the impact of rural electric access on deforestation rates summary overpopulation and economic industrialization are two common explanations for deforestation political ecology however highlights that good governance and effective land management at the local level can offset the impact of population growth and development on environmental degradation in this paper we provide an innovative argument derived from political ecology to explain deforestation but rather than pursing a bottom up approach to governance we take a top down approach we argue that the state can ease deforestation rates by weaning rural populations off of the consumption of biomass for their energy needs by expanding rural electrification access using a panel analysis of 158 countries for the years 1990 2000 and 2010 we find that not only does rural electrification cause deforestation rates to decrease but also that it is more robust in explaining deforestation than population growth or development our study provides two innovations to political ecology it highlights that the state can help rather than hinder local populations with managing their local environments in a more sustainable way by providing them with public goods based energy alternatives and it supplements political ecology s qualitative focus on environmental degradation with a generalized quantitative analysis of state based initiatives on deforestation our results suggest that current global initiatives addressing deforestation specifically the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation redd agenda of the united nations framework convention on climate change should not only assist local land managers but also work with the state to ensure universal access to electricity

non farm income household welfare and sustainable land management in a less favoured area in the ethiopian highlands a bio economic model has been calibrated to the socio economic and biophysical characteristics of a less favoured area in the ethiopian highlands land degradation population growth stagnant technology and drought necessitates development of non farm employment opportunities in the area the model has been used to assess the impact of improved access to non farm income on household welfare agricultural production conservation investments and land degradation in the form of soil erosion the model simulations indicate that access to low wage off farm income is restricted by lack of employment opportunities since households otherwise would have engaged in more off farm wage employment than observed the simulations show that better unconstrained access to low wage non farm income has a substantial positive effect on household income total agricultural production crop and livestock production and farm inputs used are reduced when access to non farm employment is improved and thus increases the need to import food to the area access to non farm income reduces farm households incentives to invest in conservation and this leads to more overall soil erosion and more rapid land degradation even though intensity of production is reduced special policies are therefore needed to ensure land conservation and to sustain local food production

measuring the forest and income impacts of forest user group participation under malawi s forest co management program abstract we evaluate the impacts of forest user group participation under malawi s forest co management program on forest clearing and household income we use panel data collected in 2002 and 2009 in two districts of malawi we employ a two step regression strategy to control for endogenous selection into the program using propensity score weighting and propensity score analysis with non parametric regression we find that the program lowered the rate and extent of forest clearing we also find that the program had no discernible impact on household forest incomes suggesting that the program helped achieve environmental goals without compromising household livelihoods

best of both worlds how embeddedness fit in the host unit and the headquarters improve repatriate knowledge transfer knowledge transfer within multinational enterprises is a source of competitive advantage however we know little about repatriates role in reverse knowledge transfer upon their return to headquarters hq using an organizational embeddedness perspective we conceptualized how embeddedness fit individuals perceived match between their knowledge and skills and the job requirements during the expatriation assignment and upon repatriation predicts repatriate knowledge transfer to test the hypotheses we collected multi wave survey data from 129 repatriates and their supervisors and developed a repatriate knowledge transfer scale the results show that perceived organizational support from hq positively influences embeddedness fit both in the host unit during expatriation and in the hq upon repatriation further embeddedness fit in the hq upon repatriation has a direct effect while embeddedness fit in the host unit during expatriation has an indirect effect on repatriate knowledge transfer via increased communication frequency with the former host unit in addition we found that knowledge transfer is particularly pronounced for repatriates with both high levels of embeddedness fit in the hq upon repatriation and frequent communication with colleagues in their former host unit our results highlight the critical importance of helping expatriates increase their perceived embeddedness fit for reverse knowledge transfer to occur

expatriate performance appraisal in u s multinational firms this exploratory study examines empirically expatriate performance appraisal epa practices for u s multinational firms and assesses how such practices relate to the perceived accuracy of epas from a sample of u s multinationals the results suggest that a balanced set of raters from host and home countries and more frequent appraisals relate positively to perceived accuracy of epas the data suggest however that most respondent firms did not follow these practices in addition the use of standardized and customized epa evaluation forms relates negatively to perceived epa accuracy implications of these exploratory findings for research and practice are also discussed

