order to approximate the fundamental value of the oil price we separate the oil price fundamental from the bubble component by expressing a standard present value oil price model in state space form we then introduce two markov regimes into the state space representation in order to distinguish between two distinct phases in the bubble process namely one in which the oil price bubble is a stable process and one in which the bubble explodes we estimate the entire markov switching state space specification using an econometrically robust bayesian markov chain monte carlo mcmc methodology based on inferential techniques designed for statistically separating both markov regimes in the bubble process from each other we find robust evidence for the existence of speculative bubbles in recent oil price dynamics

how much of the diversification discount can be explained by poor corporate governance we investigate whether the diversification discount occurs partly as an artifact of poor corporate governance in panel data models we find that the discount narrows by 16 to 21 when we add governance variables as regression controls we also estimate heckman selection models that account for the endogeneity of diversification and dynamic panel generalized method of moments models that account for the endogeneity of both diversification and governance we find that the diversification discount persists even with these controls for endogeneity however in selection models the discount disappears entirely when we introduce governance variables in the second stage and in dynamic panel gmm models the discount narrows by 37 when we include governance variables

when the market misleads stock prices firm behavior and industry evolution this paper augments learning and institutional theories of firm behavior with an explicit focus on the idiosyncratic characteristics of learning from financial markets various streams of literature implicitly assume that financial markets influence firm strategies yet the specifics of these interactions are not well specified motivated by a case study of the retail brokerage industry this study proposes three particular characteristics of learning from financial markets first there is vicarious learning from outcomes e g stock valuations yet this has characteristics that are more similar to institutional forms of mimetic isomorphism second the forward looking and complex nature of financial valuations incites a paradoxically simplified type of crude heuristic learning third there is a mutual and simultaneous learning process in that firms learn from financial markets which in turn are themselves in a process of social construction this combination of special characteristics suggests a number of learning pathologies that center around an increasing likelihood compared with other types of learning and adaptation of falling prey to misleading signals a computer simulation based on a model in which cournot duopolists play a multistage game involving investment and cost reduction explores the implications of these characteristics and pathologies in a systematic way

cash crops in developing countries the issues the facts the policies the issue of cash crops is profoundly controversial the debate uses different definitions of the term and slides across levels of analysis from the household to the international economy it also cuts across arguments crops countries and time periods this paper sets out to order the debate it deals first with definitions and taxonomy and then reviews issues connected with cash crops and a growth b distribution c food security d dependency and e the environment the paper concludes that with appropriate policies cash crops can offer a route to equitable growth

an empirical analysis of the role of the medium of exchange in mergers in empirical studies of differences between firms which are acquired and those which are not researchers typically divide firms into two groups acquired and nonacquired in this paper we argue that cash takeovers may be sufficiently different from noncash acquisitions that failure to distinguish between them may lead to inappropriate generalizations we provide evidence from the mid 1970s that three categories of firms can be distinguished nonacquired acquired in a cash takeover and acquired in an exchange of securities there is a substantial empirical literature exploring the differences between firms which are acquired and those which are not typically these studies divide firms into two groups acquired and nonacquired and analyze the differences in the characteristics of the two groups using binary dependent variable techniques such as discriminant analysis or probit analysis a fundamental shortcoming of these studies is that no distinctions are made concerning the nature of the merger or the acquiring firm that is it is assumed that acquired firms fall into a single category that is distinguishable from nonacquired firms in fact individual acquisitions may be motivated by quite different features suggesting that more than a single category of acquired firms should be analyzed in this paper we argue that cash takeovers may be sufficiently different from noncash acquisitions that modeling the events as being the same i e just mergers may be inappropriate we then provide evidence using data for the mid 1970s that three types of firms can be distinguished nonacquired acquired in a cash takeover and acquired in an exchange of securities the paper is organized as follows in the next section we suggest why firms acquired for cash may be quite different from firms acquired by an exchange of securities section ii describes the empirical techniques which are used and

biofuels and food security micro evidence from ethiopia abstract there is considerable controversy about the impact of biofuels on food security in developing countries a major concern is that biofuels reduce food security by increasing food prices in this paper we use survey evidence to assess the impact of castor production on poor and food insecure rural households in ethiopia about 1 3 of poor farmers have allocated on average 15 of their land to the production of castor beans under contract in biofuel supply chains castor production significantly improves their food security they have fewer months without food and the amount of food they consume increases castor cultivation is beneficial for participating households food security in several ways by generating cash income from castor contracts they can store food for the lean season castor beans preserve well on the field which allows sales when farmers are in need of cash or food spillover effects of castor contracts increases the productivity of food crops increased food crop productivity offsets the amount of land used for castor so that the total local food supply is not affected

