credit market constraints consumption smoothing and the accumulation of durable production assets in low income countries investments in bullocks in india in this paper we formulate and estimate a finite horizon structural dynamic model of agricultural investment behavior that incorporates the major features of low income agricultural environments income uncertainty constraints on borrowing and rental markets and the use of investment assets to generate income and smooth consumption the model is fit to longitudinal indian household data on farm profits bullock stocks and pump sets the estimated structural parameters are used to assess the effects on the life cycle accumulation of bullocks agricultural profits and welfare associated with complete markets and bullock liquidity and with second best policies that provide assured sources of income to farmers and weather insurance

multi criteria revision of the hungarian renewable energy utilization action plan review of the aspect of economy abstract in 2012 the hungarian government has decided to revise the country s national renewable action plan mostly due to the experienced changes of the economic environment and the continuously decreasing cost of renewable energy technologies present paper introduces the methodology and the most important results of this revision process carried out by the centre for energy research of the hungarian academy of sciences first the results of hungarian initiatives aiming the increase of the share of renewable were examined then by analysis of technological and economic trends of recent years new scenarios were set to reach the targets set by adopting the 2009 28 ec directive 1 a multiple criteria decision analysis mcda of all potential renewable technologies and their respective fuels served as a basis for the most competitive scenarios the authors focused on five aspects economy environment climate job creation and innovation due to coverage constraints present paper dominantly focuses on the review of the economical aspect but in addition to those mentioned further aspects may also be considered in the optimisation process the results of the revision highlight that by 2020 hungary will still mostly be using bioenergy in its renewable portfolio which also allows the country to exploit its significant potential

agroindustrialization globalization and international development an overview of issues patterns and determinants this paper offers an overview for a special issue on agroindustrialization globalization and international development it sets out a conceptual framework for understanding the links among these three broad phenomena and then discusses emerging issues and evidence concerning the factors conditioning agroindustrialization in developing countries and the subsequent effects on employment poverty and the natural environment we conclude with a research agenda

possible impact of 2020 bioenergy targets on european union land use a scenario based assessment from national renewable energy action plans proposals according to the renewable energy directive 2009 28 ec the european union member states should increase by 2020 the use of renewable energy to 20 of gross final energy consumption and to reach a mandatory share of 10 renewable energy in the transport sector this study aims to quantify the impact of 2020 bioenergy targets on the land use in the eu based on the projections of the national renewable action plans in four scenarios scenario 1 bioenergy targets according to nreaps scenario 2 bioenergy targets according to nreaps no second generation biofuels scenario 3 bioenergy targets according to nreaps reduced import of biofuels and bioliquids scenario 4 bioenergy targets according to nreaps high imports of biofuels and bioliquids this study also considers the credit for co products generated from biofuel production the analysis reveals that the land used in the eu for bioenergy would range between 13 5 mha and 25 2 mha in 2020 this represent between 12 2 and 22 5 of the total arable land used and 7 3 and 13 5 of the utilised agricultural area uaa in the nreaps scenario about 17 4 mha would be used for bioenergy production representing 15 7 of arable land and 9 4 of uaa the increased demand from biofuels would lead to an increased generation of co products replacing conventional fodder for animal feed considering the co products the land used for bioenergy would range between 8 8 mha and 15 0 mha in 2020 in the various scenarios this represent between 7 9 and 13 3 of the total arable land used in the eu and 4 7 and 8 0 of the uaa in the nreaps scenario when co products are considered about 10 3 mha would be used for biofuels bioliquids and bioenergy production representing 9 3 of arable land and 5 6 of agricultural land this study further provides detailed data on the impact on land use in each member state

poverty comparisons over time and across countries in africa abstract we use demographic and health surveys dhs to compare poverty at two or more points in time within and between african countries our welfare measure is an index resulting from a factor analysis of various household characteristics durables and household heads education an advantage of this measure is that for intertemporal and intraregional comparisons we need not rely on suspect price deflators and currency conversion factors the wide availability and similarity of questionnaires of the dhs facilitate comparisons over both time and countries our results generally show declines in poverty during the previous decade largely due to improvements in rural areas

the economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty an asset based approach abstract longitudinal data on household living standards open the way to a deeper analysis of the nature and extent of poverty while a number of studies have exploited this type of data to distinguish transitory from more chronic forms of income or expenditure poverty this paper develops an asset based approach to poverty analysis that makes it possible to distinguish deep rooted persistent structural poverty from poverty that passes naturally with time due to systemic growth processes drawing on the economic theory of poverty traps and bifurcated accumulation strategies this paper briefly discusses some feasible estimation strategies for empirically identifying poverty traps and long term persistent structural poverty as well as relevant extensions of the popular foster greer thorbecke class of poverty measures the paper closes with reflections on how asset based poverty can be used to underwrite the design of persistent poverty reduction strategies

export product diversification and co2 emissions contextual evidences from developing and developed economies abstract ascertaining cleaner production and sustainability is a major issue in the developed and developing world income and international trade are the predominant factors behind this this article explores the heterogeneous impacts of export product diversification extensive margin and intensive margins on the co2 emissions for developing and developed countries to this end the authors analyze the annual data of variables from 1971 to 2014 and employ unrestricted fixed effects and system gmm to solve the research problem the empirics suggest that all three indicators of export diversification significantly reduce co2 emissions in 63 developed and developing countries as a global sample the fixed effect models reveal that product diversification and intensive margin have a negative and significant impact in developed economies the negative impacts of product diversification show that economic sophistication is an important tool to reduce emissions further the chow test proved the statistical difference between developed and developing economies which contributes to policy recommendations based on the empirical outcomes the study suggests innovative policies for cleaner production and industrial manufacturing purposes making the policies more effective in achieving sustainable development goals sdgs

small farmers and big retail trade offs of supplying supermarkets in nicaragua summary in nicaragua and elsewhere in central america small scale farmers are weighing the risks of entering into contracts with supermarket chains we use unique data from cooperatives supplying supermarkets to study the effect of supply agreements on producers mean output prices and price stability we find that prices paid by the domestic retail chain approximate the traditional market in mean and variance while mean prices paid by walmart are significantly lower than the traditional market however the walmart contract is found to systematically reduce price volatility we find some evidence however that farmers may be paying too much for this contractual insurance against price variation

the transition to modern agriculture contract farming in developing economies recent years have seen considerable interest in the impact of contract farming on farmers in developing countries motivated out of belief that contract farming spurs transition to modern agriculture in this article we provide a thorough review of the empirical literature on contract farming in bo

welfare dynamics in rural kenya and madagascar this paper presents comparative qualitative and quantitative evidence from rural kenya and madagascar in an attempt to untangle the causality behind persistent poverty we find striking differences in welfare dynamics depending on whether one uses total income including stochastic terms and inevitable measurement error or the predictable structural component of income based on a household s asset holdings our results suggest the existence of multiple dynamic asset and structural income equilibria consistent with the poverty traps hypothesis furthermore we find supporting evidence of locally increasing returns to assets and of risk management behaviour consistent with poor households defence of a critical asset threshold through asset smoothing

renewable energy policy framework and bioenergy contribution in the european union an overview from national renewable energy action plans and progress reports abstract the use of renewable energy is projected to increase substantially in the european union to reach a share of 20 in final energy consumption and 10 renewable energy in transport by 2020 the renewable energy contribution is further expected to increase to 55 75 of gross final energy consumption in 2050 according to the latest reports the european union has made significant progress since 2005 and is on track to reach its 2020 renewable energy targets this paper provides a review of the policy framework for renewable energy in the european union and an analysis of the progress made by the use of renewable energy as well as the expected developments until 2020 and beyond it focusses on the contribution of bioenergy the major source among renewables in the european union as biomass availability is a critical issue for the bioenergy production this paper provides an analysis of the biomass demand for reaching the 2020 targets in relation with the expected domestic supply and biomass potential

the size distribution of innovating firms in the uk 1945 1983 a survey of 4 378 significant innovations shows that firms with fewer than 1 000 employees commercialized a much larger share than is indicated by their share of r and d expenditures innovations per employee have been consistently above average in firms with more than 10 000 employees and have become so in firms with fewer than 1 000 intersectoral variation in the size distribution of innovating firms can be explained as a function of r and d based technological opportunities and of technological ease of entry by user firms with principal activities outside the sector copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

a synthesis of foreign direct investment theories and theories of the multinational firm this paper first presents a taxonomy of the foreign direct investment theories following the market imperfections paradigm it then focuses on recent developments pertaining to the theory of the multinational firm specifically the appropriability internalization and diversification theories subsequently the multinational phenomenon is seen as the result of an international differentiation of activities and an intrafirm integration across national borders all this within a markets and hierarchies approach last the paper points to areas for future research