forest clearing in rural livelihoods household level global comparative evidence summary this paper examines the factors that influence rural household decisions to clear forestland we use a large dataset comprising 7172 households from 24 developing countries twenty seven percent of sampled households had converted forest to agriculture during the previous 12 months clearing on average 1 21 ha male headed households with abundance of male labor living in recently settled places with high forest cover unsurprisingly tended to clear more but regional peculiarities abounded households with medium to high asset holdings and higher market orientation were more likely to clear forest than the poorest and market isolated households questioning popular policy narratives about poverty driven forest clearing

a cross country comparison of rural income generating activities summary this paper uses a newly constructed cross country database composed of comparable income aggregates to examine the full range of income generating activities carried out by rural households the analysis paints a clear picture of multiple activities across rural space in countries on all four continents though less so in the included african countries for most countries the largest share of income stems from off farm activities and the largest share of households has diversified sources of income diversification not specialization is the norm nevertheless agricultural sources of income remain critically important for rural livelihoods in all countries

nonfarm income diversification and household livelihood strategies in rural africa concepts dynamics and policy implications abstract asset activity and income diversification lie at the heart of livelihood strategies in rural africa this paper introduces a special issue on the topic income diversification and livelihoods in rural africa cause and consequence of change we concentrate on core conceptual issues that bedevil the literature on rural income diversification and the policy implications of the empirical evidence presented in this special issue

buyer uncertainty and two part pricing theory and applications we consider two part pricing of a service offered to risk averse buyers subject to demand uncertainty buyers subscribe to the contract before resolution of the uncertainty sellers set two part prices that trade off between insuring buyers against the uncertainty and the ex post deadweight loss from inefficient usage if marginal and total benefits from the service are positively correlated a sufficient condition is that the uncertainty not directly affect the buyer benefit the usage charge should be set above the marginal cost of the service if marginal and total benefits are negatively correlated the usage charge should be set below the marginal cost these results apply whether the seller has market power or is subject to competition the difference between the profit maximizing usage charge and marginal cost increases with buyer risk aversion our results can be extended to the case of the seller being more risk averse than the buyers we discuss applications to pricing of beach and ski resorts lines of credit utility computing and government services

on two part tariff competition in a homogeneous product duopoly abstract we explore aspects of two part tariff competition between duopolists providing a homogeneous service when consumers differ with respect to their usage levels competition in only one price component the fee or the rate may allow both firms to enjoy positive profits if the other price component has been set at levels different enough between firms fixing one price component alters the nature of competition indirectly introducing an element of product differentiation endogenous market segmentation emerges with the heavier users choosing the lower rate firm and the lighter users choosing the lower fee firm when no price component can be negative competition becomes softer profits tend to be higher but there is also a disadvantage for the firm that starts with a higher fee than that of its rival

a needs driven approach to expatriate adjustment and career development a multiple mentoring perspective although effective in improving socialization development and retention in the us domestic context mentoring would likely benefit expatriates and their firms but it remains theoretically underdeveloped in the international context we develop a theory of international mentoring by integrating current perspectives on protean and boundaryless careers with the literature on mentoring and expatriates expatriates need multiple mentors to assist their adjustment and development during the pre departure expatriation and repatriation stages of international assignments we discuss both hierarchical and peer and formal and informal mentoring relationships to delineate which relationships best address specific expatriate needs international mentoring may improve expatriate adjustment development and retention and thus may affect outcomes of international strategy we conclude by discussing implications and avenues for future research

evaluation of biodiversity policy instruments what works and what doesn t w e review and confirm the claim that credible evaluations of common conservation instru ments continue to be rare the limited set of rigorous studies suggests that protected areas cause modest reductions in deforestation however the evidence base for payments for ecosystem services decentralization policies and other interventions is much weaker thus we renew our urgent call for more evaluations from many more biodiversity relevant locations specifically we call for a programme of research conservation evaluation 2 0 that seeks to measure how programme impacts vary by socio political and bio physical context to track economic and environmental impacts jointly to iden tify spatial spillover effects to untargeted areas and to use theories of change to characterize causal mechanisms that can guide the collection of data and the interpretation of results only then can we usefully contribute to the debate over how to protect biodiversity in developing countries