learning by doing and learning from others human capital and technical change in agriculture household level panel data from a nationally representative sample of rural indian households describing the adoption and profitability of high yielding seed varieties hyvs associated with the green revolution are used to test the implications of a model incorporating learning by doing and learning spillovers the estimates indicate that i imperfect knowledge about the management of the new seeds was a significant barrier to adoption ii this barrier diminished as farmer experience with the new technologies increased iii own experience and neighbors experience with hyvs significantly increased hyv profitability and iv farmers do not fully incorporate the village returns to learning in making adoption decisions

the oil price crash in 2014 15 was there a negative financial bubble abstract this paper suggests that there was a negative bubble in oil prices in 2014 15 which decreased them beyond the level justified by economic fundamentals this proposition is corroborated by two sets of bubble detection strategies the first set consists of tests for financial bubbles while the second set consists of the log periodic power law lppl model for negative financial bubbles despite the methodological differences between these detection methods they provided the same outcome the oil price experienced a statistically significant negative financial bubble in the last months of 2014 and at the beginning of 2015 these results also hold after several robustness checks which consider the effect of conditional heteroskedasticity model set ups with additional restrictions longer data samples tests with lower frequency data and with an alternative proxy variable to measure the fundamental value of oil

agro export production and peasant land access examining the dynamic between adoption and accumulation abstract new technologies and export opportunities have often contributed to dualistic agrarian structure and intense social conflict in latin american a switching regression model developed in this paper explicitly links export adoption and land accumulation patterns controlling for pre existing differentiation processes applied to survey data gathered from peasant households in guatemala the model provides evidence of equitable structural change induced by a recent export boom in vegetable crops however the optimism of these results is tempered by consideration of the unfavorable longer term market dynamics confronting small scale producers

informing food security decisions in africa empirical analysis and policy dialogue discussions of economic and agricultural development in africa have focused heavily in recent years on structural adjustment i e basic policy changes aimed at allowing international and domestic markets to play a greater role in coordinating national economic activities often these structural adjustments and accompanying policies aimed at improving economic performance have been based on several implicit assumptions about how african food systems operate yet for many countries little empirical information has been available to test these assumptions hence designing policies too often becomes an exercise in planning without facts this paper argues that not only is there a need to base food security and structural adjustment policies more firmly on empirical information but that the process by which the information is obtained is as important as the information itself agricultural economists and other social scientists can and increasingly should design policy research in africa in ways that simultaneously increase effective demand for empirical information as an input into the ongoing policy process and augment african capacity continually to inform policy deliberations we illustrate the payoffs to such an approach by drawing on selected experience in several african countries weber

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

household income food availability and commercial crop production by smallholder farmers in the western highlands of guatemala crop commercialization among smallholder farmers in developing countries has often been signaled as being detrimental to the economic conditions and food security of the farmers households high variability in market prices of farm products and farm inputs poses significant risks to household income as do inefficient marketing institutions and inadequate rural infrastructure lack of adequate access to credit prohibits smallholder farmers from assuming such risks commercialized farm households become more dependent on market conditions for adequate availability of food as cash crops displace food crops and household consumption of own produced staple foods is reduced thus the household s vulnerability to food insecurity tends to be increased labor inputs by household members are often higher in cash than food crops which may increase the household s food needs 2 changes in food intake patterns have been associated with a change toward cash crop production which often results in diminished nutritional quality of the diet 3 the income and food effects of shifts from subsistence to commer

globalization and smallholders the adoption diffusion and welfare impact of non traditional export crops in guatemala summary this paper uses a duration analysis based on adoption data spanning 25 years from six communities in the central highlands of guatemala to explore how household characteristics and external trends play into both the adoption and diffusion processes of non traditional exports ntx among smallholders based on the analysis ntx production appeared to have delivered less prosperity to adopters than initially promised smallholders may lack capacity to overcome difficulties that inevitably arise in complex types of cultivations and in highly variable global agricultural markets governmental and non governmental organizations can attempt to mitigate these difficulties but market forces may overwhelm these efforts

