the effect of land scarcity on farm structure empirical evidence from mali abstractwe analyze the individualization of farm units in mali in the sense of a transformation of purely collective farms into mixed units in which private plots coexist with collective fields since a moral hazard in team problem plagues production on the latter and the household head extracts his income from it he faces a trade off between efficiency and capture we show within the framework of a patriarchal farm household model that private plots become profitable for the head once land becomes sufficiently scarce specifically greater land scarcity raises both the probability to find private plots in afarm and the share of farmland allocated to these plots on the basis of firsthand data collected in southern mali we test and confirm the two predictions yielded by the above theory moreover we show that a higher number of married men within the household has the same effect as land scarcity thus suggesting an interesting refinement of the moral hazard in team argument

tradeoffs and complementarities in the adoption of improved seeds fertilizer and natural resource management technologies in kenya there is widespread consensus that agricultural technology has an important role to play for poverty reduction and sustainable development there is no consensus however about the types of technologies that are best suited for smallholder farmers in africa while some consider natural resource management nrm technologies as most appropriate others propagate input intensification with a stronger role of the private sector in the public debate these two strategies are often perceived as incompatible environmental non governmental organizations in particular consider low external input strategies as the only sustainable form of agriculture a view that has considerable influence on policymakers and the international donor community most existing research studies on smallholder innovation focus on the adoption of individual technologies so that comparisons between different types of technologies in the same context are not easily possible we use representative data from maize producing households in kenya and a multivariate probit model to analyze the adoption of different types of technologies simultaneously results indicate that nrm technologies and strategies that build on external inputs are not incompatible interesting complementarities exist which are not yet sufficiently exploited because many organizations promote either one type of technology or the other but rarely a combination of both

tariffs and load management the french experience the aim of an electric public utility is the optimum control of the electrical energy generating and consumption system consistency is required between the means of control at level of supply and the means of control at level of demand on the demand side marginal cost pricing is an efficient tool to achieve a good management this paper presents the french experience in this field

industrial power demand response analysis for one part real time pricing demand side management dsm programs in the industrial sector appear to be economically feasible due to the large controllable loads and relatively low costs per control point innovative electricity tariffs provide one of the most important dsm alternatives because real time pricing rtp is considered as an excellent management option which reflects the real cost of generating electricity to the end user the electricity cost saving potential of rtp through demand management is presented in this paper a unique analytical approach is followed to describe the potential electricity cost savings mathematically in terms of variables familiar to both the end user and utility these variables include the installed power consumption capacity of the plant the plant s spare energy consumption capacity and terms that describe the structure of the rtp tariff

load management in europe marketing aspects different load management strategies and utility approaches are used to obtain efficient utilization of electric energy in europe this paper focuses on the use of pricing as a marketing tool the importance of pilot programs in marketing and especially on the broader approach to marketing used by utilities as the energy market becomes more complex several utilities extend their endeavours to comprehensive programs the utility either acts as co ordinator itself or as a part of a joint venture a broad utility approach to customers often as a total entrepeneur is becoming more common in europe

gender social norms and household production in burkina faso abstractempirical studies of intrahousehold allocation have revealed that in many instances gender is an important determinant in the allocation of resources within the household yet within the theoretical literature why gender matters within the household remains an open question in this article we propose a simple model of intrahousehold allocation based on a particular social institution for the organization of agricultural production practiced among certain ethnic groups in west africa we highlight how this institution while resolving certain problems of commitment and informational asymmetry can also lead to a gendered pattern in the allocation of productive resources and consumption within the household using a survey of agricultural households in burkina faso we show consistent with this theory that plots owned by the head of the household are farmed more intensively and achieve higher yields than plots with similar characteristics owned by other household members male and female fam