land use and land use changes in life cycle assessment green modelling or black boxing the assessment of land uses and land use changes luluc impacts has become increasingly complex sophisticated modelling tools such as life cycle assessment lca are employed to capture both direct and indirect damages however quantitative assessments are often incomplete dominated by environmental aspects land uses are a multidisciplinary matter and environmental and sustainable development policies intertwine yet lcas mostly focus on environmental impacts excluding socioeconomic implications of land occupation this paper investigates the limitations of current luluc modelling practices in lca common lca assumptions harbor value choices reflect a post positivist epistemology that are often non transparent to e g policymakers they particularly influence the definition of the functional unit the reference system and system boundaries among other lca methodological choices consequently results informing land policies may be biased towards determined development strategies or hide indirect effects and socioeconomic damages caused by large scale land acquisitions such as violation of tenure rights speculation and displacement quantitative assessments of luluc impacts are certainly useful but should holistically encompass both direct and indirect impacts concerning the environmental and the social science dimension of luluc an epistemological shift towards a dialectic approach would facilitate the integration of multiple tools and methods and a critical interpretation of results

pricing access services many established industries such as the online service industry the telecommunication industry or the fitness club industry are access service industries when using services in these industries consumers pay for the privilege of accessing the firm s facilities but do not acquire any right to the facility itself a firm s pricing decisions in access industries frequently come down to a simple choice among flat fee pricing usage pricing or two part tariff pricing however it is not so simple for firms in those industries to make this choice access service firms typically face a mix of consumers who have intrinsically different usage rates a key characteristic of access service firms however is that the cost of providing an additional minute of usage is typically negligible as long as the firm has the necessary capacity to serve its customers service capacity which corresponds to the total available time on a firm s system is often limited in this paper we show that service capacity and consumer usage heterogeneity are two important factors that determine a firm s optimal choice we develop a model that incorporates these two salient characteristics shared by access industries and study what determines a firm s choice among the three alternative pricing structures flat fee pricing usage pricing or two part tariff pricing our analysis shows that in the presence of consumer usage heterogeneity service capacity mediates a firm s optimal choice in a complex yet predictable way a firm s choice also hinges on whether heavy or light users are more valuable in terms of their willingness to pay on a per unit capacity basis the presence of both consumer usage heterogeneity and capacity constraints prompts a firm to choose its pricing structure to attract a desired customer mix and to price discriminate as a result two part tariff pricing is not always optimal in access industries and a firm s pricing structure can vary in a complex way with the interaction of those two factors specifically we show that when light users are more valuable a firm may use a two part tariff or a flat fee depending on whether the firm is constrained by its service capacity but never charge a usage price alone or offer any signing bonus a negative flat fee or a flat payment to customers when heavy users are more valuable a firm may choose to set a usage price a signing bonus plus a usage price or flat fee interestingly regardless of whether heavy or light users are more valuable in an access service industry only flat rate pricing is a sustainable pricing structure once the industry has developed sufficient excess capacity we also show that the optimal pricing strategy in access industries can have some intriguing nonintuitive implications that have not been explored elsewhere for instance when the industry capacity is unevenly distributed between competing firms the large capacity firm may well be advised to increase rather than to decrease its price to accommodate the small firm it would be too costly and too tactless for the large firm to do otherwise in fact the strategy of accommodation calls on the larger firm to retreat in both light and heavy user markets and leave more of its capacity idle and more of the market demand unmet when the small firm s capacity hence the industry capacity increases this implies that incremental policy measures that encourage the growth of smaller companies in the presence of a large company can be welfare decreasing because the growth of smaller firm can force the retreat of a large company at the expense of market coverage today services account for two thirds to three quarters of the gnp not only in the united states but also in many industrial countries access industries are growing rapidly to exert profound impact on today s economy however service pricing in general and pricing access services in particular have not received adequate attention in the literature in this paper we take the first step in understanding how capacity constraints and consumer usage heterogeneity mediate the choice of pricing structures in both monopolistic and competitive contexts

two part pricing for experience goods in the presence of adverse selection abstract because customers learn something when they purchase an experience good for the first time a firm selling experience goods may face different demand curves from new and repeat customers the firm can exploit these differences by using a two part pricing strategy to price discriminate between new and repeat customers the firm may also use a two part pricing strategy to mitigate the information problems of adverse selection when its quality is uncertain the analysis is particularly applicable to service markets where customers and firms seek long term relationships and firms maintain customer records which facilitate price discrimination

the economic lives of the poor in what turned out to be a rhetorical master move the 1990 world development report from the world bank defined the extremely poor people of the world as those who are currently living on no more than 1 per day per person measured at the 1985 purchasing power parity ppp exchange rate in 1993 the poverty line was updated to 1 08 per person per day at the 1993 ppp exchange rate which is the line we use in this paper poverty lines have always existed indeed 1 per day was chosen in part because of its proximity to the poverty lines used by many poor countries 1 however the 1 a day poverty line has come to dominate the conversations about poverty to a remarkable extent

