a simple estimator for simultaneous models with censored endogenous reggressors this paper presents a simple two step estimator for models with censored endogenous regressors and sample selection bias the approach unifies the literature on censored endogenous regressors and sample selection bias and provides extensions the procedure employs generalized residuals to adjust for the inconsistency caused by the endogeneity of the censored regressors the paper also provides two new tests of weak exogeneity an empirical example examining the trade off between fringe benefits and wages indicates that the estimation procedure works well a monte carlo experiment suggests that the proposed tests have good power properties copyright 1993 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

technology adoption impact and extension in developing countries agriculture a review of the recent literature given the stagnant agricultural productivity and persistent food insecurity in low income countries notably in sub saharan africa ssa there has been continued interest in the adoption of new technology and its impact on productivity in these regions interestingly there are signs of green revolution in maize and rice in ssa reflected in sharply increasing yield trends in advanced regions to increase crop yields and sustain yield gains recent case studies of technology adoption unanimously recommend the adoption of integrated farm management systems particularly in ssa on the other hand since the 2010s there have been increasing numbers of studies on social network or farmer to farmer technology extension these studies explore more efficient extension systems than traditional public sector extension approaches this article reviews both recent case studies of technology adoption and its productivity impacts as well as studies on agricultural extension to identify common findings shortcomings and major remaining issues

explaining firm capital structure the role of agency theory vs transaction cost economics the study of capital structure has increasingly gained importance in strategic management research paradigms derived from organizational economics have also gained popularity in explaining firm actions agency theory and transaction cost economics represent two such paradigms that rely on the notion of market imperfections notwithstanding the similarities between them these two offer different explanations of the role of debt and equity in a firm the governance abilities of the financing structures and the nature of assets of the firm provide two key sources of differences viewing capital structure from transaction cost economics gives rise to predictions that are contradictory to those presented by agency theory it is argued that the extant evidence mainly supports the transaction cost viewpoint two organizational phenomena leveraged buyouts and product diversification are used to highlight the comparison

a theoretical model for valuing preferred stock this paper develops a model of preferred stock value which includes the possibility of dividends on the preferred stock being omitted the analytical framework used is based on the option hedging methodology of black and scholes precise valuation formulae are obtained for cumulative and noncumulative preferred stock in a variety of contexts the values obtained are quite different from those for either riskless or risky perpetual bonds which have previously been proposed as being similar to preferred stock since 1970 an average of 3 billion dollars worth of capital has been raised annually by corporations in the united states in the form of preferred stock in spite of this impressive figure there has been very little theoretical analysis of preferred stock valuation while previous analysis e g merton 9 and ingersoll 7 has treated preferred stock as a corporate consol bond this view is not taken here for an essential feature of preferred stock is that omission of the dividend is permissible and does not precipitate bankruptcy whereas this would happen if a bond coupon payment were missed corporations can and do fail to pay preferred dividends from time to time particularly in times of severe economic depression herein is developed a theory of preferred stock valuation the return generating process for the firm is assumed to be a continuous time diffusion and the option hedging arguments of black and scholes 2 cox and ross 4 and other authors can be used to derive a functional form of preferred stock value in terms of firm value and dividend arrearage the key to the valuation theory lies in a particular assumption about the conditions under which preferred stock dividends are omitted this assumption is that all dividends are omitted whenever firm value falls below some critical amount all the theory is developed subject to this assumption section i of this paper discusses whether such an assumption is reasonable this section carefully examines conditions under which rational management seeking to maximize common shareholder wealth would pay dividends as suggested in section ii the basic model is described and solved some generalization is obtained in section iii where allowance is made for the possible coexistence of other claims such as bonds illustrative solutions to the model are provided

agricultural household models extensions applications and policy this book presents the basic model of an agricultural household that underlies most of the case studies undertaken so far the model assumes that households are price takers and is therefore recursive the decisions modeled include those affecting production and the demand for inputs and those affecting consumption and the supply of labor comparative results on selected elasticities are presented for a number of economies the empirical significance of the approach is demonstrated in a comparison of models that treat production and consumption decisions separately and those in which the decisionmaking process is recursive the book summarizes the implications of agricultural pricing policy for the welfare of farm households marketed surplus the demand for nonagricultural goods and services the rural labor market budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings in addition it is shown that the basic model can be extended in order to explore the effects of government policy on crop composition nutritional status health saving and investment and to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the effects on budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings methodological topics primarily the data requirements of the basic model and its extensions along with aggregation market interaction uncertainty and market imperfections are discussed the most important methodological issues the question of the recursive property of these models is also discussed