the effect of fdi on environmental emissions evidence from a meta analysis one important and frequently raised issue about foreign direct investment fdi is the potentially negative consequences for the environment the potential environmental cost due to increased emissions may undermine the economic gains associated with increases in fdi inflow although the literature is dominated with this adverse view of fdi on the environment there is also a possibility that fdi can contribute to a cleaner environment especially if fdi comes with green technologies and this creates spillovers for domestic industries theoretically the effect of fdi on the environment can be negative or positive to deal with the theoretical ambiguity about the fdi environment nexus many empirical studies have been conducted but their results only reinforce the controversy as they produce contrasting results we conduct a meta analysis of the effect of fdi on environmental emissions using 65 primary studies that produce 1006 elasticities our results show that the underlying effect of fdi on environmental emissions is close to zero however after accounting for heterogeneity in the studies we find that fdi significantly reduces environmental emissions results remain robust after disaggregating the effect for countries at different levels of development as well as for different pollutants

economic efficiency and supply response of women as farm managers comparative evidence from western kenya summary this paper assessed the relative economic efficiency and output supply and input demand responses of women farmers in western kenya the results showed that women are as technically and allocatively efficient as men however neither men nor women have absolute allocative efficiency women farmers are equally responsive to price incentives in terms of output supply and input demand while education and extension contact have significant effects on overall maize supply and input demand only extension contact has significant effects among women farmers the paper discusses a number of significant results and concludes with implications for policy

the econometrics of damage control why specification matters the contribution of damage control agents to production differs fundamentally from that of standard inputs lands labor capital this paper develops an econometric model based on the key characteristics of damage control agents and examines its properties it demonstrates that standard production function specifications overestimate damage control agent productivity and have erroneous implications for the evolution of damage control agent productivity and use in response to changing environments e g the spread of pest resistance it also proposes several alternative specifications and discusses methods for estimating them

does foreign direct investment lead to lower co2 emissions evidence from a regional analysis in china abstract existing studies have been concerned with the relationship between foreign direct investment and co2 emissions in recent years however little attention has been paid to regional differences in china this paper investigates the impact of fdi on china s co2 emissions at the national and regional levels using provincial panel data from 1995 to 2010 the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat model was adopted the results suggest that fdi contributes to co2 emission reductions in china fdi s impact on co2 emissions decreases from the western region to the eastern and central regions our findings support the pollution halo hypothesis which claims that foreign firms can export greener technologies from developed to developing countries and conduct business in an environmentally friendly manner

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

a new stepwise power tariff model and its application for residential consumers in regulated electricity markets stepwise power tariff spt which has been put into practice is a crucial way for energy saving and environment protecting in this paper a new optimal model of spt based on residential demand response model is presented the optimal decision is proposed to restrain high electricity consumption as well as safeguard benefits of both supply and demand sides as a result the objective is designed to minimize electricity consumption and constraints are taken into consideration thoroughly including acceptable index of consumers average price sales profit of power providers and basic electricity demand which serves as a foundation for smooth implement of spt to solve the constrained optimal problem genetic algorithm ga is employed the effectiveness of the model and algorithm is investigated and demonstrated based on real data of 300 residents by a numerical example the study shows that the method can reduce power consumption obviously with little sacrifice of the benefits of consumers and power providers

stoking the fires co2 emissions and economic growth abstract we examine the relationship between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions a greenhouse gas central to global warming predictions estimates derived from global panel data suggest a diminishing marginal propensity to emit mpe carbon dioxide as gdp per capita rises despite this global carbon dioxide emissions growth will continue at 1 8 percent per annum for the foreseeable future a result that is not sensitive to average output growth instead emissions growth continues because output and population will grow most rapidly in lower income nations with high mpes this latter feature emphasizes the distributional consequences of policies to reduce emissions

sequential adoption of site specific technologies and its implications for nitrogen productivity a double selectivity model this paper analyzes the sequential decision to adopt two site specific technologies soil testing and variable rate technology and the impact of adoption on nitrogen productivity the results indicate that while farm location was a key variable influencing adoption of soil testing farm size human capital and innovativeness of farmers had a significant impact on adoption of variable rate technology in four midwestern states a double selectivity model applied to correct for sample selection bias shows that adoption leads to significant gains in nitrogen productivity for farms with below average soil quality but statistically insignificant gains for farms with above average soil quality copyright 2001 oxford university press