expatriate assignments and intra organizational career success implications for individuals and organizations anecdotal accounts and reports in the popular press often suggest that international assignments are critical for employees who seek to move up the career ladder more quickly nevertheless previous research on repatriation indicates that many former expatriates feel that their overseas assignments have harmed rather than helped their careers relatively little research though has sought to understand how expatriate assignments might be related to career success this paper then presents a conceptual model describing the relationship between expatriate assignments and intra organizational career success specifically theories of career mobility are used to develop a framework for outlining the factors likely to determine whether expatriate assignments help or hinder the advancement of employees who have worked as international assignees the model also indicates that repatriate career success influences an organization s ability to retain its current repatriates and recruit future expatriates some implications of this research and directions for future research are discussed as well

a probabilistic approach to pricing a bundle of products or services the authors propose a probabilistic approach to optimally price a bundle of products or services that maximizes seller s profits their focus is on situations in which consumer decision making is o

shocks income and wealth do they affect the extraction of natural resources by rural households summary this paper examines the effects of household and village level characteristics on environmental reliance and participation in resource extraction decisions unlike previous analyses that used case studies or regional samples i use a nationally representative sample of rural households rounds i and ii of the mexico national rural household survey enhrum econometric results show that participation in resource extraction follows an inverted u shaped relationship with income and that environmental reliance decreases with income beyond income results show that relatively wealthy households in rural mexico are less likely to participate in resource extraction and have lower reliance than those with less wealth there is also clear evidence that natural resources provide some sort of insurance for households that are subjected to negative agricultural shocks

welfare outcomes and the advance of the deforestation frontier in the brazilian amazon summary frontier expansion in the brazilian amazon is often described as boom bust development we critically assess this characterization by mapping and estimating statistical models of welfare as a function of deforestation at the municipal level after controlling for potential confounding variables and spatial autocorrelation estimation results are consistent with a frontier boom generated by exploitation of natural resources followed by a bust during which forests continue to fall but there is no compensating gain in welfare however average per capita welfare increases again with deforestation at very high levels this second turning point in average welfare along with the strong bivariate correlation between deforestation and municipal gdp km2 may encourage local leaders to equate deforestation with development this confirms the need for international incentive payments for global public goods such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration that are provided by the amazon forest

managing the learning and transfer of global management competence antecedents and outcomes of japanese repatriation effectiveness this study examines predictors that lead to effective individual learning of global management competencies on expatriate assignments and the transfer i e the application of those competencies in new assignments upon repatriation a structural equation model based on data from 305 japanese repatriates identifies linkages from organizational support intercultural personality characteristics self adjustment and repatriation policies to outcomes of global competency learning and transfer which in turn lead to heightened job motivation and performance

mentoring across global boundaries an empirical examination of home and host country mentors on expatriate career outcomes there has long been an interest in the effects of mentors on protege career outcomes and with scholars now beginning to examine mentoring across national boundaries using survey information as well as company records for 299 expatriates 163 men 136 women in 10 countries we examined the impact of home and host country mentors upon expatriate effectiveness we found that having a host country mentor had a significant positive effect on the expatriate s organizational knowledge organizational knowledge sharing job performance promotability and perceptions of teamwork having a home country mentor had a significant positive effect only on organizational knowledge job performance and promotability surprisingly our results revealed that having a home country mentor had a significant but negative effect on the expatriate s organization identification and job satisfaction contrary to the literature neither type of mentoring had a significant effect on job tension implications for practice as well as future research are detailed

environmental income and rural livelihoods a global comparative analysis this paper presents results from a comparative analysis of environmental income from approximately 8000 households in 24 developing countries collected by research partners in cifor s poverty environment network pen environmental income accounts for 28 of total household income 77 of which comes from natural forests environmental income shares are higher for low income households but differences across income quintiles are less pronounced than previously thought the poor rely more heavily on subsistence products such as wood fuels and wild foods and on products harvested from natural areas other than forests in absolute terms environmental income is approximately five times higher in the highest income quintile compared to the two lowest quintiles

forest based livelihoods strategies conditioned by market remoteness and forest proximity in jharkhand india summary the study uses a novel method to investigate the role of forest proximity market remoteness and caste in determining household income especially forest income in an underdeveloped region of india a high 50 proportion of total income is earned in cash forest products contribute substantially to total income with fuelwood as the most important forest product proximity to forest is associated with higher forest incomes as expected but remote villages do not have higher forest incomes or lower cash incomes than less remote villages higher off farm income is associated with better road access and higher income households generally 2014 published by elsevier ltd this is an open access article under the cc by nc sa license http creativecommons org licenses bync sa 3 0