the debt equity choice when firms adjust their capital structures they tend to move toward a target debt ratio that is consistent with theories based on tradeoffs between the costs and benefits of debt in contrast to previous empirical work out tests explicitly account for the fact that firms may face impediments to movements toward their target ratio and that the target ratio may change over time as the firm s profitability and stock price change a separate analysis of the size of the issue and repurchase transactions suggests that the deviation between the actual and the target ratios plays a more important role in the repurchase decision than in the issuance decision

exchange rate based stabilizations a literature review the exchange rate based stabilizations erbss that have been undertaken in chronic inflation countries have generated a controversial body of literature regarding the effects of disinflation programs especially those on real consumption and output this survey provides an extensive overview of the literature on erbs the paper covers various empirical studies that have attempted to document the macroeconomic regularities associated with erbs discussing both their strengths and their weaknesses it analyzes diverse theoretical models that have been put forward to replicate the business cycles associated with erbs and sheds light on which models perform better using real data the results suggest that durables incorporated weak credibility and sticky price model proves to be most compatible with the empirical regularities observed in the course of erbs

asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage given incomplete factor markets appropriate time paths of flow variables must be chosen to build required stocks of assets that is critical resources are accumulated rather than acquired in strategic factor markets barney barney j 1986 strategic factor markets expectations luck and business strategy management sci october 1231 1241 sustainability of a firm s asset position hinges on how easily assets can be substituted or imitated imitability is linked to the characteristics of the asset accumulation process time compression diseconomies asset mass efficiencies inter connectedness asset erosion and causal ambiguity

the argentine stabilization plan of december 20th abstract in this paper an analytical model is developed to incorporate the essential characteristics of the stabilization plan implemented in argentina in january 1979 the model is based upon a set of simplifying assumptions that only approximate the complexity of the real world it is assumed that the expectations of inflation and the degree of excess demand or supply in the non traded goods market are the main intermediate determinants of the rate of inflation in that market the rate of change of prices of traded goods being determined by the external inflation together with the rate of devaluation treating thus the external rate of inflation as exogenous the only instrument available for influencing the rate of inflation in the long run is the rate of devaluation since the model assumes a fixed exchange rate regime the money supply is endogenous and hence unsuitable as an instrument of economic policy

business strategies in more and less innovative firms in canada abstract this study investigates differences in the policies being pursued by more innovative and less innovative firms it focuses on a broad group of strategies in marketing finance production management and human resources and asks whether there are key areas in which the strategies being followed by more and less innovative firms differ it also investigates how the activities of firms in each of these areas differ finally it compares the performance of more and less innovative firms the study finds that more innovative firms place a greater emphasis on management human resources marketing financing government programs and services and production efficiencies each of these areas is important finally more innovative firms are more successful than less innovative firms

linking corporate strategy to capital structure diversification strategy type and source of financing this study examines the relationship between corporate strategy and capital structure specifically the diversfication and financing strategies of a firm the results show that equity financing is preferred for related diversification and unrelated diversification is associated with debt financing additionally firms diversifying through acquisitions are more likely to use public sources of financing and those emphasizing internal development of new businesses depend primarily on private sources of financing using simultaneous equation estimation we found a reciprocal relationship between a firm s financial strategy and its corporate diversification strategy mode and nature of diversification are also reciprocally interrelated 1998 john wiley sons ltd

exchange rate based inflation stabilization the initial real effects of credible plans abstract this paper studies the initial effects of exchange rate based stabilization programs within a dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy in which inflation acts as a tax on intermediate transactions and capital accumulation is subject to convex adjustment costs and gestation lags the model replicates the typical pattern of slow inflation convergence sustained real exchange rate appreciation trade balance deterioration and expansion in domestic spending followed by a deflationary slowdown without resorting to sticky prices imperfect credibility or adaptive expectations calibrated versions of the model are compared with the initial effects of the argentine convertibility plan of april 1991

