authority without credibility competition and conflict between ecolabels in tuna fisheries certification is widely seen as an innovative strategy for dealing with environmental problems in supply chains as the number of labels available in the fisheries sector has increased each with its own framing of sustainability questions are being asked about their credibility in tuna fisheries contrasting approaches have led to conflict over among other things the credibility of competing labels this paper investigates one such conflict between the dolphin safe and the marine stewardship council certification schemes in the west and central pacific it looks at how key practices like scientific rigour inclusiveness transparency openness impartiality independence and impact contribute to label credibility and explains the importance of authority in understanding how certification schemes maintain influence within global production networks the results demonstrate that despite substantially different levels of credibility within these networks the application of an environmental standard is more connected to the authority of the standard setter than the credibility of the label the paper concludes that understanding the more nuanced role of authority both with and without credibility offers new insights into the wider dynamics that shape environmental regulation in global production networks

the economics of smallholder organic contract farming in tropical africa summary the paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming for smallholders and of adoption of organic agricultural farming methods in a tropical african context the comparison in both cases is with farming systems that are organic by default survey data from a large organic coffee contract farming scheme in uganda are reported and analyzed using a standard ols regression and a full information maximum likelihood fiml estimate of the heckman selection model the analysis finds that controlling for a range of factors there are positive revenue effects both from participation in the scheme and more modestly from applying organic farming techniques

upgrading in global value chains lessons from latin american clusters it has been shown that clustering helps local enterprises in industrial districts overcome growth constraints and compete in distant markets in advanced and less developed countries nevertheless recent contributions have stressed that more attention needs to be paid to external linkages and to the role played by global buyers to foster upgrading at cluster levels in this study we contribute to this debate focusing on the analysis of the relationships existing between clustering global value chains upgrading and sectoral patterns of innovation in latin america we find that sectoral specificities matter and influence the mode and the extent of upgrading in clusters integrated in global value chains

system optimization for eco design by using monetization of environmental impacts a strategy to convert bi objective to single objective problems abstract eco design is an essential way to reduce the environmental impacts and economic cost of processes and systems as well as products until now the majority of eco design approaches have employed multi objective optimization methods to balance between environmental and economic performances however the methods have limitations because multi objective optimization requires decision makers to subjectively assign weighting factors for objectives i e environmental impacts and economic cost this implies that depending on decision makers preference and knowledge different design solutions can be engendered for the same design problem thus this study proposes an eco design method which can generate a single design solution by developing mathematical optimization models with a single objective function for environmental impacts and economic cost for the formulation of the single objective function environmental impacts are monetized to external cost by using the environmental priority strategies this enables the tradeoffs between environmental impacts and economic cost in the same unit i e monetary unit as a case study the proposed method is applied to the eco design of a water reuse system in an industrial plant this study can contribute to improving the eco efficiency of various products processes and systems

environmental resource planning under cap and trade models for optimization abstract under the conditions of a cap and trade c t program manufacturers are restricted in total greenhouse gas emissions but allowed with options to acquire and dispose environmental resource e g certified emission quota ceq or commercialized permit for emission of certain pollutant via a market system or conduct self purification sp to reduce emission level to satisfy their overall emission needs due to production or service activities this paper analyzes the operational decisions of production systems under cap and trade conditions in which the problem is modeled as a multi stage dynamic optimization problem for each planning period the model specifically addresses the decisions on purchasing ceq reducing emission via sp and carrying over surplus emission quota seq to meet the required emission level driven by production demand for the period it also makes sure that the sum of reduced emission over the whole planning horizon meets exactly a goal of emission reduction specified at the manufacturers discretion other important problem characteristics addressed include the unit cost for reducing emission level via sp to reflect the fact that the cost increases as accumulated emission reduction increases i e the more reduced the more difficult to reduce and time related cost associated with green investment for emission reduction e g interest cost of short term loans these characteristics make the model and related analysis useful for both practitioners and researchers in this area numerical experiments were designed and carried out to verify and validate the proposed concepts

globalisation and unequalisation what can be learned from value chain analysis although many have gained from the process of globalisation there remains a stubbornly large number of people living in absolute poverty and a rise in inequality within and between countries the issue is thus not whether to participate in the global economy but how to do so in a manner which provides for sustainable and equitable income growth this study shows how value chain analysis can be used to chart the growing disjuncture between global economic activity and global income distribution and to provide causal explanations for this outcome in so doing value chain analysis provides valuable insights into policy formulation and implementation

which way is up in upgrading trajectories of change in the value chain for south african wine summary global value chain gvc analysis uses the concept of upgrading to highlight paths for developing country firms to move up the value chain usually through the lenses of four categories product process functional and inter sectoral upgrading the implicit normative expectation is that these firms move toward producing higher value added products and or take on more sophisticated functions along a value chain in this article upgrading is approached more broadly as reaching a better deal including a balance between rewards and risk the case study of south african wine shows that better product quality improved processes and some functional upgrading have co existed with processes of downgrading higher risks and limited rewards especially in traditional export markets a reflection on further conceptual development and directions for empirical research is also provided