assisting the transition from workfare to work a randomized experiment randomly sampled workfare participants in a welfare dependent region of argentina were given a voucher that entitled an employer to a sizable wage subsidy a second sample also received the option of skill training while a third sample formed the control group the authors analyze the effects of this scheme on participants employment and income using double difference and instrumental variables methods to deal with potential experimental biases including selective compliance with the randomized assignment the authors find that compared with the control group voucher recipients had a significantly higher probability of employment though their current incomes were no higher the impact was largely confined to women and younger workers labor supply effects appear to have been important however training had no significant impact the experiment was cost effective in reducing the government s welfare spending since take up of the subsidy by employers was low

the wealth effect of merger activity and the objective functions of merging firms abstract this paper studies the net effects of the long run sequence of events leading to merger and of merger per se on shareholder wealth the appropriate measure of the wealth effect is shown to be the abnormal dollar return cumulated over time using this measure the long run wealth effect of the event sequence culminating in merger is significantly negative for acquiring firms for acquired firms the effect is negative but not significant the immediate impact of merger per se is positive and highly significant for acquired firms but larger in absolute value and negative for acquiring firms the evidence also reveals that measured abnormal rates of return to acquiring firms are sensitive to a slight variation in model specification and dependent on firm size with smaller firms earning significantly negative post merger returns

household food security and child nutrition the interaction of income and gender of household head abstract data from kenya and malawi suggest that food security and preschooler nutritional status are influenced by the interaction of income and gender of the head of household rather than simply one or the other not only is household food security influenced by total household income but the proportion of income controlled by women has a positive and significant influence on household caloric intake households were disaggregated not simply in male and female headed households but female headed households were further disaggregated into de jure legal head of household is a woman and de facto female headed households male head of household is absent more than 50 of the time in both kenya and malawi the de facto female headed households had the lowest income despite this low income preschoolers nutritional status was significantly better than in the higher income male headed and de jure female headed households the ability to improve nutritional status in a low income environment in the de facto female headed households is related to a combination of child feeding practices and other nurturing behavior the findings suggest that interventions that exploit incentives to invest in children can provide more immediate improvements in child health and nutrition where sustained income growth is possible only in the long term

agricultural commercialization impacts on income and nutrition and implications for policy abstract agricultural technology and commercialization are complementary stimulators of the rural economic growth process specialization and commercialization of farming households within a more diversified economy is part of the development process but there are concerns that the process by passes the poor this article discusses the evidence on poverty and nutritional impacts of agricultural commercialization and examines how policies can affect the outcome of the commercialization process principle driving forces of the commercialization process include a conducive macroeconomic environment non distortive trade policies and infrastructure development as well as a legal and contractual environment in which farmers and processors may operate efficiently policies related to these driving forces will very much influence the nature and speed of the agricultural commercialization process these in turn will largely determine the impacts of the process on farm household income and nutritional status

the effect on firm output after its acquisition by a pure conglomerate abstract this paper explores the question of whether the optimal output of a competitive firm will be affected if it is acquired as an operating subsidiary of a pure conglomerate the demand curves faced by all the subsidiaries vary randomly the acquired firm s managers adapt their optimizing behavior in recognition of the fact that the firm s post acquisition profits constitute only one locus of contribution to the parent company s aggregate profits four propositions are derived collectively they establish the conditions that apply to determine the difference between the firm s ante acquisition output and its post acquisition counterpart

evidence on the dark side of internal capital markets this article documents differences between the sensitivity of investment of stand alone firms and unrelated segments of conglomerate firms unrelated segments exhibit lower o sensitivity of investment than stand alone firms this fact is driven by unrelated segments of conglomerate firms that tend to invest less than stand alone firms in high s industries this finding is robust to matching on industry year size age and profitability the differences are more pronounced in conglomerates in which top management has small ownership stakes suggesting that agency problems explain the investment behavior

the going public decision and the development of financial markets this paper explores the linkages between stock price efficiency the choice between private and public financing and the development of capital markets in emerging economies generally the advantage of public financing is high if costly information is diverse and cheap to acquire and if investors receive valuable information without cost the value of public firms generally depends on public market size which implies that there can be a positive externality associated with going public so that an inferior equilibrium can exist where too few firms go public the model is consistent with empirical observations on financial market development

