the gender asset gap land in latin america summary the gender asset gap in latin america with respect to ownership of land is significant in few countries do women constitute even one quarter of the landowners gender inequality in land ownership is related to male preference in inheritance male privilege in marriage male bias in community and state programs of land distribution as well as gender bias in the land market with women less likely than men to be successful buyers but there are also important di erences by gender in how land is acquired inheritance is the primary means by which most women become landowners men are much more likely than women to acquire land through its distribution by communities or the state and via the market factors contributing toward a trend toward greater gender equity in land inheritance and in recent state programs are highlighted 2003 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

a large scale mapping of territorial development dynamics in latin america summary this paper summarizes a study of changes in per capita income monetary poverty and income distribution in 9 045 subnational administrative units of nine latin american countries between the mid 1990s and mid 2000s the results largely support spatial convergence of mean household incomes although the estimates indicate it has been slow territorial inequality is found to be persistent and reduces the pro poor effect of local income growth although national context specific the estimates also indicate that territorial development dynamics are influenced by the structural features of the territories in view of the evidence territorial development policies in latin america seem well warranted

income adjustments and the role of consumers durables in some leading consumption functions in a seminal study davidson et al i978 hereafter dhsy introduced the error correction form of the consumption function this has proved to be robust to new data and different time periods see hendry i983 and has formed the basis of the consumption equations in several macroeconometric models see davis i 984 in subsequent studies hendry and von ungern sternberg i 98i hereafter hus and von ungern sternberg i 98 i modified the dhsy equation in a number of ways one of particular interest herein was to redefine the income measure to net out the effect of gains or losses due to inflation on liquid assets we consider here two related potential improvements to these widely used consumption functions one concerns the appropriate definition of income if there are not only liquid assets which suffer a value loss under certain conditions but also durable goods which depreciate the other is related to this and concerns an appropriate specification of the steady state consumption function whether static or dynamic for non durables which we take to include services which recognises the existence of durable consumption goods it is argued that if care is not taken the dhsy equation implies a misspecification which leads to an over estimate of the mean lag relating the consumption of non durables to income

value chain dynamics settlement trajectories and regional development fold n value chain dynamics settlement trajectories and regional development regional studies global value chain gvc analysis has little to say about the interaction between regions and global chain dynamics however recent calls to address broader development issues have resulted in efforts to incorporate a spatial dimension in gvc analysis addressing this issue the paper argues that gvc analysis needs to be combined with the examination of livelihoods at settlement level livelihood diversification or lack thereof indicates particular settlement trajectories that constitute regional development pathways it is also suggested that the understanding of how regions are shaped by value chain dynamics will improve by adding elements from global production network gpn theory to the combined methodology namely by an examination of territorial embeddedness and value creation enhancement capture distribution at settlement level

localization economies vertical organization and trade this paper develops a model of regional production networks based on localization economies i consider an industry with two activities one with location specific external economies the other with constant returns under autarky localization economies imply the formation of an industry center agglomeration drives up wages in the center causing the constant returns activity to disperse to outlying regions trade recreates the regional production network on a global scale i apply the model to data from the mexican apparel industry estimation results on mexico s pre and post trade regional apparel wage structure are consistent with localization economies implications for the north american free trade agreement nafta are discussed this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

labour chains analysing the role of labour contractors in global production networks abstract third party labour contractors are increasingly prevalent in global production networks gpns and can provide a channel for new forms of unfree labour review of case study evidence from south african and uk horticulture suggests this often emerges off site through labour intermediaries analytical approaches to labour in gpns and value chains are examined the article argues that labour contracting is driven by the commercial dynamics of global outsourcing a cascade system allows unscrupulous intermediaries to coerce vulnerable workers we examine strategies of civil society alliances and regulatory reform and argue for extending liability of all commercial actors across global boundaries