government r d expenditure and space empirical evidence from five industrialized countries abstract in all industrialized countries several ministries pursue technology policies but only in germany and france are there special ministries for research and technology carrying out explicit technology policy in the usa great britain and france in particular public spending on defense is most relevant technologically in this study this kind of unintended technology policy will be referred to as implicit only a minor part of national r d activity is initiated with regional goals in mind the major part by far aims for national competitiveness the central hypothesis of this paper is that government r d spending generates unintended spatial effects which are far more consequential than the intended ones this study attempts to explain the phenomenon the technology policies of the five major industrialized countries usa germany japan france and great britain will be analyzed and the general tendency of governments to spatially cluster their r d assistance will be discussed the empirical section of this paper focuses on the relationship between government r d spending and employment in the high technology sector

why firm size matters investigating the drivers of innovation and economic performance in new zealand using the business operations survey abstractthe performance of the new zealand nz economy is something of an enigma although ranked one of 144 countries for four important growth fundamentals nz is middle of the pack when it comes to economic growth productivity and process innovation using four iterations 2005 2007 2009 and 2011 of the business operations survey this research seeks to shed some new light on this conundrum by using a multivariate probit regression mvprobit approach applied to pooled samples in excess of 22 000 unit record observations of nz firms the results suggest that factors including firm size high perceived quality investment research and development rd while many external issues such as those related to geography market structure business environment have little influence at the firm level innovations in nz are highly dependent on the fi

market power and foreign involvement by u s multinationals this study considers the relationship between market power and multinational involvement through use of a market valuation approach estimation results for a sample of large us multinationals reveal superior valuation effects due to returns from foreign as opposed to domestic operations this finding is consistent with the hypothesis that returns from the us market tend to be less secure and therefore less valued than are returns from foreign markets due to both real market size entry barriers etc and institutional antitrust policies etc differences in competitive environments such findings are also consistent with previous suggestions that firms develop markets abroad in order to exploit economic rent opportunities these findings remain tentative however and await verification in future studies of data from both the united states and abroad 13 references 1 table

the innovative performance of in house and contracted r d in terms of patents and utility models abstract the standard empirical framework for analysing the r d patents relationship is widened both by examining the different role of in house and contracted r d in the innovative performance of firms and by considering patents and utility models counts as measures of innovation output patents and utility models are considered to approximate for significant and incremental innovations respectively applying count data econometrics to a panel data set of spanish manufacturing firms surveyed in the period 1990 1996 a transcendental production function is estimated which allows for non constant elasticities of the r d inputs the results indicate that significant innovations are mainly gestated in house whereas contracted r d seems more orientated towards innovations of incremental nature

residential energy demand for space heating in the nordic countries accounting for interfuel substitution abstract reliable estimation of fuel consumption in residential sector is crucial for the future development of fuel supply system three approaches are compared in this study to capture climate impact as well as and interfuel substitution between fuels on residential fuel consumption for space heating in the nordic countries the first approach aims at directly estimating the demand for each energy carrier as a function of explanatory variables including heating degree days fuels price and gdp per capita the second approach is a two stage model combing an econometric model for total energy use for space heating and the market share for energy carriers based on cross price elasticities while in the third approach a set of simultaneous equations models were estimated based on the results of the mean average error and root mean square error criteria for three approaches across the nordic countries it was found that the second and third approaches were able to capture the complementary and substitution effects between fuels this finding confirms our hypothesis that the interfuel substitution is a key factor for estimating changes in fuel demand and should be accounted for when residential energy demand is projected the results additionally have important implications for climate change policy by exploring the impact of fuel price on residential energy demand for space heating

the influence of proximity to market on bean producer prices in nicaragua transport costs are an important determinant of smallholder welfare in developing countries in particular transport costs influence the prices that smallholders receive for their produce we propose a simple way of quantifying this influence taking the example of bean producers in nicaragua we employ a hedonic price model to estimate the effects of a smallholder s proximity to markets on the prices that he she receives while controlling for other factors such as the volume and quality of beans sold we find that on average each additional minute of travel time reduces farm gate prices by 2 5 cents per quintal based on these results the annual income from bean sales of the average smallholder in our sample would increase by between 24 and 110 usd if travel time to markets were reduced by 25 estimates of this nature can make an important contribution to cost benefit assessments of infrastructure investments