forest loss and economic inequality in the solomon islands using small area estimation to link environmental change to welfare outcomes abstract to study welfare effects of environmental change data from household surveys may be linked to remote sensing data using spatial aggregation to link risks ecological fallacy since surveys are usually representative for areas larger than the spatial scale of decision making units this paper uses survey to census imputation to estimate welfare indicators for small areas to study the effect of deforestation on subsequent inequality in the rural solomon islands this country depends on logging for almost half of foreign exchange and one sixth of government revenue and most forested land remains under customary ownership a sharp increase in log exports to seven times the sustainable yield and a major shift in export destinations as other countries withdrew from the tropical log trade represents an exogenous shock that helps to identify effects of deforestation on inequality rather than the reverse relationship a standard deviation increase in the rate of forest loss over 2000 to 2012 raises the gini index of inequality in 2013 by one third of a standard deviation mean incomes and poverty rates are also higher implying that deforestation makes some households richer while others become poorer these precisely estimated effects would be obscured using more spatially aggregated data

tie in sales and price discrimination this paper analyzes a class of contracts between buyers and sellers which specifies that the purchase of one good cannot be effectuated unless a second good is also purchased the economic forces resulting from a tie in are shown to be influenced by factors such as depreciation of the tying good the sales policy of the firm and the discount rate price discrimination the traditional hypothesis for this tie in is seen to make sense only when these factors align themselves in particular ways although an alternative hypothesis risk reduction is unaffected by these factors the price discrimination hypothesis therefore loses much of its appeal relative to the alternative

when yankee comes home factors related to expatriate and spouse repatriation adjustment this study examined anticipatory and in country individual job organizational and non work variables and their relationship with work interaction and general repatriation adjustment for u s managers the study also examined anticipatory and in country individual and non work variables and their relationship with interaction and general repatriation adjustment for the spouses of the managers who were married age total time overseas social status and housing conditions were generally related to all facets of repatriation adjustment for both expatriates and spouses practical and research implications are explored

income strategies among rural households in mexico the role of off farm activities abstract off farm activities generate on average more than half of farm households incomes in the mexican ejido sector participation in these activities helps reduce poverty and contributes to greater equality in the distribution of income this paper analyzes the determinants of access to off farm sources of income across households we find that education plays a major role in accessing better remunerated nonagricultural employment adults of indigenous ethnic origin suffer from an educational lag and have less access to off farm nonagricultural employment than non indigenous adults at identical educational levels the regional availability of off farm employment strongly affects participation in addition women are differentially limited by distance to urban centers in their ability to gain off farm employment

are forest incomes sustainable firewood and timber extraction and productivity in community managed forests in nepal summary lack of combined forest productivity and income studies means there is scant evidence for the sustainability of rural household level forest incomes in developing countries this study examines levels and patterns of forest increment wood product extraction and household level incomes in three community managed forests in nepal using data from 240 permanent sample plots and a structured household survey conducted in 2006 and 2009 n 507 and 558 respectively we find that analyses of sustainability need to recognize the complexity of forest stand utilization and that there is considerable scope by altering how existing local forest management rules are implemented for increasing rural household forest incomes while keeping harvesting levels sustainable

competition and two part tariffs monopoly power of some sort is thought to have viewed two part tariffs as price discrimibe a necessary condition for a firm to have the nation devices empower to price discriminate for example a firm ployed exclusively by prefers to use a two part tariff see oi 1971 firms with market rather than charge a single price for output power this paper ofhowever a competing firm could always charge fers an explanation for the use of such price a single price that consumers would prefer and schedules by firms in earn nonnegative profits thus it seems that the highly competitive marexistence of competition in a market would result kets such as health in the elimination of any two part tariff howclubs it is argued that ever the existence of two part tariffs in many in a world with buyer markets that are or appear to be competitive uncertainty about future demands they can belies this standard assumption this paper exprovide insurance for plains why monopoly power is not required for risk averse buyers the the existence of a two part tariff i show circumfixed entry fee finances stances in which price discrimination using a a marginal price below marginal cost it is two part tariff is preferred by consumers to a sinshown that the benefits gle price and therefore why this pricing method from this lower price will be found in competitive markets such pricwill under certain ing occurs in environments with uncertainty bespecified conditions cause two part tariffs act as a form of insurance outweigh the costs of ex ante consumers plan consumption however the entry fee there is a random component to their consump