foreign direct investment in mexico a cointegration analysis this article addresses the important question of whether foreign direct investment enhances economic growth and labour productivity in mexico both from a theoretical and empirical perspective after briefly reviewing the mexican experience with net fdi inflows during the 1990s the article presents a simple endogenous growth model which explicitly incorporates any positive negative externalities generated by additions to the foreign capital stock using cointegration analysis the article estimates a dynamic labour productivity function for the 1960 95 period that includes the impact of the growth rate in the stocks of both private and foreign capital as opposed to the flows and the economically active population eap rather than the rate of population growth the error correction model ecm estimates suggest that increases in both private ad lagged foreign investment spending as well as the rate of growth in exports have a positive and economically significant effect on the rate of labour pr

foreign investment and spillover efficiency in an underdeveloped economy evidence from the mexican manufacturing industry abstract in this paper we consider the question whether differences in technical efficiency of mexican plants in part derive from spillover efficiency associated with foreign direct investment we use labour productivity as a measure of technical efficiency and relate this to capital intensity labour quality and scale of production we measure the degree of competition by different concentration indices and the final factor determining efficiency is the presence of foreign subsidiaries if there is a positive relation between efficiency of domestic plants and the foreign participation of various industries we conclude that there is a spillover of technical efficiency the empirical evidence from the study indicates that this is the case

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

cross sectional estimation of fdi spillovers when fdi is endogenous ols and iv estimates for mexican manufacturing industries cross sectional estimates of foreign direct investment fdi spillovers are biased when the variable capturing the cross industry variation of foreign participation is endogenous to the estimated regression model in this article i introduce an original instrument for this problematic fdi variable capturing the general fdi intensity of manufacturing industries i use this instrument to estimate fdi externalities in a cross section of mexican manufacturing industries the main findings show that in contrast to the common criticism that ordinary least squares ols estimation produces an upward bias in the estimated fdi externality effect for the sample of mexican manufacturing industries ols estimation causes a downward bias controlling for the tendency among foreign manufacturing firms to gravitate towards low productivity industries the instrumental variable estimations provide robust evidence of significantly larger positive fdi spillover effects

empowering women inheritance rights female education and dowry payments in india this paper examines the impact of gender progressive reforms to the inheritance law in india on women s outcomes despite stipulating that daughters would have equal shares as sons in ancestral property i find that the reform failed to increase the actual likelihood of women inheriting property instead parents appear to be gifting their share of land to their sons in order to circumvent the law however parents also appear to be compensating their daughters for such disinheritance by giving them alternative transfers in the form of either higher dowries or more education following the reform

is foreign direct investment beneficial for mexico an empirical analysis 1960 2001 summary this paper examines the impact of foreign direct investment fdi on labor productivity growth in mexico using cointegration analysis a dynamic labor productivity function for the 1960 2001 period is estimated that includes inter alia the impact of changes in the stock of private and foreign capital per worker the error correction model ecm estimates suggest that increases in both private lagged and foreign lagged investment per worker have a positive and economically significant effect on the rate of labor productivity growth however after taking into account the growing remittances of profits and dividends there is a marked decrease in the economic effect of foreign capital per worker on the rate of labor productivity growth the paper assesses the short term interactions of the relevant variables via impulse response functions irfs and variance decompositions vdcs based on a decomposition process that does not depend on the ordering of the variables

aggregate consumption of non durables and services and the components of wealth some evidence for the united kingdom the growth of spending on consumer goods in the united kingdom in recent years has been a severe test of previously well established consumption functions this paper assesses the performance of a dominant standard consumption function which relies on income and net liquid assets it turns out that this has not been able to track the growth in consumer spending however developments of this consumption function which find a role for the components of personal sector wealth perform rather well with satisfactory diagnostic statistics and an estimated equation standard error of around 0 4

whose greed whose grievance and whose opportunity effects of foreign direct investments fdi on internal conflict abstract this paper investigates the influence of foreign direct investments on the probability of civil conflict onset contributing to the debate on globalization and civil conflict i relax the common assumption that all forms of globalization are equivalent in their effects on civil conflict i also incorporate the cross sectoral heterogeneity of investments in existing arguments about the socioeconomic externalities of foreign direct investments as determinants of conflict with long time horizons and managerial control of their foreign affiliates foreign direct investors are strategic players aiming to maximize profits and uniquely able to alter their environment through socio political channels this distinguishes fdi from trade and foreign portfolio investments through a combination of political agency and socio economic influences on grievance and greed among domestic groups some types of fdi are likely to alleviate the risk of civil conflict service sector fdi while others exacerbate it primary sector fdi analyses using a new data set of sector specific fdi stock 1980 2013 lend empirical support to the argument showing that economic globalization can have simultaneous positive and negative externalities these findings are informative for the current dialogue on the role of global markets in sustainable development

environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in africa pilot evidence from rwanda although increased global demand for land has led to renewed interest in african land tenure few models to address these issues quickly and at the required scale have been identified or evaluated the case of rwanda s nation wide and relatively low cost land tenure regularization program is thus of great interest this paper evaluates the short term impact some 2 5 years after completion of the pilots undertaken to fine tune the approach using a geographic discontinuity design with spatial fixed effects three key findings emerge from the analysis first the program improved land access for legally married women about 76 percent of married couples and prompted better recordation of inheritance rights without gender bias second the analysis finds a very large impact on investment and maintenance of soil conservation measures this effect was particularly pronounced for female headed households suggesting that this group had suffered from high levels of tenure insecurity which the program managed to reduce third land market activity declined allowing rejection of the hypothesis that the program caused a wave of distress sales or widespread landlessness by vulnerable people implications for program design and policy are discussed

foreign direct investment exports and imports in mexico this paper analyses the liberalisation of foreign direct investment fdi in mexico since the late 1980s and its relationships with exports and imports such a process has eased the access of multinational corporations mncs to the country which has promoted exports however it has also resulted in a higher import content and the displacement of local firms which has limited mexico s economic development through the balance of payments constraint the analysis is supported by the existence of linkages bidirectional granger causality between exports imports and fdi

testing for exogeneity an application to consumption behavior the exogeneity status of the income variable in a belgian aggregate consumption function is examined using a combination of classical and bayesian methods the incomplete structure of the proposed model requires the use of an incidental parameter for which the general instrumental variables approach is adopted the data evidence is found not to reject strong exogeneity

a meta analysis of fdi and productivity spillovers in developing countries markdownabstractthis meta analysis reviews the intrasector heterogeneity of productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in 31 developing countries through a larger more comprehensive data set we investigate how the inconsistencies in the reported spillover findings are affected by publication bias characteristics of the data estimation techniques and empirical specification analyzing 1450 spillover estimates from 69 empirical studies published in 1986 2013 our findings suggest that reported fdi spillover estimates are affected by publication bias in combination with model misspecification of the primary studies the bias overstates the genuine underlying meta effect but the meta effect remains economically and statistically significant our results emphasize that spillovers and their sign largely depend systematically on specification characteristics of the primary studies and publication bias publication bias is not caused by best practice choices future research needs to cover more developing countries and to investigate not only whether spillovers occur but also to explore inside the black box of how spillovers actually emerge

intra and inter industry externalities from foreign direct investment in the mexican manufacturing sector new evidence from mexican regions summary this paper presents new empirical evidence on externalities from foreign direct investment fdi in several mexican regions in the early 1990s the main findings are threefold first the presence of fdi creates negative externalities within industries and positive externalities between industries through backward linkages second fdi externalities are stimulated by large technological differences between fdi and mexican firms and by geographic concentration of industries third we identify a substantial level of regional heterogeneity of the externality impact of fdi in line with the notion that fdi may have contributed to processes of changing regional prosperity under trade liberalization the findings also imply that maquiladora firms in the border states are generating positive externalities

an error correction system for integrated consumption and portfolio allocation decisions abstract in this paper i show how an error correction system arises for the determination of consumption and portfolio allocation decisions the influential work of hendry and von ungern sternberg hus is extended to provide equations for consumption and the disaggregation of wealth into n 1 components

a dual measure of economies of scope a derivative based measure of economies of scope is obtained by exploiting the duality between the shadow cost function and the input distance function this is a useful measure when the econometric estimation of a cost function is not viable

a systems approach to the relationship between consumption and wealth the single equation approach to the determination of consumption due to hendry and von ungern sternberg hus is extended to a multi equation system which links decisions on consumption and the components of wealth the original hus approach has proved to be a very durable one being applicable to a number of countries and macroeconomic models this approach is extended to allow a role for rates of return as well as income and it is shown how this extension results in an error correction system the empirical analysis used is based on johansen s maximum likelihood extension of the co integration approach of engle and granger