rational destabilizing speculation positive feedback trading and the oil bubble of 2008 abstract this article examines how the interaction of different participants in the crude oil futures markets affects the crude oil price efficiency normally the commercial market participants such as oil producers and oil consumers act as arbitrageurs and ensure that the price of crude oil remains within the fundamental value range however institutional investors that invest in crude oil to diversify their portfolios and or hedge inflation can destabilize the interaction among commercial participants and liquidity providing speculators we argue that institutional investors can impose limits to arbitrage particularly during the financial crisis when the investment demand for commodities is particularly strong in support we show that commercials hedgers had significantly reduced their short positions leading to the 2008 oil bubble they were potentially aggressively offsetting their short hedges as a result by essentially engaging in a positive feedback trading commercial hedgers at least contributed to the 2008 oil bubble these findings have been mainly overlooked by the existing research

trade standards and poverty evidence from senegal summary in the debate on trade and poverty it is argued that standards act as trade barriers and cause marginalization of the poor this paper quantifies income and poverty effects of high standards trade and integrates labor market effects by using company and household survey data from the vegetable export chain in senegal we find that exports grew sharply despite increasing standards contributing importantly to rural incomes and poverty reduction tightening standards induced a shift from smallholder contract farming to integrated estate production altering the mechanism through which poor households benefit through labor markets instead of product markets

the impact of fundamental and financial traders on the term structure of oil abstract we study how the exposure of fundamental and financial traders affects the futures curve of wti oil and the market integration between wti and brent as measured by their price spread to obtain a parsimonious representation of the futures curve we decompose it into a level a slope and a curvature factor in a second step we separately regress each extracted factor on measures of the market exposure of fundamental and financial traders revealing whether and how the exposure of the two trader groups affects the different dimensions of the futures curve spanning from 2006 until 2012 our dataset covers sub periods of a sharp wti price rise as well as a diverging brent wti spread our contribution is threefold first we suggest that it is important to distinguish between level and slope as we find that fundamental traders have a measurable impact on the level of the futures curve but do not play much of a role for its slope or curvature whereas the exposure of financial traders mainly influences the slope of the futures curve despite allegations to the contrary we find no evidence of a systematic impact of non fundamental traders on the level of the futures curve for example during the 2006 2008 oil price surge second we suggest using relative short and relative long positions for fundamental and financial traders instead of the net position as the former reflect better the overall economic positioning of each group third we find that the exposure of financials is the key driver of the brent wti spread it confirms that financial rather than fundamental traders are responsible for integrating the two markets

cash cropping and food crop productivity synergies or trade offs the case for promoting export oriented cash crops in africa has generally been based on their direct potential contribution to agricultural productivity and small farmer incomes a relatively neglected avenue of research concerns the synergistic effects that cash cropping can have on other household activities including food production the conventional view that cash crops compete with food crops for land and labour neglects the potential for cash crop schemes to make available inputs on credit management training and other resources that can contribute to food crop productivity which might otherwise not be accessible to farmers if they did not participate in cash crop programs this article builds on previous research by hypothesising key pathways by which cash crops may affect food crop activities and empirically measuring these effects using the case of cotton in gokwe north district in zimbabwe analysis is based on instrumental variable analysis of survey data on 430 rural households in 1996 results indicate that after controlling for household assets education and locational differences households engaging intensively in cotton production obtain higher grain yields than non cotton and marginal cotton producers we also find evidence of regional spill over effects whereby commercialisation schemes induce second round investments in a particular area that provide benefits to all farmers in that region regardless of whether they engage in that commercialisation scheme the study suggests that the potential spill over benefits for food crops through participation in cash crop programs are important to consider in the development of strategies designed to intensify african food crop production

global value chains large scale farming and poverty long term effects in senegal this paper presents panel data evidence on the impact of expansion of global value chains and large scale export oriented farms in developing countries over almost a decade we estimate the income effects of wage employment on large scale farms in the horticultural export sector in senegal using data from two survey rounds covering a seven years period of rapid expansion of the sector we estimate average income effects as well as heterogeneous income effects using fixed effects and quantile fixed effects regressions we find that poverty and inequality reduced much faster in the research area than elsewhere in senegal employment in the horticultural export sector is associated with higher household income and the income effect is strongest for the poorest households expansion of the horticultural export sector in senegal has been particularly pro poor through creating employment that is accessible and creates substantial income gains for the poorest half of the rural population these pro poor employment effects contrast with insights in the literature on increased inequality from rural wage employment