hybrid seed and the economic well being of smallholder maize farmers in zambia abstractthe development and diffusion of hybrid maize in zambia since the 1970s is a major achievement in african agriculture but other than profitability studies analyses of how this process has affected the economic well being of smallholder farmers have been few we test the relationship of hybrid seed use with six indicators of economic well being after using the control function instrumental variables approach to test for the endogeneity of hybrid seed use we estimate correlated random effects cre fractional response cre tobit and fixed effects models with a panel of nationally representative data collected in 2002 3 and 2006 7 findings suggest that use of maize hybrids is associated with higher values of household income assets farm and processing equipment and livestock and less deprivation compared to other farmers in nearby villages

contextual influences on the corporate entrepreneurship performance relationship a longitudinal analysis abstract over the past several years corporate entrepreneurship has been widely touted by executives and researchers alike as an effective means for revitalizing companies and improving their financial performance for the most part the call for greater entrepreneurial behavior on the part of established companies has been accepted on faith as an inherently desirable objective the implicit logic behind the pervasive belief in the value of corporate entrepreneurship seems to be that risk taking innovation and aggressive competitive action the key elements of entrepreneurial corporations will help in identifying and pursuing lucrative product market opportunities and in providing new bases for achieving superior competitive positions but what do we really know about the financial consequences of corporate entrepreneurship most of the evidence that corporate entrepreneurship pays off is anecdotal in nature or based on cross sectional studies that focus on the short term implications of entrepreneurial behaviors as such in a definitive sense we know very little about the financial consequences of corporate entrepreneurship in an attempt to improve our understanding of this issue this article describes a study of corporate entrepreneurship and its impact on company financial performance data were collected from three different samples over a seven year period to assess the longitudinal impact of corporate entrepreneurship on firm performance these samples consist of 24 medium sized manufacturing firms representing 14 industry segments 39 chemical companies and 45 fortune 500 industrial firms representing five industry segments data were gathered on each sample using both primary and secondary sources regression analysis was then used to analyze the data the results suggest that corporate entrepreneurship has a positive impact on financial measures of company performance this effect on performance which tends to be modest over the first few years increases over time suggesting that corporate entrepreneurship may indeed be a generally effective means for improving long term company financial performance moreover the results indicate that corporate entrepreneurship is a particularly effective practice among companies operating in hostile environments as opposed to benign environments the study has three principal implications for practicing managers first the study documents the general financial viability of engaging in corporate entrepreneurship this is not to suggest that corporate entrepreneurship is a panacea for improving financial performance however entrepreneurial behavior when considered on the whole i e across firms and industries is associated with superior financial performance second the study suggests a need to use a long term time horizon in order to adequately judge the financial consequences of corporate entrepreneurship the use of a shorter evaluation period may not allow sufficient time for entrepreneurial actions to have their full market and corresponding financial impact finally the study identifies the context specific character of effective entrepreneurial practice specifically corporate entrepreneurship appears to be a particularly effective strategic practice among firms operating in hostile business settings

maize of the ancestors and modern varieties the microeconomics of high yielding variety adoption in malawi farmer adoption of seed fertilizer technology can be characterized in terms of several interrelated choices one choice is whether to adopt only seed only fertilizer or both components of the technology adoption another choice relates to the extent of land allocation to modem and to farmers seed varieties extent of adoption a third choice is the level per hectare of either seed or fertilizer or both intensity of adoption 1 in the literature about agricultural innovations in developing countries some theoretical models treat more than one aspect of the adoption decision 2 but most econometric approaches have portrayed only the discrete adoption choice for a single input although farmers often adopt parts or components of recommended technology neither the theoretical nor the econometric models have included the level of fertilizer applied to farmers varieties in the analysis of seed fertilizer adoption 3 two features of the seed fertilizer adoption decision as defined above are particularly evident in malawi first even when farmers adopt hybrid maize they continue to allocate a part of their maize area to their own varieties microeconomic theory provides four explanations for land allocation to both modern and traditional seed variet

public provision of sales contingent claims backed finance to smes a policy alternative abstract in europe and elsewhere governments intervene to stimulate innovation in the sme sector and because smes face financial constraints in particular governments encourage the provision of debt and equity venture capital finance to such firms this paper discusses sales contingent claim scc backed finance funding secured only on a claim written on sales that offers a different repayment profile to debt and equity the attractiveness of such finance to firms as well as the behaviour of firms financed in this way are analysed for various reasons scc backed financial instruments are generally not available to smes on the market but it is argued that wider availability could further stimulate the growth and innovative activity of smes the correction of this market incompleteness by the introduction of government schemes providing scc backed corporate finance for smes in higher risk higher tech sectors is recommended the workability of such a scheme is explored by looking at existing examples aimed largely at project finance for larger firms