synthesis of environmentally benign energy self sufficient processes under uncertainty abstract this contribution presents a multi objective mixed integer linear programming milp synthesis of a dynamic supply network under uncertainty applied to food industry the previously developed multi objective model for achieving energy self sufficiency by integrating renewables into companies supply networks has now been extended to account for the dynamic consideration of variable supply and demand over the year for uncertainties related to products demand and sun radiation and for multi objective optimisation in order to obtain the most sustainable company s supply network the sustainable synthesis of a company s network is performed regarding the integration of renewables such as biomass and other wastes and solar energy the obtained solutions are those reflecting maximal profit reflecting constantly changing dynamic market conditions accounting for several uncertain parameters and protecting the environment

governance of global value chains in response to food safety and certification standards the case of shrimp from vietnam summary we use global value chain gvc theory to understand governance of vietnam s shrimp farming industry we describe this gvc as buyer driven with important food safety standards imposed by governments of importing countries and new certification systems promoted by nongovernmental organizations ngos governance relations are clear between governments in importing countries and vietnam and between importers and ngos governance relations become more fragmented further down the chain where large numbers of small scale producers and traders operate this fragmentation may adversely affect access to the most lucrative markets and have the unanticipated effect of marginalizing small scale farmers and traders

governance and trade in fresh vegetables the impact of uk supermarkets on the african horticulture industry production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub saharan africa over the last decade this trade brings producers and exporters based in africa together with importers and retailers in europe large retailers in europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from africa the requirements they specify for cost quality delivery product variety innovation food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out the control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by uk supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types and for the long term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied kenya and zimbabwe

bailouts the incentive to manage risk and financial crises a firm s termination leads to bankruptcy costs this may create an incentive for outside stakeholders or the firm s debtholders to bail out the firm as bankruptcy looms because of this implicit guarantee firm shareholders have an incentive to increase volatility in order to exploit the implicit protection however if they increase volatility too much they may induce the guarantee extending parties to walk away i derive the optimal risk management rule in such a framework and show that it allows high volatility choices while net worth is high however risk limits tighten abruptly when the firm s net worth declines below an endogenously determined threshold hence the model reproduces the qualitative features of existing risk management rules and can account for phenomena such as flight to quality

greener than thou the political economy of fish ecolabeling and its local manifestations in south africa summary developing country governments and industries have been reluctant to support ecolabels fearing their potentially protectionist effects this reluctance has been countered by international organizations such as fao and ecolabel initiatives with assurances of transparency non discrimination and technical assistance the analysis of the marine stewardship council msc label shows that developing country fisheries and small scale ones in particular have been marginalized furthermore the msc certification of the hake industry in south africa illustrates that ecolabeling is sought in the context of competitive pressures and specific political economies not simply on the basis of value free science and systemic management this article concludes that developing country producers need dedicated systems of standards and verification procedures not only special flexibilities

sustainability governance of chains and networks a review and future outlook this paper reviews the extent to which sustainability governance has been integrated into the literature on sustainable chains and networks the analysis brings together four main approaches to chains and network studies supply chain management scm global commodity chains gcc global value chains gvcs and global production networks gpns to examine how and the extent to which sustainability and sustainability governance are conceptualised and incorporated into their analytical frameworks the results point to a shift in this combined literature from conceptualising the formation of global chains and networks as sites of inequality under conditions of globalisation towards a renewed vision on the potential of chains as a site for social and environmental reform overall however we conclude that the literature on global chains and networks has not adequately conceptualised distinct modes of sustainability governance in response we offer an amended typology for identifying how firm and non firm actors govern sustainability in chains of chains and through chains in globalised commodity production and consumption the paper finishes with an exploration of the research frontiers challenges and continuing potential of chain and network studies to understand the governance of sustainability and a call for further academic debate on the kinds of integrated governance arrangements necessary for future sustainability reform through hybridised public private economic practice

the social performance and distributional consequences of contract farming an equilibrium analysis of the arachide de bouche program in senegal abstract this paper is an empirical analysis of the impact of a contract farming program in senegal we examine the access of poorer community members to contracts and the effect of the program on the income of participants the program performs very well on both counts participants and nonparticipants are indistinguishable by wealth measures and farmers increase their income substantially by participating in the program we attribute the former to the program s mobilization of local information through its use of village intermediaries permitting the substitution of social collateral for physical collateral and making the program more accessible to the poor

optimal taxation in the presence of bailouts the termination of a representative financial firm due to excessive leverage may lead to substantial bankruptcy costs a government in the tradition of ramsey 1927 may be inclined to provide transfers to the firm so as to prevent its liquidation and the associated deadweight costs it is shown that the optimal taxation policy to finance such transfers exhibits procyclicality and history dependence even in a complete market these results are in contrast with pre existing literature on optimal fiscal policy and are driven by the endogeneity of the transfer payments that are required to salvage the financial firm