sugarcane outgrowers in ethiopia forced to remain poor contract farming is often seen as a panacea to many of the challenges faced by agricultural production in developing countries given the large heterogeneity of contract farming arrangements it is debatable whether all kinds of contract farming arrangements offer benefits to participating smallholders we apply matching methods to analyze the effects of a public sugarcane outgrower scheme in ethiopia participation in the outgrower scheme significantly reduces the income and asset stocks of outgrowers who contributed irrigated land to the outgrower scheme while the effect was insignificant for outgrowers who contributed rain fed land we provide several explanations and discuss policy implications

impact of contract farming on income linking small farmers packers and supermarkets in china summary this study compares contract and non contract growers of apples and green onions in shandong province china in order to explore the constraints on participation and the impact of contract farming on income we find little evidence that firms prefer to work with larger farms though all farms in the area are quite small using a heckman selection correction model we find that contract farming raises income even after controlling for observable and unobservable household characteristics these results suggest that contract farming can help raise small farm income though questions remain regarding the number of farmers that can be brought into such schemes 2009 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

contract farming and food security contract farming has often been associated with an increase in the income of participating households it is unclear however whether contract farming increases other aspects of household welfare using data from six regions of madagascar and a selection on observables design in which we control for a household s marginal utility of participating in contract farming which we elicited via a contingent valuation experiment we show that participating in contract farming reduces the duration of a household s hungry season by about ten days on average and that it makes participating households about 20 percent more likely to see their hungry season end at any point in time further we find that these effects are more pronounced for households with a larger number of children and for households with a larger number of girls this is an important result as children especially girls often bear the burden of food insecurity

finding default understanding the drivers of default on contracts with farmers organizations under the world food programme purchase for progress pilot during the past two decades food assistance policy has shifted toward local or regional food purchases and away from purchases from donor countries while most local and regional procurement occurs through hard tendering processes open to large scale firms and farms there is growing interest in identifying how and whether to procure from smallholder farmer organizations to date little is known about the drivers of successful contracting with farmers organizations fos we utilize data from the united nations world food programme purchase for progress pilot in three east african countries to predict defaults on contracts we examine four possible explanations country contexts fo characteristics prior experience with contracts and contract modalities and their relationship to local spot market prices the single most important predictor of default is the increase in market prices between contract approval and delivery yet while increases in market prices are linked to increases in default this relationship is decreasing in contract size indicating search costs associated with breaking contracts our findings yield both generalizable and context specific insights about whether and when procuring from smallholder farmers can be successfully integrated into the food assistance toolkit this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

misspecification of capital asset pricing this study documents empirical anomalies which suggest that either the simple one period capital asset pricing model capm is misspecified or that capital markets are inefficient in particular portfolios based on firm size or earnings price e p ratios experience average returns systematically different from those predicted by the capm furthermore the abnormal returns persist for at least two years this persistence reduces the likelihood that these results are being generated by a market inefficiency rather the evidence seems to indicate that the equilibrium pricing model is misspecified however the data also reveals that an e p effect does not emerge after returns are controlled for the firm size effect the firm size effect largely subsumes the e p effect thus while the e p anomaly and value anomaly exist when each variable is considered separately the two anomalies seem to be related to the same set of missing factors and these factors appear to be more closely associated with firm size than e p ratios

contract farming smallholders and rural development in latin america the organization of agroprocessing firms and the scale of outgrower production abstract this paper demonstrates how contract farming functions as an economic institution and explores the causes of the observed variation in the scale of outgrower production in latin america we outline how market imperfections and transaction costs influence the decision of agroprocessing firms to contract out vertically integrate or use spot markets to obtain raw product the paper demonstrates how market conditions are likely to be associated with particular outgrower characteristics under contract farming an analysis of the mexican frozen vegetable industry illustrates determinants of successful and unsuccessful small scale contracting and suggests alternative policies to promote contract farming with smallholders

food value chain transformations in developing countries selected hypotheses on nutritional implications we examine how the transformation of food value chains fvcs influence the triple malnutrition burden undernourishment micronutrient deficiencies and over nutrition in developing countries we propose a fvc typology modern traditional modern to traditional and traditional to modern that takes into account the participants the target market and the products offered next we propose selected hypotheses on the relationship between each fvc category and elements of the triple malnutrition burden the primary finding is that the transformation of fvcs creates challenges and opportunities for nutrition in developing countries for example modern fvcs may increase over nutrition problems and alleviate micronutrient deficiencies for urban people with relatively high incomes however they have little nutritional impacts among rural residents and urban poor people who primarily depend on traditional fvcs to access adequate quantities of calories and micronutrients in addition modern food manufacturers are leveraging traditional distribution networks modern to traditional fvcs substantially increasing access to low priced processed packaged foods in rural areas and low income urban neighbors with mixed impacts on the triple burden of malnutrition further research should focus on the influence of fvc transformation on reduction of micronutrient deficiencies on modeling demand substitution effects across food categories and the attendant policy implications for malnutrition