wages and foreign ownership a comparative study of mexico venezuela and the united states abstract this paper explores the relationship between wages and foreign investment in mexico venezuela and the united states despite very different economic conditions and levels of development we find one fact that is robust across all three countries higher levels of foreign investment are associated with higher wages however in mexico and venezuela foreign investment is associated with higher wages only for foreign owned firms there is no evidence of wage spillovers leading to higher wages for domestic firms the lack of spillovers in mexico and venezuela is consistent with significant wage differentials between foreign and domestic enterprises in the united states where the evidence suggests some wage spillovers from foreign to domestic enterprises wage differentials are smaller

dynamic models of portfolio behavior more on pitfalls in financial model building in an important article in this review william brainard and james tobin have emphasized the role played by the wealth constraint in systems of asset demand equations the wealth constraint gives rise to consistency conditions which must be satisfied by the demand functions when such a system is specified and estimated as brainard and tobin caution care must be taken to ensure that unrealistic coefficients are not inadvertently imposed on omitted equations by failure to recognize the consistency conditions noting that the wealth constraint applies out of as well as in portfolio equilibrium brainard and tobin focus attention on systems in which actual and desired stocks of assets differ they specify a multivariate stock adjustment model wherein the desired change in holdings of any asset depends in general upon all asset stock disequilibria the existence of such stock disequilibria can be implicitly rationalized on the basis of costs of adjustment which impinge on the rate of change of at least some assets in this framework they show that the stock adjustment coefficients must also satisfy certain consistency conditions to ensure that the wealth constraint is satisfied an important feature of their analysis is that the total change in wealth savings plus capital gains is treated as exogenous to the financial sector and the asset flow demands described above are conditional upon the exogenously given change in wealth this strategy of separating the portfolio balance decision from the consumption saving decision is one that tobin has explicitly used and justified in his 1969 article especially pp 15 16 and is one that has been widely and effectively used in modern macroeconometric models the central argument of the present paper is that this separation of flow allocation and stock allocation decisions is not legitimate in the presence of adjustment costs attached to changing the level of individual asset holdings the existence of adjustment costs means that there is no portfolio balance problem per se in the sense of allocation of a given level of wealth but rather a longer run problem of determining an optimal time path for each asset and for the level of consumption thus a natural extension of the brainard tobin model is to treat saving and portfolio decisions in an integrated fashion 2 note that the brainard tobin model is perfectly consistent with any model of savings behavior and hence no logical con queen s university and cowles foundation for research in economics yale university i am grateful to adrian pagan gordon sparks and james tobin for helpful discussions and especially to gary smith who as well as patiently discussing many of the issues provided detailed comments on earlier drafts of this paper this research was partially supported by a national science foundation grant to the cowles foundation and by a canada council grant to the author remaining mistakes and opinions are my own i this also has implications for the common practice in macro economic models of leaving the bond market as implicit care must be taken to ensure that silly behavior is not inadvertently attributed to bondholders william silber tobin and alan blinder and robert solow have initiated research which reintroduces the bond market into macroeconomic models 21t appears to be a fairly general result that the existence of adjustment costs leads to integrated behavior m ishaq nadiri and sherwin rosen have established a similar result for the theory of the firm and robin mukherjee and edward zabel have recently shown that the separation theorem prominent in the finance literature on the mean variance approach to optimal consumption portfolio behavior fails to hold when transactions costs are introduced in my 1975 paper appendix i have argued that the integration of saving and portfolio balance decisions also applies in continuous time models even though such models are characterized by separate stock and flow budget constraints

scope economies and technical efficiency of cocoa agroforesty systems in ghana a number of studies have addressed issues relating to the physiological environmental and economic values of trees in cocoa farming systems however to date little has been done to quantitatively examine the effect of crop diversity on cocoa farming efficiency this study therefore sets out to first investigate whether and to what extent crop diversity defined as the mixing of cocoa with other crop species on farmers plots affects productivity on cocoa farms secondly it sought to establish whether there are economies of scope i e cost complementarities from the sharing of farm inputs by crops on the same plots our results indicate that diversified i e multi crop cocoa farms are more efficient than single i e mono crop farms furthermore our estimate for the economies of scope parameter indicates possibilities for cost complementarities between production of cocoa and other crops on the same plot we advocate further investigation on the issue of scope economies to determine which crop combinations offer better cost complementarities and also meet biodiversity conservation objectives