comparison of private incentive mechanisms for improving sustainability of filipino tuna fisheries this paper analyzes the influence of three private incentive mechanisms over decision making related to improved sustainability of fishing practices in filipino tuna fisheries the three mechanisms compared are the world wildlife fund for nature s fishery improvement project model marine stewardship council certification and the international seafood sustainability foundation pro active vessel register the main question addressed in this paper is how and to what extent the private incentive mechanisms support the development of fisher capabilities to respond to the requirements set out by these mechanisms applying a global value chain approach to analyze results collected from key actors involved in philippine tuna fishers contributing to both domestic and regional economic development in the western pacific we explore the structure and function of these private incentive mechanisms in achieving both environmental and economic development outcomes our results show that these private incentive mechanisms deliver different direct and indirect incentives for changing to more sustainable fishing practices and that the success of these mechanisms is dependent on the extent to which the mechanisms support the development of target fisher capabilities to comply with their sustainability requirements we conclude that the future success of these incentive mechanisms depends for a large part on stricter sustainability requirements but also on the capacity of the mechanisms to incentivize the inclusion of more developing country fishers these findings contribute to a wider understanding of how the capabilities of developing country producers are influenced by their relationship with chain and non chain actors and with the wide institutional arrangements that the producers operate in

the theory of the firm as governance structure from choice to contract the propositions that organization matters and that it is susceptible to analysis were long greeted by skepticism by economists one reason why this message took a long time to register is that it is much easier to say that organization matters than it is to show how and why the prevalence of the science of choice approach to economics has also been an obstacle as developed herein the lessons of organization theory for economics are both different and more consequential when examined through the lens of contract this paper examines economic organization from a science of contract perspective with special emphasis on the theory of the firm

stochastic design of biorefinery supply chains considering economic and environmental objectives abstract biomass is a renewable resource that has attractive characteristics for energy production but the corresponding supply chain could be subject of several uncertain factors that can affect drastically the optimal configuration and those have not been properly accounted in previous publications therefore this work presents a new approach for the optimal planning under uncertainty for a biomass conversion system involving simultaneously economic and environmental issues the environmental impact was measured via the eco indicator99 method and the economic aspect was determined through the net annual profit the proposed method considered the uncertainty involved in the raw material price by the stochastic generation of scenarios using the latin hypercube method followed by the implementation of the monte carlo method where a deterministic optimization problem was solved for each single scenario to select the structure of the more robust supply chain relying on statistical data the proposed approach was applied to a case study for a distributed biorefinery system in mexico the results showed that the behavior of the profit values for the stochastic case is not associated to the behavior of the raw material price also it is possible to observe that the supply chain topology could be affected for the uncertainty in the raw material price however the environmental and economic objectives did not present significant changes

an inquiry into quasi credit contracts the role of reciprocal credit and interlinked deals in small scale fishing communities in agrarian village societies beset with many hazards and uncertainties people evolve various means of coping with risk what is perhaps less known is that credit transactions can sometimes serve the function of reducing risk in such societies this article is concerned with examining several insurance motivated credit arrangements in small scale fishing communities a hunger insurance mechanism of reciprocal credit and a system of interlinked contracts aimed at insuring against risks in the spheres of labour and marketing relations will be extensively dealt with moreover the concept of triadic relationships will be shown to have special relevance in the case of traditional insurance arrangements aiming at controlling problems of moral hazard

the value of pension benefit guaranty corporation insurance this paper considers the cost of pension benefit guaranty corporation pbgc insurance for single employer defined benefit pension plans it derives a formula for the pbgc s liability that explicitly recognizes the two necessary conditions that must arise for the pbgc to sustain a loss first the corporation sponsoring the pension iund must undergo bankruptcy and second this pension plan must be underfunded the pbgc s liability is valued as a contingent put option and expressed as infinite series of modified bessel functions the comparative statics of the model are examined and are quite consistent with economic intuition copyright 1994 by ohio state university press

quota induced discarding in heterogeneous fisheries abstract individual quota iq programs are a promising and increasingly common means of regulating fisheries this paper examines how profit maximizing fishers respond to different types of iq programs in fisheries where many types of fish are harvested simultaneously this analysis shows that the most common types of individual quota programs can induce discarding and that individual quota programs that regulate the value of harvests never induce discarding since discarded fish have a high mortality rate value based individual quota programs are superior to their more conventional counterparts in that they waste fewer fish the disadvantages of value based quotas are also examined results are driven by the fact that the harvest technology examined here does not satisfy a free disposal assumption since this free disposal assumption is ubiquitous in production theory and not obviously true the framework developed herein may be useful for analyzing a broad class of problems involving joint production

learning from global buyers an increasing number of developing countries engage in contract manufacturing for a decreasing number of global buyers this constellation characterises many labour intensive export sectors the positioning of developing country enterprises in such buyer driven chains is central to research concerned with identifying the winners and losers from globalisation this study contributes to this debate by seeking answers to two questions first what can researchers learn from global buyers about the relative strengths and weaknesses of developing country producers second what can these producers learn from global buyers and what circumstances facilitate or constrain such learning