optimization and analysis of the profitability of tariff structures with two part tariffs abstract service providers often offer tariff structures with several two part tariffs that consist of a fixed fee and a usage price such that consumers may pick the tariff they prefer prices of tariffs have significant impacts on service providers profit because they simultaneously influence consumers tariff choices and their usage the number of tariffs also plays an important role because more tariffs segment the market better but also increase the administrative burden and require more marketing effort this article presents a mixed integer nonlinear programming optimization problem to determine profit maximizing tariffs compares several heuristic search methods in particular the gradient method stochastic search and simulated annealing to solve this problem analyses the profitability of different tariff structures and outlines the factors that drive differences in profitability across various tariff structures the results show that especially for large samples of more than 100 consumers simulated annealing performs best and deviates only 0 2 from the optimum structures with fewer two part tariffs are generally sufficient because additional two part tariffs only negligibly increase service providers profit

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

how does gender affect sustainable intensification of cereal production in the west african sahel evidence from burkina faso better understanding of gender differences in the adoption of agricultural intensification strategies is crucial for designing effective policies to close the gender gap while sustainably enhancing farm productivity we examine gender differences in adoption rates likelihood and determinants of adopting strategy sets that enhance yields protect crops and restore soils in the west african sahel based on analysis of cereal production in burkina faso applying a multivariate probit model to a nationally representative household panel we exploit the individual plot as unit of analysis and control for plot manager characteristics along with other covariates reflecting the socio cultural context of farming combined with the economic attributes of inputs we find that female managers of individual cereal fields are less likely than their male counterparts to adopt yield enhancing and soil restoring strategies although no differential is apparent for yield protecting strategies more broadly gender disaggregated regressions demonstrate that adoption determinants differ by gender plot manager characteristics including age marital status and access to credit or extension services do influence adoption decisions furthermore household resources influence the probability of adopting intensification strategy sets differently by gender of the plot manager variables expressing the availability of household labor strongly influence the adoption of soil restoring strategies by female plot managers by contrast household resources such as extent of livestock owned value of non farm income and area planted to cotton affect the adoption choices of male plot managers rectifying the male bias in extension services along with improving access to credit income and equipment to female plot managers could contribute to sustainable agricultural intensification

a national micro data based model of residential electricity demand new evidence on seasonal variation building on earlier estimates of electricity demand the author estimates elasticities by month to determine differences between heating and cooling seasons he develops a three equation model of residential electricity demand that includes all the main components of economic theory the model generates seasonal elasticity estimates that generally support economic theory based on the model using a national current household data set monthly division the evidence indicates there is a seasonal pattern for price elasticity of demand while less pronounced there also appears to be seasonal patterns for cross price elasticity of alternative fuels for the elasticity of appliance stock index and for an intensity of use variable

how institutions mediate the impact of cash cropping on food crop intensification an application to cotton in sub saharan africa summary it is widely agreed that smallholder led agricultural growth would contribute most to improved food security and reduced poverty yet how to achieve broader and more sustainable access by smallholder farmers to productivity enhancing inputs for food crop production remains a largely unsolved riddle in light of the great institutional diversity across cotton sectors in sub saharan africa this study investigates whether cotton can be used to spur the intensification of smallholder food production first a conceptual framework linking cotton institutional structures to food crop intensification is developed then predictions from the conceptual framework are compared with empirical evidence from different countries

price policy poverty and power within rural west african households abstract this paper explores the impact of agricultural price policy on poverty in west africa a region in which prices are an important tool for raising rural household incomes a game theoretic collective model of household income generation and resource allocation is developed that incorporates three features typical of west african rural households preference heterogeneity among women and men individual resource control and power mediated bargaining over resource control in the face of changes in households economic environments to explore price effects the model is used to simulate the income impacts of large increases in cotton prices accompanying fast paced agricultural liberalisation in burkina faso in the 1980s the paper shows that where resources are controlled individually by household members rather than pooled pareto efficiency in income generation does not hold the impact of agricultural price policy on poverty is mediated by bargaining over resource control within households bo

how does gender affect the adoption of agricultural innovations 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