migration trade and foreign direct investment in mexico part of the rationale for the north american free trade agreement nafta was that it will increase trade and foreign direct investment fdi flows creating jobs and reducing migration to the united states u s since poor data on illegal migration to the united states make direct measurement difficult data on migration within mexico where census data permit careful analysis are used instead to evaluate the mechanism behind predictions on migration to the united states specifications are provided for migration within mexico incorporating measures of cost of living amenities and networks contrary to much of the literature labor market variables enter very significantly and as predicted once possible credit constraint effects are controlled for greater exposure to fdi and trade deters outmigration with the effects working partly through the labor market finally some tentative inferences are presented about the impact of increased fdi on mexico u s migration on average a doubling of fdi inflows leads to a 1 5 to 2 percent drop in migration

foreign direct investment in vertically related markets we study an mne s choice of fdi mode in a vertically related market with local input sourcing we show how the market s vertical structure and trading features affect this choice an mne s incentives to expand through cross border acquisition rather than through greenfield investment are stronger in markets with higher upstream bargaining power upstream concentration and unobservable contract terms the opposite holds in markets in which wholesale price contracts instead of two part tariffs are used our welfare analysis suggests that the host country should not always welcome fdi and should discourage fdi through acquisition investissements exterieurs directs sur les marches verticaux dans cet article nous etudions le choix d une entreprise multinationale de proceder a un investissement exterieur direct dans un marche vertical avec sources d approvisionnement locales nous montrons la facon dont la structure verticale et les caracteristiques commerciales du marche ont une incidence sur une telle decision les mesures incitatives offertes aux entreprises multinationales pour se developper par l entremise d acquisitions transfrontalieres plutot que par l investissement dans de nouvelles installations sont plus fortes sur les marches dotes d un pouvoir de negociation et d une concentration en amont plus eleves ainsi que par des conditions contractuelles non observables l inverse s observe sur les marches ou les contrats a prix de gros sont utilises en lieu et place des tarifs binomes en termes de bien etre notre analyse suggere que le pays hote ne devrait pas toujours accueillir les investissements exterieurs directs et devrait decourager ces memes investissements realises par l entremise d acquisitions

efficiency in new zealand sheep and beef farming the impacts of regulatory reform in this study we consider the impacts of dramatic regulatory reform during the 1980s on the efficiency of farms in new zealand using unbalanced panel data a translog distance function representing the multiple output and input technology and incorporating nonneutral regulatory impacts is used for the analysis determinants of technical inefficiency including a regulatory variable a time term and a debt equity ratio are also incorporated in a one step model estimated by maximum likelihood stochastic production frontier methods we find evidence of regulatory induced changes in output composition toward beef and deer and away from wool and especially lamb but little associated technical inefficiency these patterns motivated investment in complementary capital land and beef deer livestock inputs firms that were more flexible in their adaptation toward these new mixes adjusted to regulatory changes with less upheaval so any existing inefficiency appears linked to debt equity levels

analysis of the technical efficiency of state rubber farms in vietnam this study entails an analysis of the technical efficiency of natural rubber production by state farms in vietnam a time varying stochastic frontier production function model for unbalanced data is estimated for 33 farms individual farm technical efficiencies are reported and discussed one of the main results concerns the bimodal distribution of technical efficiency indices a few farms operate near the production frontier while the bulk operate well away from the frontier some implications are drawn from the results as a guide to future policy research work in the rubber industry in light of recent moves by the vietnamese government towards economic reform

weather shocks and urban livelihood strategies the gender dimension of household vulnerability in the kumi district of uganda abstractthe teso sub region of uganda suffered numerous weather shocks in the past with devastating food security consequences using household fixed effects and propensity score matching methods we analyse the impact of exposure to drought flood and severe incidence of pests and diseases on household consumption expenditure per adult equivalent for a random sample of households from kumi town council we find that weather shocks reduce consumption by 17 per cent and that the consumption decline is significantly larger among female headed households we also find a higher likelihood of non farm employment borrowing and receiving remittances in order to cope with the shocks