university spin out companies and venture capital abstract the creation of university spin out companies that create wealth is a major policy objective of governments and universities finance is a catalyst of this wealth creation yet access to venture capital is a major impediment faced by these companies in this article we adopt a finance pecking order perspective to examine the problems faced by those university spin out companies seeking to access venture capital we triangulate evidence from spin out companies university technology transfer offices and venture capital firms in the uk and continental europe to identify the problems and to suggest policy developments for these parties as well as government we compare perceptions of high tech venture capital firms that invest in spin outs with those that do not and also consider vcs views on spin outs versus other high tech firms our evidence identifies a mismatch between the demand and supply side of the market in line with the pecking order theory venture capitalists prefer to invest after the seed stage however in contrast to the pecking order theory ttos see venture capital as more important than internal funds early on we develop policy implications for universities technology transfer offices academic entrepreneurs venture capital firms and government and suggest areas for further research

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

agency models in different stages of ceo tenure the effects of stock options and board independence on r d investment this study examines how r d investment is shaped by governance devices combining the two agency models of limited competence and managerial opportunism it suggests that governance devices exert differing effects in early vs later stages of ceo tenure early in ceo tenure r d investment is reduced by stock options and board independence whereas in later stages these effects reverse r d investment is enhanced by stock options and board independence an empirical test on a sample of u s companies provides support for the hypothesized effects for policy makers this study implies that r d investment can be enhanced by setting rules and standards of good governance that take into account ceo time in office and firm context

firm specificity in corporate applied r d much corporate research and development r d has characteristics that tie it strongly to the firm in which it takes place and which may make the process of undertaking r d or the outcome of the r d difficult for other firms to duplicate perfectly that is the r d is firm specific this is particularly true for more highly applied r d which tends to involve incremental technological change and often entails alterations and enhancements to existing firm assets production processes and products the often firm specific nature of corporate r d tends to receive relatively little attention in the study of technological innovation this article outlines the primary characteristics of firm specificity in r d and discusses two interrelated consequences of such firm specificity 1 heterogeneity in the r d applications of firms within an industry and 2 increased ability of firms to earn returns to r d often termed appropriability both factors have important implications for firm strategy empirical

know how and asset complementarity and dynamic capability accumulation the case of r d dynamic capabilities enable firms to create new products and processes and respond to changing market conditions this empirical investigation of dynamic r d capabilities deals with the role of complementary know how and other assets in the context of changing conditions in the u s petroleum industry during the 1970s and early 1980s the analysis suggests that in response to rising oil prices firms with larger amounts of complementary technological knowledge and physical assets also undertook larger amounts of r d on coal conversion a synthetic fuels process 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

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

modelling the innovation value chain innovation events the introduction of new products or processes represent the end of a process of knowledge sourcing and transformation they also represent the beginning of a process of exploitation which may result in an improvement in the performance of the innovating business this recursive process of knowledge sourcing transformation and exploitation comprises the innovation value chain modelling the innovation value chain for a large group of manufacturing firms in ireland and northern ireland highlights the drivers of innovation productivity and firm growth in terms of knowledge sourcing we find strong complementarity between horizontal forwards backwards public and internal knowledge sourcing activities each of these forms of knowledge sourcing also makes a positive contribution to innovation in both products and processes although public knowledge sources have only an indirect effect on innovation outputs in the exploitation phase innovation in both products and processes contribute positively tocompany growth with product innovation having a short term disruption effect on labour productivity modelling the complete innovation value chain highlights the structure and complexity of the process of translating knowledge into business value and emphasises the role of skills capital investment and firms other resources in the value creation process