the role of expatriates in the management of interdependence complexity and risk in multinational corporations a multilevel analysis of environmental country and organizational affiliate factors is used to explain the differential utilization rates of u s nationals in overseas professional positions of a major u s bank with 84 branches in 43 countries the research suggests that to the extent that the affiliates of a multinational corporation operate in environments with differing levels of political risk cultural distance and competition and have operations with different levels of complexity and interdependence a single staffing policy may be inappropriate

poverty alleviation and tropical forests what scope for synergies abstract this paper explores the state of the art of the two way causal links between poverty alleviation and natural tropical forests microimpacts of rising poverty can increase or slow forest loss at the macrolevel poverty also has an ambiguous effect but it is probable that higher income stimulates forest loss by raising demand for agricultural land the second question is what potential forest led development has to alleviate a country s poverty in terms of producer benefits consumer benefits and economy wide employment natural forests widely serve as safety nets for the rural poor but it proves difficult to raise producer benefits significantly urban consumer benefits from forest an important target for pro poor agricultural innovation are limited and seldom favor the poor absorption of poor unskilled labor is low in forestry which tends to be capital intensive natural forests may thus lack comparative advantage for poverty alleviation there are few win win synergies between natural forests and national poverty reduction which may help to explain why the loss of tropical forests is ongoing this may have important implications for our understanding of sustainable forest development and for the design of both conservation and poverty alleviation strategies

repatriation of corporate executives an empirical study the effective management of corporate executives returning from foreign assignments has received little attention from academic researchers this study is based on questionnaires completed by members of the american society of personnel administration international aspi the focus of the study was directed at problems that occurred in repatriating executives programs used by corporations to repatriate returning executives and examines why programs have not been instituted by multinational corporations

on the economics of repeat buying this article presents a theory of such phenomena as coupons valid for the next purchase of a good and high initiation fees for clubs in these cases the price of a nondurable good is lowered for second time buyers we show here that this can be explained by a model in which a monopolist sells a good and the buyers are uncertain of their taste for the product but not of the quality of the product per se

safety nets gap filling and forests a global comparative perspective summary in the forest livelihoods literature forests are widely perceived to provide both common safety nets to shocks and resources for seasonal gap filling we use a large global comparative dataset to test these responses we find households rank forest extraction responses to shocks lower than most common alternatives for seasonal gap filling forest extraction also has limited importance the minority of households using forests for coping is asset poor and lives in villages specialized on forests in particular timber extraction overall forest resources may be less important as a buffer between agricultural harvests and in times of unforeseen hardship than has been found in many case studies 2014 published by elsevier ltd