allocation of land tenure rights in tigray how large is the gender bias this study investigates gender differences in land ownership and use in northern ethiopia female headed households have 23 smaller owned landholdings and 54 smaller operational landholdings household endowments of nonland productive inputs are important but decomposition analysis shows that differences in observable characteristics such as labor and oxen explain less than half of these differences whereas the remaining differences can be attributed to differences in returns to these characteristics the latter suggests a gender bias in land allocation the main policy recommendation is to strengthen women s opportunities to cultivate their land and continue the process of securing women s tenure rights

land inheritance and schooling in matrilineal societies evidence from sumatra abstract this paper explores statistically the implications of the shift from communal to individualized tenure on the distribution of land and schooling between sons and daughters in matrilineal societies based on a sumatra case study the inheritance system is evolving from a strictly matrilineal system to a more egalitarian system in which sons and daughters inherit the type of land which is more intensive in their respective work effort while gender bias is either non existent or small in land inheritance daughters tend to be disadvantaged with respect to schooling the gender gap in schooling however appears to be closing for the generation of younger children

net liquid assets and net illiquid assets in the consumption function some evidence for the united kingdom abstract this note reports details of estimating consumption equations for the united kingdom which separate net wealth into net liquid assets and net illiquid assets the estimation framework is related to that in the influential article by hendry and von ungern sternberg 1981 but recognises the importance of defining income to allow not only for inflation induced losses but also for depreciation provisions the empirical results provide some support for a role for both liquid and illiquid assets in determining consumption decisions

determinants of fdi induced externalities new empirical evidence for mexican manufacturing industries summary this paper presents new statistical evidence on foreign direct investment fdi induced externalities in mexican manufacturing industries for 1993 the new empirical results are important in three respects first the size of technological differences between fdi and mexican firms is positively related to positive externalities indicating the importance of sufficient scope of potential externalities incentives to make externality facilitating investments and the absence of negative competition effects second geographical concentration is identified as a structural determinant of positive fdi externalities finally the effect from fdi cleared from the influence of technological differences and agglomeration is the creation of positive externalities especially when endogeneity of the foreign participation variable is controlled for

joint titling in rural peru impact on women s participation in household decision making summary peru has implemented joint property rights between spouses and cohabitants on 57 of 1 5 million formalized agricultural plots bargaining theory indicates such redistribution of assets should empower women this project measures influence on decision making in 1 280 rural households interviewing man and woman separately a historical coincidence during the land reform of the 1960 70s made only some communities eligible for plot titling the process was exogenous and independent of both household and community characteristics the significantly positive impact on female empowerment in simple mean comparison and econometric models including pre titling historic variables is hence unbiased

the consumption function in macroeconomic models a comparative study 1984 the consumption function in macroeconomic models a comparative study applied economics vol 16 no 6 pp 799 838

contradictory land use plans and policies in laos tenure security and the threat of exclusion summary contradicting policies and overlapping property arrangements are common in many countries opening doors for diverse interpretations by different actors this requires better knowledge on how competing interests and actors interact and what determines the practical competition outcomes as demand for land intensifies and international actors get increasingly involved in regulating natural resources land use planning in laos provides a case in point as it aims at strengthening tenure security intensifying agriculture and sparing forest areas while other policies simultaneously promote agricultural development and agri business investment that reconfigure land use and land access through national provincial district village and household interviews we examine how different land and forest related policies interact and whether ongoing land use planning processes and land rights formalization increase tenure security we show how government policies supported by international donors and introduced to strengthen tenure rights for the rural population actually reduce villagers legally permitted agricultural areas even if district level land use regulations do not currently exclude local communities from their land land use plans lay the groundwork for potentially excluding villagers from large land areas we find that plural contradictory regulations and policies combined with existing power inequalities result in a filter mechanism that reduces the practical impact of legal instruments and safeguards aimed at strengthening the least powerful actors rights our results add to other authors arguments that political and legal changes are mediated by power relations cultural norms and economic incentives by highlighting that the duel edged rights sword may actually end up paving the way for greater state control over future benefits derived from community areas classified as forest lands this is especially relevant when preparing redd which we show is likely to weaken rather than strengthen tenure security for rural populations