target profits and managerial discipline during the conglomerate merger wave this paper takes a close look at the extraordinarily high premerger profit rates of target companies during the conglomerate merger wave both publicly traded and privately owned targets were significantly more profitable than other firms in their industries and size classes this implies that managerial discipline was not a predominant takeover motive during the period however public targets were less profitable than private targets and the largest public targets earned only average profits this suggests that managerial discipline may have been important for the few takeovers that involved large publicly traded targets copyright 1993 by blackwell publishing ltd

food price seasonality in africa measurement and extent everyone knows about seasonality but what exactly do we know this study systematically measures seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities in seven african countries it shows that the commonly used dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to estimate the seasonal gap can yield substantial upward bias this can be partially circumvented using trigonometric and sawtooth models which are more parsimonious among staple crops seasonality is highest for maize 33 percent on average and lowest for rice 16 percent this is two and a half to three times larger than in the international reference markets seasonality varies substantially across market places but maize is the only crop in which there are important systematic country effects malawi where maize is the main staple emerges as exhibiting the most acute seasonal differences reaching the sustainable development goal of zero hunger requires renewed policy attention to seasonality in food prices and consumption

nudging farmers to use fertilizer theory and experimental evidence from kenya we model farmers as facing small fixed costs of purchasing fertil izer and assume some are stochastically present biased and not fully sophisticated about this bias such farmers may procrastinate post poning fertilizer purchases until later periods when they may be too impatient to purchase fertilizer consistent with the model many farmers in western kenya fail to take advantage of apparently profit able fertilizer investments but they do invest in response to small time limited discounts on the cost of acquiring fertilizer free deliv ery just after harvest calibration suggests that this policy can yield higher welfare than either laissez faire policies or heavy subsidies

heterogeneity of commercialization gains in the rural economy farmers in low income rural economies often fail to switch to cash crops from staple production despite the positive income effects of commercialization expected by policy makers the literature suggests that market failures prevent households from cash crop adoption but remains inconclusive regarding farmers motives and the effects of commercialization this article contributes to the debate by offering an original approach to the analysis of commercialization outcomes and farmers decisions it consists of applying a model with essential heterogeneity and a semiparametric estimation technique to analyzing harvest value returns to cash cropping using malawian data we show considerable heterogeneity in harvest value returns to cash cropping both within and between groups of farmers choosing different crop portfolios importantly the results imply rational choices based on comparative advantage considerations of farming households farmers self select into the activity where they expect higher gains and adopt cash crops when facing weaker market barriers

sustainability in the diffusion of innovations smallholder nontraditional agro exports in guatemala i nontraditional agro exports in guatemala since the late 1970s guatemala like a number of other developing countries has experienced an extraordinarily rapid growth in the production of nontraditional agro exports ntxs the share of agricultural exports coming from ntxs grew from less than 6 in 1980 to more than 22 in 1992 rationales behind the promotion of ntxs by governments and development agencies include seeking foreign exchange earnings alternatives to depressed market conditions for traditional export crops and rural poverty reduction as part of the packages mandated by structural adjustment and trade liberalization programs many national governments including guatemala s introduced policies in favor of ntx producers such as export facilitation procedures subsidy programs and fiscal reforms trade agreements such as the generalized system of preferences and the caribbean basin initiative created additional incentives for ntx exporters in the guatemalan context private organizations and trade associations such as the association of exporters of nontraditional products played a catalytic role in promoting ntxs in the 1980s as a potential new approach to rural development international donors have invested heavily in the promotion of ntxs among smallholders one such effort that received considerable attention is the agricultural cooperative cuatro pinos that was founded in 1979 with financial assistance from a swiss development agency cooperative membership grew tenfold in the following 10 years reaching more than 1 900 members in the late 1980s and operating in ten different villages pre ntx agriculture in the region was dominated by the milpa sys