electronic tickets smart cards and online prepayments when and how to advance sell advance selling occurs when sellers allow buyers to purchase at a time preceding consumption shugan and xie 2000 electronic tickets smart cards online prepayments and other technological advances make advance selling possible for many if not all service providers these technologies lower the cost of making complex transactions at a greater distance from the seller s site they also give sellers more control over advance selling by decreasing arbitrage as technology enhances the capability to advance sell more academic attention is vital this paper strives to exploit these technologies by developing advance selling strategies until recently advance selling research focused on the airline industry and specific characteristics of that industry these characteristics included the price insensitivity of late arrivals e g business travelers compared with early arrivals e g leisure travelers demand uncertainty across flights on the same day and capacity constraints recent findings by shugan and xie 2000 show that advance selling is a far more general marketing tool than previously thought it does not require these industry specific characteristics it only requires the existence of buyer uncertainty about future valuations moreover sellers without the ability to price discriminate can use advance selling to improve profits to the level of first degree price discrimination this finding is important because buyers are nearly always uncertain about their future valuations for most services e g the utility of next year s vacation or a future college education in this paper we take the next step from shugan and xie 2000 we show that advance selling profits do not come from buyer surplus but from more buyers being able to purchase we determine when and how to advance sell in a variety of situations including situations with limited capacity second period arrivals refunds buyer risk aversion exogenous credibility continuous preference distributions and premium pricing we determine when advance selling improves profits and when it does how to set advance prices we ask and answer seven questions first when should sellers advance sell second how much can advance selling improve profits compared with only spot selling third what factors impact the profitability of advance selling and how fourth should advance prices be higher or lower or the same as spot prices fifth how do capacity constraints impact advance selling strategies sixth should sellers limit the number of advance sales finally what is the possible impact of buyer risk aversion first we provide precise conditions when sellers should advance sell for example without capacity constraints we show that sellers should advance sell when marginal costs are sufficiently low to make it profitable to sell to buyers with low valuations and sufficiently high to convince buyers that the spot price will be higher than the advance price second we find that advance selling can almost double the profits from optimal spot selling to early arrivals we also show that advance selling has no impact on consumer surplus in markets with homogenous consumers and no capacity constraints therefore advance selling can increase social welfare because seller profits increase third we find that two very important factors impacting the profitability of advance selling are seller credibility and marginal costs buyers only advance buy when they expect an advantage from advance buying over spot buying without capacity constraints sellers must credibly convince buyers that the advance price is at a discount to the spot price we show that this condition is met under different circumstances for example large marginal costs can create credibility because buyers believe that these costs will lead to high spot prices fourth we find although optimal advance prices can be at a discount to the spot price that sometimes a premium is optimal premiums are optimal when capacity is large but limited and marginal costs are not too large buyers advance purchase at a premium to spot prices when capacity is limited and spot prices are low note that this is not a risk premium and risk aversion is not required no prior research has suggested this strategy because that research relies on the assumption that early arrivals are more price sensitive than later ones without that assumption premium advance pricing is sometimes optimal fifth we find that binding capacity constraints can impact the profitability of advance selling in opposite ways on one hand capacity constraints create seller credibility buyers believe that spot prices will be high when they know spot capacity is limited and perhaps more limited by advance sales on the other hand when capacity is limited the need to increase sales from discounted advance prices diminishes sixth consistent with desiraju and shugan 1999 we find that limiting advance sales can be profitable but only under restrictive conditions these conditions are 1 selling to all early arrivals would leave insufficient capacity in the spot period to sell to all second period arrivals with high valuations 2 the optimal spot price is high and 3 marginal costs are sufficiently small to make advance selling profitable finally we find that buyer risk aversion can sometimes increase the profitability of advance selling our findings provide precise guidelines for a large number of service providers that will have the technical capability to advance sell for those service providers advance selling provides a creative pricing strategy that can potentially provide substantial improvements in profits

combining income and assets measures to include the transitory nature of poverty in assessments of forest dependence evidence from the democratic republic of congo abstract a considerable amount of research on poverty environment relations in developing countries under the cifor pen initiative focuses on household income generation from forests using total annual income as a measure of poverty however income alone produces a static picture in a snapshot of time while poverty is a dynamic state that can be a transitory phenomenon using income only also fails to consider that households can liquidate asset to overcome income shocks here we show that using asset quintiles measured by value of assets produce a distinctly different pattern than the commonly observed negative relation between income and forest dependence we then present an approach enabling categorization of households as chronic or transient poor transient rich and rich providing a more nuanced picture than that provided by cifor pen studies so far the validity of groupings is tested by comparing household characteristics and exposure to shocks we then show that the chronic poor are most reliant on forest income while the transient poor consume a higher share of harvested forest products the transient rich have higher agricultural productivity and absolute forest income rich households relies more on business based on the results we suggest recommendations for improving future studies on poverty environment relations

toward a theoretical framework of repatriation adjustment although the increased internationalization of business has brought greater scholarly attention to the issue of adjustment to overseas assignments comparatively little research activity has been paid to the topic of adjustment back to the home country and home office repatriation adjustment in this article we argue that repatriation adjustment is sufficiently different from other forms of work adjustment e g domestic relocation and expatriate assignments to warrant separate theoretical and empirical investigation to facilitate this we propose an initial theoretical framework and set of derived propositions to guide and spark future research on this topic

forests livelihoods and conservation broadening the empirical base summary more than 10 000 years after the agricultural revolution started millions of rural smallholders across the developing world may still derive as much income from foraging forests and wildlands as from cultivating crops these steady environmental income flows come often from public forests and are extracted by men and women alike however inflexible supplies from nature the physical hardship of harvesting and commonly low returns limit their role as safety nets and pathways out of poverty while their harvesting does not preclude the ongoing conversion of wildlands to agriculture privileged access to high quality environmental resources can become a strong local conservation motive

international knowledge brokerage and returnees entrepreneurial decisions based on the knowledge brokerage literature and the international entrepreneurship literature we investigate whether returnees international knowledge transfer affects their entrepreneurial decisions and the extent to which this relationship is contingent on perceived supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship and returnees difficulties with cross cultural readjustment in their home countries analyzing first hand survey data we find a positive relationship between international knowledge transfer and returnees decisions to become entrepreneurs this positive relationship is strengthened by the perception of the home country s supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship but is weakened by returnees perceived difficulties in readjusting to the local norms and culture in their home countries