communicating the value of dispatchability for non utility generation projects electric utilities seeking to purchase power from nonutility generators nugs need to provide information to nug developers on the value to the utility power system of various attributes in order that the developers can design projects that maximize net benefits dispatchability is one key attribute this paper outlines three previous approaches to communicating to developers the value of dispatchability and describes a fourth approach the fourth approach presents a table of numbers representing the value of dispatchability as a function of the energy bid price and escalation rate it has the advantage of simplicity from the perspective of the developer while still providing a meaningful signal to the developer

economic costs of electricity supply interruptions us and foreign experience abstract this paper investigates the costs of interruptions in electricity service to customers this information is a key input in planning power system reliability using an economic cost benefit approach the paper reviews the literature from the perspective of identifying alternate methodological approaches used their strengths and weaknesses and potential for bias it presents and compares outage cost estimates found in the literature on a common denominator basis it attempts to explain the sources of the wide range of variation observed in different study estimates and it identifies the need for further work on this important topic

cropping system diversification conservation tillage and modern seed adoption in ethiopia impacts on household income agrochemical use and demand for labor the type and combination of sustainable agricultural practices saps adopted have a significant effect on agricultural productivity and food security this study develops a multinomial endogenous switching regression model of farmers choice of combination of saps and impacts on maize income and agrochemicals and family labor use in rural ethiopia four primary results were found first adoption of saps increases maize income and the highest payoff is achieved when saps are adopted in combination rather than in isolation second nitrogen fertilizer use is lower in the package that contains system diversification and conservation tillage third conservation tillage increased pesticide application and labor demand perhaps to compensate for reduced tillage however when it is used jointly with system diversification it does not have a significant impact on pesticide and labor use fourth in most cases adoption of a package of saps increases women workload suggesting that agricultural intensification technology interventions may not be gender neutral this implies that policy makers and other stakeholders promoting a combination of technologies can enhance household food security through increasing income and reducing production costs but need to be aware of the potential gender related outcomes

power shortages in developing countries impacts and policy implications abstract this paper is concerned with the short and long run economic impacts of power supply inadequacy in developing countries the paper provides an overview of the methodology for assessing the economic costs of power shortages and presents monetary estimates of some components of these costs for several developing countries particularly india and pakistan the final section discusses the policy implications of the problem including the need for significant changes in investment planning and resource mobilization strategies efficiency improvements pricing reforms and the integration of public and private power suppliers

gender agricultural production and the theory of the household virtually all models of the household assume that the allocation of resources is pareto efficient within many african households agricultural production occurs on many plots controlled by different members of the household pareto efficiency implies that factors should be allocated efficiently across these plots i find in contrast that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household controlled by men the estimates imply that about 6 percent of output is lost because of inefficient factor allocation within the household the paper suggests a new approach to modeling intrahousehold allocation consistent with the empirical results

flexible strategies for load demand management using dynamic pricing the need for and potential role of flexible pricing options which offer an efficient means for achieving a utility s load demand management objectives are discussed the focus is on dynamic tariffs by incorporating real time features within one or more key parameters of the tariff such pricing options can be tailored to offer the degree of flexibility that is necessary and cost effective for achieving the given demand management objective s

how does foreign direct investment affect pollution toward a better understanding of the direct and conditional effects this paper seeks to investigate the impact of foreign direct investments fdis on industrial pollution hbox co 2 hbox so 2 hbox no mathrm x and bod emissions on a large sample of highly heterogeneous countries by using panel data on manufacturing fdis from france germany sweden and the united kingdom between 1995 and 2008 and by developing an empirical model with first and second order interaction terms we investigate the existence and the conditionality of the most controversial fdi induced effects on industrial emissions i e pollution haven factor endowments and pollution halo hypotheses the paper has three main findings 1 the central hypotheses linking pollution to fdi are found to act simultaneously with opposing effects 2 fdis are associated with pollution reduction i e predominating pollution halo induced effect in countries with low to average capital to labour ratio but not too lax environmental regulation 3 fdis are found to increase pollution i e prevailing pollution haven and or factor endowments induced effects in countries with average capital endowments and lax environmental regulations as well as in all the capital abundant countries though with a smaller magnitude in countries having strict environmental regulations and or a high skilled labour force some specific and interesting findings are discussed regarding different fdi origin countries and fdi host country groups