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

r d investment and financing choices a comprehensive perspective abstract we posit that the effects of r d investment on financing choices depend on the degree of intervention barriers and appropriation discrepancy between capital providers and the firm based on these two contingencies we categorize financing instruments into four types common equity common stock convertible securities preferred stock and convertible debt transactional debt corporate bonds and relational debt bank and commercial loans from the experiences of 39 petroleum firms during the period 1976 2005 we found r d investment has a positive effect on the use of common equity a u shaped effect on the use of convertible securities and an inverted u shaped effect on the use of relational debt to raise capital these effects are sustained over several years

a further exploration in the theory of exchange rate regimes in an interesting paper in this journal elhanan helpman 1981 develops a simple two country model to compare the welfare levels that are achieved under different exchange rate regimes in a world characterized by perfect foresight his basic finding is that equilibrium consumption allocations and hence welfare levels are identical under a floating exchange rate system and a one sided peg fixed exchange rate regime this result is due to helpman s assumption that output is determined exogenously which allows a separation of the real and monetary sides of the economy the purpose of this paper is to extend helpman s model by making two alterations in his setup 1 to allow production to be endogenously determined as a function of labor force participation and 2 to allow welfare levels to be dependent on labor service as well as on consumption the main conclusion then obtained is that a country may achieve a higher welfare level under a flexible exchange rate regime than under a fixed exchange rate regime since it is able to choose an optimal rate of inflation or currency depreciation

disrupting demand for commercial seed input subsidies in malawi and zambia summary this study uses nationally representative household level panel data from malawi and zambia to identify the determinants of subsidized maize seed and fertilizer receipt and to estimate how input subsidies affect households commercial purchases of improved maize seed varieties in both countries we find that households in areas where the ruling party won the last presidential election acquire significantly more subsidized inputs than other households results also indicate that each additional kilogram of subsidized maize seed acquired by a household reduces its commercial improved maize seed purchases by 0 58 kg in malawi and by 0 49 kg in zambia on average

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

on the selection of financing instruments to push the development of new technologies application to clean energy technologies abstract achieving climate policy goals requires mobilizing public funds to bring still immature clean technologies to competitiveness and create new technological options the format of direct public support must be tailored to the characteristics of technologies addressed based on the experience accumulated with innovation programs we have identified those features of innovation that should directly condition the choice of direct support instruments these include the funding gap between the cost of innovation activities and the amount of private funds leveraged the ability of technologies targeted to compete for public funds in the market the probability that these technologies fail to reach the market and the type of entity best suited to conduct these activities clean innovation features are matched to those of direct support instruments to provide recommendations on the use to be made of each type of instrument given the large financing gap of most clean energy innovation projects public grants and contracts should finance a large part of clean pre deployment innovation however public loans equity investments prizes and tax credits or rebates can successfully support certain innovation processes at a lower public cost principles derived are applied to identify the instrument best suited to a case example

stabilization policies in developing countries what have we learned abstract the paper reviews the recent experience with stabilization programmes in latin america in the light of traditional and monetarist models of inflation and the exchange rate the traditional model links both inflation and payments problems to budget deficits the monetarist model too believes that inflation is caused by fiscal deficits but it takes a more optimistic view of stabilization full purchasing power parity and perfect capital mobility make stabilization just a question of the appropriate exchange rate policy and the proper rate of domestic credit creation the traditional view is substantially right as a long run model but it fails in the dynamics the monetarist model is as we know now fundamentally wrong as a short run description of the possibilities of inflation control there is need and room for a paradigm that places emphasis on the debt money mix in financing the budget on the stickiness of inflation rates and on the place of short run real exchange rate and real interest rate variations that these are key features of the transition phase is amply borne out by the devasting and unsuccessful experiences with monetarist stabilization in argentina chile and brazil

on gradual disinflation the real exchange rate and the current account abstract we study the effects of a credible gradual exchange rate based disinflation program in a two sector economy after an initial exchange rate depreciation the reductions in the rate of devaluation reduce the monetary wedge generated by the cash in advance constraint leading to a gradual increase in absorption that yields progressive real exchange rate appreciations and current account deficits an initial boom in economic activity is not followed by a later contraction as labour supply expands during the whole length of the program many of the model s predictions are in accordance with the stylized facts on disinflation in chronic inflation countries in particular those of the mexican program of 1988 1992

dynamic capabilities what are they this paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and more generally the resource based view of the firm we argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development strategic decision making and alliancing they are neither vague nor tautological although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence they have significant commonalities across firms popularly termed best practice this suggests that they are more homogeneous fungible equifinal and substitutable than is usually assumed in moderately dynamic markets dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines they are detailed analytic stable processes with predictable outcomes in contrast in high velocity markets they are simple highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes finally well known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities in moderately dynamic markets the evolutionary emphasis is on variation in high velocity markets it is on selection at the level of rbv we conclude that traditional rbv misidentifies the locus of long term competitive advantage in dynamic markets overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage and reaches a boundary condition in high velocity markets copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