linking smallholder farmers to markets on extensive and intensive margins evidence from nicaragua abstract access to modern commercialization channels is key for smallholder farmers to move away from subsistence farming and overcome poverty however achieving that goal is challenging for smallholders given their lack of appropriate managerial practices production technology and infrastructure this paper examines the association between receiving trainings in two distinct entrepreneurial practices one direct at the individual and farmer association level and another indirect at the community level and commercialization in non local markets at the extensive and intensive margins we exploit a panel dataset of bean producers in nicaragua that participated in an ngo program implemented between 2007 and 2012 we find opposite results for the two market linkage activities especially on the intensive margin or volume of sales while reciving direct training on entrepreneurial practices ep is positively associated with commercialization training on municipality engagement me activities is negatively associated these correlation patterns are mainly observed among entrant farmers as opposed to those already participating in commercial markets prior to the program implementation we also find varying results for me activities by plot size and leadership position additional estimations show that training activities that are positively correlated with bean commercialization are not necessarily correlated with the commercialization of other crops and vice versa

the relationships among acquiring and acquired firms product lines this study develops detailed information on the relationships among the activities of acquiring and acquired firms at and near the time of merger for a sample of 94 takeovers undertaken between 1977 1982 we focus on takeovers for two reasons first takeovers are an important and controversial phenomenon second takeovers allow us to look at marginal changes admittedly large ones in the firm s boundaries thus they provide a useful way of examining relationships among activities of the firm without having to go into great detail regarding the historical decisions that generated the firm s current structure while the individual establishment is our basic data unit in this study we aggregate the activities of the firm to the line of business lob level each lob of an acquired firm is classified as to its relationship horizontal vertical upstream or downstream and conglomerate to the lobs of the acquiring firm using these categorizations we aggregate the lob level information to the firm level to investigate the degree to which our sample of mergers is specialized to particular types of relationships while we find a significant group of unspecialized takeovers most appear to fit a specific category we also look at the pattern of closed operations immediately following the takeover closings are generally concentrated in operations involving horizontal relationships finally we consider the pattern of relationships between hostile and friendly takeovers and whether takeover premiums vary by type of merger merger premiums are not related to the type of relationship between the acquiring and acquired firm but they are tied to whether the takeover is friendly or hostile this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

level playing fields and laissez faire postliberal development strategy in inegalitarian agrarian economies focusing on the rural sector in latin america this paper explores the microeconomic linkages between distribution and growth which drive the possible reproduction of rural poverty over time the result of this exploration is a neostructuralist perspective which argues that actually existing laissez faire agrarian economies do not present a level playing field and that low wealth farms face disadvantages which tend to reproduce or even deepen sectoral inequality the paper then tries to identify the sorts of public policy and collective action which might modify the nature of growth and distribution in post liberalization agrarian market economy

the 2008 oil bubble causes and consequences abstract we argue that the 2008 oil bubble was directly and indirectly created by the federal reserve in response to deflationary risks that resurfaced after the housing bubble burst and the resulting credit crisis of 2008 deflationary risks first appeared after the dot com bubble burst in 2000 and after the terrorist attacks on september 11 2001 manipulation of the us dollar value has been one of the key emergency tools in the fed s arsenal during the entire period from 2000 to 2008 the us dollar has been falling while the price of crude oil has been rising with the culmination in july 2008 if other global central banks embrace the fed s anti deflationary strategies the consequences could be dire for the global economy potentially resulting in an ultimate gold bubble

the economic and financial dimensions of degrowth abstract we respond to the call for future research on degrowth and specifically analyze the implications of economic degrowth on the monetary and financial system we argue that any early indications of degrowth would cause the stock market to crash which would trigger further deleveraging contagion and a deflation as a result the economy would implode which would eventually allow for a new rapid growth cycle given the likely extraordinary fiscal and monetary policy response during the implosion thus in our view degrowth as an explicit strategy option is economically unsustainable and unfeasible as a limitation our analysis centers on the examples of unplanned crisis leading to an economic implosion which imperfectly represent the idea of planned voluntary degrowth

the effect of the financial sector on the evolution of oil prices analysis of the contribution of the futures market to the price discovery process in the wti spot market abstract the aim of this article is to empirically measure the contribution of the futures market to the price discovery process in the spot market for benchmark crude oils specifically that for west texas intermediate wti for this purpose we test the hypothesis that the recent evolution of the financial markets has affected the future oil market so as to increase its contribution to the price discovery process of the spot market we modeled the relation between wti spot and future prices as a cointegration relation by using the kalman filter technique it was possible to obtain a time varying measure of the contribution of future markets to the price discovery mechanism the results show that in the case of wti the contribution of the futures market has been increasing especially between 2003 and 2008 and then again after the start of 2009 evidencing the growing importance of factors particular to the financial markets in determining oil prices in recent years during 2009 the spot prices adjusted to agents future expectations rather than to the current supply and demand conditions