where at home do exporters produce and export foreign growth can induce changes in production structures across domestic regions through international trade with a two country model with the explicit incorporation of two regions in the home country we show that effects of foreign growth on exports and production to be possibly asymmetric among home regions this foreign growth effect is especially prominent in asia with china emerging as the largest trading country we empirically test our theoretical hypothesis with the data set of japanese regions we find evidence that the growth of asian countries leads to a change in the regional structure of exports and production in japan with respect to an adjacent asian country the growth of a foreign country exerts opposite effects on production among japanese regions

diversification economies and specialisation efficiencies in a mixed food and coffee smallholder farming system in papua new guinea smallholder farming systems in papua new guinea are characterised by an integrated set of cash cropping and subsistence food cropping activities in the highlands provinces the subsistence food crop sub system is dominated by sweet potato production coffee dominates the cash cropping sub system but a limited number of food crops are also grown for cash sale the dynamics between sub systems can influence the scope for complementarity between and technical efficiency of their operations especially in light of the seasonality of demand for household labour and management inputs within the farming system a crucial element of these dynamic processes is diversification into commercial agricultural production which can influence factor productivity and the efficiency of crop production where smallholders maintain a strong production base in subsistence foods in this study we use survey data from households engaged in coffee and food crop production in the benabena district of eastern highlands province to derive technical efficiency indices for each household over two years a stochastic input distance function approach is used to establish whether diversification economies exist and whether specialisation in coffee subsistence food or cash food production significantly influences technical efficiency on the sampled smallholdings diversification economies are weakly evident between subsistence food production and both coffee and cash food production but diseconomies of diversification are discerned between coffee and cash food production a number of factors are tested for their effects on technical efficiency significant technical efficiency gains are made from diversification among broad cropping enterprises

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

modelling consumers expenditure the purpose of this paper is to model the dynamics of consumers response to changes in the relevant variables wealth and inflation effects on aggregate consumption expenditure are investigated real capital losses or gains due to inflation are accounted for in providing a more appropriate definition of income in a situation of rising prices empirical results for italy show that once the dynamic structure of the model is carefully specified consumption expenditure can be explained in terms of a limited number of variables income and wealth some evidence is found moreover in favour of redefining income while additional inflation effects appear to be not significant

gender differences in land inheritance schooling and lifetime income evidence from the rural philippines this article examines the difference in lifetime incomes arising from parental preferences in the allocation of land inheritance and investments in schooling between sons and daughters in the rural philippines sons are preferred with respect to land inheritance receiving 0 15 additional hectares of land while daughters are treated more favourably in schooling investments receiving 1 5 more years of schooling however differences in both current and life cycle incomes between sons and daughters are insignificant this suggests that filipino parents allocate intergenerational transfers to equalise incomes among their children without sacrificing efficiency

determinants of technological diffusion in mexican manufacturing a plant level analysis abstract production function estimates serve to measure and compare the productive efficiency of a large panel of mexican manufacturing firms during a period of trade liberalization 1984 90 foreign capital is found to have a positive influence on productive efficiency at the plant level but contrarily to crossindustry studies it does not lead to significant spillovers at the sector level enlarging the analysis it is found that technological diffusion is favored by the size of the plant and by agglomeration economies while its correlation with international trade exposure does not appear to be robust

gender and forced labour understanding the links in global cocoa supply chains this paper investigates the gendered patterns and dynamics of labour exploitation and forced labour in the cocoa supply chain the empirical basis of our analysis is an original primary dataset pro

game theoretic models of wage bargaining this paper aims at being a tool to help apply game theoretic bargaining models to wage negotiations in this perspective we review a number of articles which explicitly deal with wage determination as well as purely game theoretical models which we believe can be fruitfully extended to account for specific features of labour markets we discuss some common shortcomings in the wage negotiation literature and suggest possible lines of research worth pursuing to deal with such weaknesses