small farmers in high value chains binding or relaxing constraints to inclusive growth summary considerable empirical work relates participation in contract farming with farm profitability however causation is far from settled as few studies control for endogeneity of participation moreover the link between contract farming and equity is ambiguous as the association between contract farming and farmer endowments is mixed this case study of smallholders in the tobacco industry addresses these issues and seems to be the first such econometric application in the philippines based on a treatment effects regression contract farming increases profitability with participation biased toward smaller farm sizes supporting the positive role of contract farming toward inclusive growth in rural areas

impacts of supermarkets on farm household nutrition in kenya summary many developing countries experience a food system transformation with a rapid growth of supermarkets we analyze impacts of supermarkets on farm household nutrition with survey data from kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with significantly higher calorie vitamin a iron and zinc consumption we use simultaneous equation models to analyze impact pathways supermarket supplying households have higher incomes a higher share of land under vegetables and a higher likelihood of male control of revenues furthermore income and the share of land under vegetables have positive impacts while male control of revenues has negative impacts on dietary quality policy and further research implications are discussed

international corporate diversification market valuation and size adjusted evidence errunza and senbet es 7 analyze the effects of international operations on the market value of the firm both at theoretical and empirical levels the theoretical model which is largely heuristic exploits the costly supply adjustment of multinational firms mncs in providing international portfolio diversification services to investors who face differential cost barriers to direct holdings of assets across national boundaries mncs compete as financial intermediaries to undo the barriers so that in equilibrium profits are driven out mncs and pure domestic firms sell at an equivalent risk adjusted return however costly financial intermediation and the associated relative efficiency leads to a positive valuation effect for mncs relative to purely domestic firms further the equilibrium analysis implies that demand side investor barriers to international capital flows alone are inconsequential to the valuation of mncs in their pure financial role but that the interaction with the supply side costs are necessary to produce a valuation effect at the corporate level es subject the theory to an empirical analysis in a value based approach by employing a variant of tobin s 17 qratio the analysis controlling for industrial market power suggests that the relationship between the excess valuation and the degree of international involvement doi has magnified over periods characterized by severe u s government controls vis a vis the more recent periods in this paper we formalize the theoretical argument by viewing indirect portfolio diversification by mncs as a means of completing the international capital market we employ a paradigm in the unanimity literature and formally characterize the equilibrium in which there is a rationale for mnc financial intermediation we then perform an expanded empirical study by employing generalized least squares and maximum likelihood procedures since the positive relationship between excess valuation and doi as suggested in es 7 might be attributed to the so called small firm or size and the p e effects the test methodology controls for such effects also the traditional literature has relied upon foreign sales percentage as a proxy for doi in view of the well recognized limitations of this proxy we employ four different measures of international

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

the effects of international operations on the market value of the firm theory and evidence this paper investigates the existence of monopoly rents associated with international operations in a market value theoretic framework the benefits of international operations evolve from such factors as 1 imperfections in the product and factor markets 2 differential international taxation and 3 imperfections in the financial markets in this paper these factors are subject to an equilibrium analysis in the context of recent advances in financial theory in particular imperfections in the financial sector arising from corporate international diversification are examined in a framework which allows a supply adjustments by multinational firms and b the interaction of barriers to international capital flows faced by both firms and investors taking the u s capital market and investors as a base we then specify the conditions under which the foregoing imperfections get priced out in an equilibrium these pricing effects cannot be detected empirically through the methodologies employed by the existing studies which examine the effects of corporate international diversification indeed it was an attempt to rescue the limitations of these studies which initially motivated our paper the existing empirical inquiries into this area rely on traditional risk adjusted performance measures e g 7 or international analogs of return generating processes e g 1 8 instead at the empirical level we employ a value based method which is in the same vein of the thomadakis 17 approach developed to identify the monopoly benefits of industrial market structure we conduct the tests over subperiods characterized by differential government controls in an attempt a to separate the pure financial motives for multinationality from other motives and b to detect if the benefits of international operations carry through recent periods