can smallholders engage in tree plantations an entitlements analysis from vietnam tree plantations have expanded rapidly at the global scale this paper examines the possibilities for smallholders to engage in plantations as a potential means for poverty alleviation the paper analyzes the possibilities through an empirical study of household tree growing in rural vietnam with a focus on differences in the capacities of households to gain land endowments and translate endowments into tree entitlements employing heckman regression models and qualitative institutional analyses the paper finds that better off households are more likely to possess forestland grow trees and invest in plantations than poor ones in addition land plantations and investment tend to be larger for the better off than the poor better off households are in a better position to engage in tree plantations due to among other factors the institutional mechanisms differentiating household access to land and finance

managing valuable knowledge in weak ip protection countries although knowledge assets provide multinational corporations mncs with competitive advantages in foreign markets it can be difficult for firms to protect their knowledge in foreign countries especially countries with weak intellectual property ip protection building on and extending the knowledge management institutional theory and expatriate literatures this article explores whether home country expatriates can substitute for weak ip protection and drive an increase in more and more valuable knowledge transfers to foreign operations located in weak ip protection countries because of their ties to headquarters knowledge of parent firm assets priorities and routines and activities in local operations i argue that home country expatriates can transform the local operation to offer higher protection for parent firm knowledge in weak ip countries in ways that local managers cannot the results from a comprehensive panel of us multinationals suggest that home country expatriates can substitute for weak ip protection but that this effect is contingent on the manufacturing and knowledge capabilities of foreign operations for higher value parent firm knowledge transfers overall this article extends our understanding of the global management and protection of knowledge by mncs by exploring how organizational practices can buffer country level institutional deficiencies for firm knowledge

quantifying the economic contribution of wild food harvests to rural livelihoods a global comparative analysis this paper empirically quantifies and analyses i the economic contribution of wild foods to rural households ii the household socio economic demographic and geographical correlates of wild food income and iii how wild foods can be better incorporated into integrative food security policies we used household income data from 7975 households in 24 developing countries across three continents collected by the poverty environment network pen we found 77 of households to be engaged in wild food collection from forest and non forest environments even though the share of wild food income in total household income was on average only 4 poorer households and households experiencing shocks derived higher income shares from wild foods state land is the main source of forest derived wild food income while private lands are most important for non forest wild food income considerable regional variation in determinants and the direction of significant relationships indicate there is no one size fits all approach to integrating wild foods into food and forest policies however our results reveal potential to increase household food security by integrating wild foods into national food policies in more customized ways

producing woodfuel for urban centers in the democratic republic of congo a path out of poverty for rural households woodfuel is a renewable energy source with good potential for climate change mitigation in the democratic republic of congo drc the sector employs over 300 000 people for the supply of kinshasa alone but the benefits to the poor are often unknown this paper analyzes the contribution of commercial woodfuel production to livelihoods and poverty reduction in the drc woodfuel revenues especially those of charcoal contribute substantially to producers household income ranging from 12 for fuelwood producers around kisangani to 75 for charcoal producers around kinshasa it supports basic needs and investments in other livelihood activities for 82 of charcoal producers and 65 of fuelwood producers which helps to reduce poverty the contribution of woodfuel commercialization to poverty reduction should be part of energy and forestry policies

empirical regularities in the poverty environment relationship of rural households evidence from zimbabwe abstract analysis of rural households and environmental resources is beset by inadequate data especially in africa using purpose collected panel data from zimbabwe we demonstrate seven empirical regularities in the rural poverty environment relationship most important environmental resources make a significant contribution to average rural incomes poorer households also depend heavily on these resources which contribute c 40 to their incomes richer households however use greater quantities of environmental resources in total finally considerable differentiation exists in the economic characteristics of environmental goods these results demonstrate the considerable economic significance of environmental resources to rural households surveys which ignore them miscalculate rural incomes and welfare

competitive two part tariffs as a response to differential rates of time preference the major focus of the nonlinear pricing literature has been to demonstrate how welfare in a monopoly can be improved through the use of a nonlinear payment schedule however nonlinear prices arise in many different markets this paper explores nonlinear price equilibria in which both multiple firms and price schedules exist these outcomes are driven by the use of a sustainability criterion for equilibrium and differential rates of discount as the motivating force for the formation of nonlinear prices copyright 1991 by the london school of economics and political science