real time optimal interruptible tariff mechanism incorporating utility customer interactions an optimal power flow based framework is proposed to determine the incentive rates of an interruptible tariff mechanism itm on an hour to hour basis interaction between the utility and customers contracting interruptible load is incorporated in the analytical framework by formulating customer response functions to the itm it is shown that itm is able to reduce costs and aid in system operation during peak load periods the ieee 30 bus system considerably modified to represent different customer characteristics has been used for the study

reconciling the conflict between the pollution haven hypothesis and an emerging trajectory of international technology transfer abstract many developing countries have relied on technology transfer through foreign direct investment fdi from developed countries as a primary means of technology acquisition however recent increased global eco consciousness and linking of trade and investment with environmental issues has the potential of disrupting these investment flows this paper investigates the validity of the pollution haven hypothesis which claims that an open market regime will encourage the flow of generally low technology polluting industries to developing countries from a neo technology trade perspective in the process an emerging trajectory of international technology transfer favoring high technology industries is established this paper concludes that positive measures enhancing fdi is not only crucial for technology upgrading but at the same time brings about enhanced environmental welfare through transfer of eco friendly products and production processes

environmental policy when market structure and plant locations are endogenous abstract a two region two firm model is developed in which firms choose the number and the regional locations of their plants both firms pollute and market structure is endogenous to environmental policy there are increasing returns at the plant level imperfect competition between the home and the foreign firm and transport costs between the two markets at critical levels of environmental policy variables small policy changes cause large discrete jumps in a region s pollution and welfare as a firm closes or opens a plant or shifts production to from a foreign branch plant the implications for optimal environmental policy differ significantly from those suggested by traditional pigouvian marginal analysis

evaluation of the marginal outage costs of generating systems for the purposes of spot pricing this paper describes a methodology based on quantitative power system reliability evaluation for calculating the marginal outage costs of generating systems the proposed method involves the calculation of the incremental expected unserved energy at a given operating reserve level and lead time and the multiplication of this value by the interrupted energy assessment rate of the system the method is illustrated in this paper by calculating the marginal outage cost profile of the ieee reliability test system and by examining the effect of various modeling assumptions on that profile

china s carbon dioxide emissions an interprovincial comparative analysis of foreign capital and domestic capital abstract against the background of china s further relaxation of foreign investment control and implementation of energy conservation and emissions reduction the data of 30 provinces in china from 2001 to 2015 were used to measure the carbon dioxide emissions levels foreign direct investment stock and domestic capital stock in various regions the impulse response function variance decomposition and panel causality test in the panel vector autoregressive model evaluated in detail the impact of foreign capital inflows domestic capital inputs and economic growth on co2 emissions in regions of different energy intensity the study found that on the whole foreign direct investment has no significant impact on china s carbon dioxide emissions china s carbon dioxide emissions are mainly driven by domestic investment and economic growth the sub regional analysis based on different energy intensities shows that in areas of low energy intensity and medium energy intensity foreign direct investment has a significant impact on co2 emissions and the contribution of foreign investment to co2 emissions is between 12 2 and 14 1 the panel causality test found that in the short term foreign direct investment and domestic capital have significant predictive effects on carbon dioxide in various regions

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

modeling multiple adoption decisions in a joint framework a multinomial probit mnp model is applied to the modeling of adoption decisions by farmers facing multiple technologies which can be adopted in various combinations this model allows for full investigation of the interactions between decisions to adopt or not adopt several technologies estimation is carried out in a bayesian framework employing gibbs sampling to circumvent past difficulties encountered in maximum likelihood estimation of the mnp model the model is estimated for a sample of u s apple growers with four possible sustainable production technology bundles the results show that adoption decisions are most significantly influenced by off farm labor supply

the lesser of two evils an empirical investigation of foreign direct investment pollution tradeoff this article investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment fdi and pollution measured by carbon dioxide co2 emissions the results suggest that while lax environmental regulations might attract fdi the foreign companies utilize less polluting technology as compared to local firms in low income countries thus fdi does not necessarily increase pollution levels in the host countries the findings therefore simultaneously support the pollution haven and the pollution halo hypotheses