small farmers ngos and a walmart world welfare effects of supermarkets operating in nicaragua despite more than a decade of ngo and government activities promoting developing world farmer participation in high value agricultural markets evidence regarding the household welfare effects of such initiatives is limited this paper analyzes the geographic placement of supermarket supply chains in nicaragua between 2000 and 2008 and uses a difference in difference specification on measures of supplier and non supplier assets to estimate the welfare effects of small farmer participation though results indicate that selling to supermarkets increases household productive asset holdings they also suggest that only farmers with advantageous endowments of geography and water are likely to participate

modern value chains and the organization of agrarian production empirical studies of agrarian production in developing countries often find that small farms possess a productivity advantage over larger farms eswaran and kotwal 1986 famously derive this inverse farm size productivity relationship from the structure of agrarian production the focal prediction of their model is that in otherwise equivalent economies a more egalitarian land distribution raises both output and producer welfare the traditional spot procurement system implicit in the eswaran and kotwal model however diverges fundamentally from modern contractual procurement practices we therefore develop a new model of agrarian production in order to determine whether the introduction of a modern value chain alters the welfare effects of land redistribution the inverse farm size productivity relationship persists in our model but we find that more egalitarian land distribution leads to nonmonotonic changes in producer welfare we also find that the introduction of a modern sector can harm the laboring classes

review of solid and liquid biofuel demand and supply in northwest europe towards 2030 a comparison of national and regional projections biomass is the largest source of renewable energy carrier in the european union eu contributing to over 60 of renewable energy with the majority of supply coming from domestic sources however an increasing significant amount of feedstock is imported either due to domestic undersupply or higher production costs within the country this article provides an up to date view of bioenergy supply demand and trade in northwest europe to 2030 projections of the energy system model green x are compared to recent national studies concerning bioenergy imports the results show that there is a sizeable gap of the projection bandwidths after the 2020 horizon projections might under or overestimate biomass potential in certain cases depending on whether they are derived from national reports or regional models whether future policy developments were taken into account etc the ranges of biomass consumption are multiple times apart by 2020 already and the gap increases by 2030 total biomass imports in the region can range between 14 and 44 3 mt by 2020 and 18 5 60 mt by 2030

poverty livelihood and class in rural south africa abstract using data from a national living standards survey undertaken in late 1993 this paper disaggregates and explores the economics of livelihood generation and class in rural south africa in an effort to contribute to the ongoing and vociferous debate in south africa about poverty and its alleviation pursuant to the suggestion of participants in a recent participatory poverty assessment this paper analyzes what might be termed the class structure of poverty after exploring the range of claiming systems and livelihood tactics available in rural south africa the paper offers a first look at who the poor are by disaggregating the rural population into discrete livelihood strategy classes non parametric regression methods are used to then estimate and graphically explore the nature of the livelihood mapping between endowments and real incomes in addition to identifying those endowment combinations that map to consumption levels below the poverty line the asset basis of poverty the topography of the estimated livelihood mapping helps identify the constraints that limit household s ability to effectively utilize their assets and endowments these results suggest that poverty is a matter of not only having few assets but also of constraints which limit the effectiveness with which those assets are used and poverty and livelihood policy needs to be designed accordingly

driving forces for aggregate energy consumption a cross country approach abstract although a cornerstone for development past and current energy use has often posed a major challenge for policymakers with respect to planning and management within this context in this paper an updated multi sectorial cross country assessment of energy consumption trends was undertaken aiming at identifying the main drivers of changes in aggregate energy consumption these drivers have been interpreted in the light of the policy measures that have been implemented over the years by different countries to achieve a sustainable development of the energy sector the cross country assessment encompasses a set of developed united kingdom portugal and spain and emerging brazil china and india countries resorting to the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi decomposition method changes in the aggregate energy consumption were decomposed into three main explanatory effects activity structure and intensity the major findings achieved reflect the relevance of intensity and activity effects in detriment of the structural effect the assessment of energy consumption trends using the lmdi decomposition method provides critical information regarding which is the dominant factor that should be focused in policy design

trade standards and poverty evidence from senegal summary in the debate on trade and poverty it is argued that standards act as trade barriers and cause marginalization of the poor this paper quantifies income and poverty effects of high standards trade and integrates labor market effects by using company and household survey data from the vegetable export chain in senegal we find that exports grew sharply despite increasing standards contributing importantly to rural incomes and poverty reduction tightening standards induced a shift from smallholder contract farming to integrated estate production altering the mechanism through which poor households benefit through labor markets instead of product markets