spillovers from high value agriculture for exports on land use in developing countries evidence from madagascar high value agriculture for exports is increasingly important in developing countries in a case study of contract farming for exports of vegetables from madagascar strong spillover effects of these trade opportunities on land use are found to exist using a matched plot sampling design the productivity of rice the main domestically consumed staple is shown to be two thirds higher on fields that were contracted during the off season for the production of vegetables this increase in yields is linked to an increase of soil fertility due to the application of fertilizer and compost which farmers did not use prior to the contracts although agricultural output goes up significantly labor productivity stays the same suggesting that there is greater labor absorption on existing land and the diffusion of this type of technology at a larger scale throughout madagascar would be expected to substantially decrease incentives to deforest by increasing wages and to boost productivity of existing lands relative to newly deforested ones

the 2014 oil bust causes and consequences abstract this article suggests that the 2014 oil price collapse was possibly triggered by the falling euro versus the us dollar specifically the usd eur exchange rate likely adjusted to the sudden economic growth outlook divergence between the us and the eu as evident by the relative short term interest rate spread measures and triggered a strong dollar trade which is negative for the crude oil prices thus in our view the 2014 oil price bust is another episode of oil price inefficiency similar to the 2008 oil bubble the key argument presented in this article is that as long as there are temporary economic growth divergences between the us and the eu the resulting exchange rate volatility is likely to create the pricing inefficiencies in crude oil which in fact are mean reverting as the economic growth divergences eventually dissipate

the impact of takeovers on shareholder wealth during the 1920s merger wave we examine the impact of merger announcements on portfolios of acquiring firm and target firm common stock from 1919 to 1930 despite vast changes in the economic and regulatory environment overall acquisition profitability has remained remarkably constant over the last 70 to 80 years target firm shareholders in the 1920s clearly gained from takeovers averaging abnormal returns in excess of 15 while acquiring firm shareholders essentially broke even synergistic or monopolistic gains from consolidation were minimal unlike the more recent experience target firm and acquiring firm abnormal returns were largely unaffected by the mode of acquisition the means of financing or the degree of industrial relatedness

non traditional crops traditional constraints long term welfare impacts of export crop adoption among guatemalan smallholders this study documents the long term welfare effects of household non traditional agricultural export ntx adoption the analysis uses a unique panel dataset which spans the period 1985 2005 and employs difference in differences estimation to investigate the long term impact of non traditional agricultural export adoption on changes in household consumption status and asset position in the central highlands of guatemala given the heterogeneity in adoption patterns the analysis differentiates the impact estimates based on a classification of households that takes into account the timing and duration of non traditional agricultural export adoption the results show that while on average welfare levels have improved for all households irrespective of adoption status and duration the extent of improvement has varied across groups long term adopters exhibit the smallest increase in the lapse of two decades in spite of some early gains conversely early adopters who withdrew from non traditional agricultural export production after reaping the benefits of the boom period of the 1980s are found to have fared better and shown greater improvements in durable asset position and housing conditions than any other category

a reexamination of the conglomerate merger wave in the 1960s an internal capital markets view one possible explanation for bidding firms earning positive abnormal returns in diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s is that internal capital markets were expected to overcome the information deficiencies of the less developed capital markets examining 392 bidder firms during the 1960s we find the highest bidder returns when financially unconstrained buyers acquire constrained targets this result holds while controlling for merger terms and for different proxies used to classify firms facing costly external financing we also find that bidders generally retain target management suggesting that management may have provided companyspecific operational information while the bidder provided capital budgeting expertise

the development of and prospects for organic farming in the uk abstract the organic sector in the uk is booming with the largest ever wave of farm conversions underway consumer demand is currently growing faster than supply the evidence regarding the factors that have been critical now and in the past in causing producers to establish organic systems is reviewed this review draws on the authors own work as well as that of other researchers in europe and the usa in the second part of the paper we report on a recent study of the factors that prompt organic producers to abandon registered organic production this analysis is based on a survey of producers formerly registered with the soil association who have left the scheme since 1990 finally the paper considers the current policy regime with respect to organic farming the scope for the continued growth of the sector and the debate regarding the design of future policy