the implications of debt heterogeneity for r d investment and firm performance an assumption in prior research is that debt is homogeneous and provides inappropriate governance for r d investments we argue that debt is heterogeneous although transactional debt does indeed impose strict contractual constraints that provide inappropriate governance for r d investments relational debt has very different characteristics that provide more appropriate governance using a sample of japanese firms we find that firms that align their debt structures with their r d investments perform better than those that are misaligned furthermore firms tend to align their debt structure with r d investments but only after deregulation permits relatively free access to various types of debt

exchange rate based stabilizations under real frictions the role of endogenous labor supply abstract this paper studies exchange rate based stabilization programs in the context of a model of a small open economy where labor supply is endogenous agents derive utility from both consumption and leisure in environments where consumption is subject to a cash in advance constraint a cut in the rate of devaluation lowers the nominal interest rate and hence alters the optimal mix of consumption and leisure the paper shows that in the presence of adjustment costs of investment a perfectly credible cut in the devaluation rate causes simultaneously a consumption and output boom a cumulative current deficit a sustained real appreciation of the domestic currency and an increase in labor supply over time it is also shown that an imperfectly credible stabilization program in this environment would have effects similar to the perfectly credible program but generate richer dynamics such as an initial boom in output followed by a recession which begins prior to the end of the program the model has clear welfare implications in that permanent reductions in inflation are unambiguously welfare enhancing

agricultural technology adoption and household welfare measurement and evidence abstract previous studies on the adoption and impacts of improved crop varieties have relied on self reported adoption status of the surveyed households however in the presence of weak variety maintenance and poorly functioning seed certification system measurement errors in self reported adoption status can be considerable this paper investigates how such measurement errors can lead to biased welfare estimates using dna fingerprinting based varietal identification as a benchmark we find that misclassification in self reported adoption status is considerable with significant false negative and positive response rates we empirically show that such measurement errors lead to welfare estimates that are biased towards zero and substantially understate the poverty reduction effects of adoption while the empirical evidence suggests attenuation bias our theoretical exposition and simulations demonstrate that upward bias and sign reversal effects are also possible the results point to the need for improved monitoring of the diffusion process of improved varieties through innovative adoption data collection approaches to generate robust evidence for prioritizing and justifying investments in agricultural research and extension

welfare impacts of improved chickpea adoption a pathway for rural development in ethiopia we analyse the impact of improved chickpea adoption on welfare in ethiopia using three rounds of panel data first we estimate the determinants of improved chickpea adoption using a double hurdle model we apply a control function approach with correlated random effects to control for possible endogeneity resulting from access to improved seed and technology transfer activities to instrument for these variables we develop novel distance weighted measures of a household s neighbours access to improved seed and technology transfer activities second we estimate the impact of area under improved chickpea cultivation on household income and poverty we apply a fixed effects instrumental variables approach where we use the predicted area under cultivation from the double hurdle model as an instrument for observed area under cultivation we find that improved chickpea adoption significantly increases household income while also reducing household poverty finally we disaggregate results by landholding to explore whether the impact of adoption has heterogeneous effects adoption favoured all but the largest landholders for who the new technology did not have a significant impact on income overall increasing access to improved chickpea appears a promising pathway for rural development in ethiopia s chickpea growing regions

nominal interest rates consumption booms and lack of credibility a quantitative examination abstract exchange rate based stabilization programs in chronic inflation countries have often been accompanied by an initial expansion of private consumption followed by a contraction this consumption cycle has been attributed to lack of credibility in the sense that the public views the reduction in the devaluation rate as temporary this paper assesses the quantitative relevance of the temporariness hypothesis by comparing the predictions of a simple model to the actual figures for seven major programs the paper concludes that nominal interest rates must fall substantially for the temporariness hypothesis to account for an important fraction of the observed consumption booms

adoption and welfare impacts of multiple agricultural technologies evidence from eastern zambia using plot level panel data and multinomial endogenous switching regression this article analyzes the adoption and welfare impacts of multiple agricultural technologies in eastern zambia we adapt a multinomial endogenous switching treatment effect regression framework to correct for selection bias and endogeneity originating from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity results indicate that joint adoption of multiple agricultural technologies had greater impacts on crop yields household incomes and poverty than the adoption of individual components of the technology package our findings suggest that efforts aimed at raising household incomes and reducing poverty should focus on promoting the adoption of multiple agricultural technologies through provision of improved support services such as extension and input supply