profits from participation in high value agriculture evidence of heterogeneous benefits in contract farming schemes in southern india abstract this paper assesses the variable impact of participation in high value agriculture through contract farming arrangements in southern india using survey data for 474 farmers in four commodity sectors gherkins papaya marigold and broiler an endogenous switching model is used to estimate net profits from participation findings suggest that average treatments effect vary widely across contract commodities papaya and broiler contracting offer clear net gains for participants whereas marigold contracting leaves participants worse off for gherkins while contracting holds net gains for participating farmers overall this is true of contracts with some firms but not others the standard deviations of point estimates of treatment effects are quite large indicating variability in profit gains even within the same commodity sectors thus notwithstanding the sign of average treatment effects contract farming arrangements have diverse impacts on income for individual farmers and these could have implications for sustained participation of farmers in high value agriculture

supermarkets wholesalers and tomato growers in guatemala the article shows the asset related determinants and the impacts of the participation of small farmers in supermarkets versus traditional market channels in guatemala compared to farmers selling only to the traditional market channels farmers selling to supermarket channels are larger but are in the upper tier of the small farmer category have more capital and are much more specialized in commercial horticulture in general and in tomatoes in particular while they have higher yields they also have higher input use including use of chemicals in fact they severely overuse pesticides and fungicides moreover these greater input expenditures mean that their profit rates are roughly similar to those of farmers in the traditional market channel supermarket channel farmers prefer the more demanding wholesale supermarket channel because it offers lower risks and lower transaction costs to market a variety of quality grades of tomatoes all year long in turn the supermarkets who do not buy direct but rather source from a few specialized dedicated wholesalers rely on this year round supply lower transaction costs and consistency of quality

global value chains large scale farming and poverty long term effects in senegal this paper presents panel data evidence on the impact of expansion of global value chains and large scale export oriented farms in developing countries over almost a decade we estimate the income effects of wage employment on large scale farms in the horticultural export sector in senegal using data from two survey rounds covering a seven years period of rapid expansion of the sector we estimate average income effects as well as heterogeneous income effects using fixed effects and quantile fixed effects regressions we find that poverty and inequality reduced much faster in the research area than elsewhere in senegal employment in the horticultural export sector is associated with higher household income and the income effect is strongest for the poorest households expansion of the horticultural export sector in senegal has been particularly pro poor through creating employment that is accessible and creates substantial income gains for the poorest half of the rural population these pro poor employment effects contrast with insights in the literature on increased inequality from rural wage employment

welfare effects of vegetable commercialization evidence from smallholder producers in kenya we investigate whether smallholder horticultural commercialization is able to as often stipulated reduce poverty in developing countries with the help of panel household survey data from kenya we find evidence for a positive association between vegetable commercialization and household welfare even when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity across households interestingly the effect differs depending on which market vegetables are being produced for commercialization through the export market is consistently positively associated with income but not wealth while there is some limited evidence for commercialization through the domestic market channel being positively related to welfare measured by asset holdings and income depending on the specification

smallholder participation in contract farming comparative evidence from five countries summary supermarkets specialized wholesalers processors and agro exporters are transforming the marketing channels into which smallholder farmers sell produce in low income economies we develop a conceptual framework with which to study contracting between smallholders and a commodity processing firm we then synthesize results from empirical studies of contract farming arrangements in five countries ghana india madagascar mozambique and nicaragua the resulting meta narrative documents patterns of participation the welfare gains associated with participation reasons for nonparticipation the significant extent of contract noncompliance and the considerable dynamism of these value chains as farmers and firms enter and exit frequently

one kind of freedom poverty dynamics in post apartheid south africa abstract a 1993 south african living standards survey documented the legacy of apartheid in the form high levels of inequality and human insecurity drawing on a 1998 re survey of households in the 1993 study this paper explores whether this legacy has been superseded or whether apartheid s end has been only one kind of freedom that has left households in a poverty trap from which they cannot escape after proposing a theoretically grounded dynamic poverty typology that distinguishes stochastic from structural poverty transitions the paper goes on to estimate that significant numbers of the south african poor are potentially trapped in a structural poverty trap and lack the means to escape poverty over time