analysis of adoption and impacts of improved maize varieties in eastern zambia summary this paper analyzes the adoption and welfare impacts of improved maize varieties in eastern zambia using data obtained from a sample of over 800 farm households using both propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression models the paper shows that adoption of improved maize leads to significant gains in crop incomes consumption expenditure and food security results further show that improved maize varieties have significant poverty reducing impacts in eastern zambia the paper concludes with implications for policies to promote adoption and impacts of modern varieties in zambia

asset profiles for technological innovation abstract this paper proposes a conceptual distinction between four generic categories of assets for technological innovation 1 scientific research assets 2 process innovative assets 3 product innovative application assets and 4 aesthetic design assets technological innovation may sometimes require the activation of only one asset type but more often a specific constellation of more asset types has to be mobilized the asset categories differ profoundly with respect not only to their respective competence bases but also with respect to their functional contribution to industrial innovation and mostly also to their organizational attachment this way of conceiving technological innovation is opposed to the one dimensional r d conception that tends to view r d as one functional asset along with others like manufacturing or marketing it is argued that the different innovative assets are often located in different organizational settings within the corporation the coupling between assets is discussed in terms of inter asset specificity we illustrate the great variation of innovative asset profiles across a wide spectrum of product categories the concept of technological trajectories is reinterpreted in terms of asset profile oscillations and regroupings finally the framework is related to recent efforts to formulate a resource based theory of the firm and the implications for innovation strategy is discussed

the impacts of hybrid maize seed on the welfare of farming households in kenya this paper explores the impacts of hybrid maize adoption on the welfare of farming households in kenya we use a four year panel dataset to estimate the effects of hybrid seed use on four indicators of household welfare namely income assets inequality and poverty results show that use of hybrid seed not only contributes to higher annual income but also to raising the value of assets possibly reflecting longer term welfare effects further we find that use of hybrid seed reduces the depth of poverty and that the amount planted reduces inequality as expected impacts differ between major and minor maize growing areas of the country maize farmers who do not use hybrid seed are clearly disadvantaged this calls for continued public and private investments in the infrastructure and policy process that supports a competitive liberalized seed industry and improved access of smallholder farmers to well adapted affordable hybrids

does adaptation to climate change provide food security a micro perspective from ethiopia we examine the driving forces behind farmers decisions to adapt to climate change and the impact of adaptation on farmers food production we investigate whether there are differences in the food production functions of farm households that adapted and those that did not adapt we estimate a simultaneous equations model with endogenous switching to account for the heterogeneity in the decision to adapt or not and for unobservable characteristics of farmers and their farm we compare the expected food production under the actual and counterfactual cases that the farm household adapted or not to climate change we find that the group of farm households that adapted has systematically different characteristics than the group of farm households that did not adapt the relationship between production and average temperature is inverted u shaped for farm households that adapted while it is u shaped for farm households that did not adapt and vice versa in the case of precipitation we find that adaptation increases food production however the impact of adaptation on food production is smaller for the farm households that actually did adapt than for the farm households that did not adapt in the counterfactual case that they adapted

cropland allocation effects of agricultural input subsidies in malawi summary we measure the impacts of malawi s farm input subsidy program on the cropland allocation decisions of farmers in kasungu and machinga districts in central and southern malawi using a two step regression strategy to control for endogenous selection into the program we find positive correlations between participation in the program and the amount of land planted with maize and tobacco furthermore results suggest that participating households simplified crop production by allocating less land to other crops e g groundnuts soybeans and dry beans our findings have implications for policies aimed at promoting both food self sufficiency and crop diversification in low income settings 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

an exogeneity test for a simultaneous equation tobit model with an application to labor supply a test of weak exogeneity in the simultaneous equation tobit model is proposed and illustrated using a female labour supply model estimated using cross section data the test statistic can be simply output from any standard tobit maximum likelihood package and is asymptotically efficient the procedure provides consistent estimators for the simultaneous tobit model whose asymptotic covariance matrix is a simple extension of the usual tobit formula we also provide the lagrange multiplier test of weak exogeneity this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item