is late really better than never the farmer welfare effects of pineapple adoption in ghana export agriculture offers potentially high returns to smallholder farmers in developing countries but also carries substantial market risk in this paper we examine the intertemporal welfare impact of the timing of a farmer s entry into the export pineapple market in southern ghana we examine whether farmers who never cultivated pineapple are better or worse off than farmers who decided to adopt pineapple earlier or later relative to their peers and experienced a significant adverse market shock several years prior to our endline survey we use a two stage least squares model to estimate the causal effect of duration of pineapple farming on farmer welfare consistent with economic theory we find that earlier adoption of the new crop brings greater welfare gains than does later uptake but we find that the gains to later uptake of pineapple just before the market shock are small in magnitude just 0 1 standard deviations of a comprehensive asset index indicating that the gains to adoption may be precarious and depend on the context in particular on the severity of prospective market shocks

market structure and innovation a survey economics we all recite deals with allocation of limited resources towards satisfaction of unlimited wants resources are typically identified as land labor and capital plus a technology that determines their transformation into consumer goods disparity between the available goods and services and the desired gives rise to scarcity and the question of what how and for whom to produce the focus then shifts to description and evaluation of alternative resource allocation mechanisms for making the choices the pareto criterion by which an allocation of resources is deemed efficient if any reallocation improving the position of some individual worsens the position of others is a commonly employed gauge of a mechanism s performance in the absence of externalities increasing returns to scale and uncertainty a perfectly competitive market system yields a pareto optimal allocation of resources this underlies the view that individual self interest is compatible with society s interest the further conclusion that pareto optimality may not be achieved via the market system in the presence of monopoly elements provides an economic rationale for antitrust laws the objective of a resource allocation mechanism appears to be according to the analysis described above to make the best of available resources the alternative objective of relaxing constraints through expanding the resource base or developing new technology seems to be beyond its scope thus until rather recently technical advance had been regarded in the mainstream of economic theory as unmotivated by the quest for profits and substantially unaffected by resource allocation instead as j schmookler observed technology had been viewed as a parameter like the weather affecting the outcome of resource allocations but itself unaffected by them 84 1965 evidence that technological progress has significantly contributed to growth in productivity together with a substantial increase in research and development activity largely financed by government and carried out by industry see f machlup 51 1962 may have spurred reconsideration of this view once technical advance is regarded as an economic variable it is natural to in

a comparison of environmental and energetic performance of european countries a sustainability index recently european countries agreed on a new 2030 pact establishing challenging levels for a set of climate and energy indexes in order to achieve a more competitive safe and sustainable energy system in order to evaluate current sustainability performances of european countries from the environmental and energetic perspectives this research proposes a multi criteria decision analysis mcda that starting from both eurostat data and the analytic hierarchy process ahp allows a direct comparison of nations to this aim multiple indexes are taken into account e g greenhouse gas ghg emissions government expenditures for environmental protection recycled and reused waste from electric and electronic equipments weees recycled and reused waste from end of life vehicles elvs recycled materials from municipal solid wastes msws share of renewable energy re in electricity share of re in transport share of re in heating and cooling and primary energy consumption this assessment model provides a sustainability value for each european country and the related ranking with the european average results show as even nowadays twelve out of twenty eight european countries have a value greater than the european average in 2013 top four nations sweden denmark finland and austria have high indexes of sustainability and sweden is the best country from both the environmental and energetic perspectives

finding missing markets and a disturbing epilogue evidence from an export crop adoption and marketing intervention in kenya in much of the developing world many farmers grow crops for local or personal consumption despite export options that appear to be more profitable thus many conjecture that one or several markets are missing this paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted by drumnet in kenya that attempts to help farmers adopt and market export crops drumnet provides smallholder farmers with information about how to switch to export crops makes in kind loans for the purchase of the agricultural inputs and provides marketing services by facilitating the transaction with exporters the experimental evaluation design randomly assigns pre existing farmer self help groups to one of three groups 1 a treatment group that receives all drumnet services 2 a treatment group that receives all drumnet services except credit or 3 a control group after one year drumnet services led to an increase in production of export oriented crops and lower marketing costs this translated into household income gains for new adopters however one year after the study ended the exporter refused to continue buying the cash crops from the farmers because the conditions of the farms did not satisfy european export requirements drumnet collapsed in this region as farmers were forced to sell to middlemen and defaulted on their loans the risk of such events may explain at least partly why many seemingly more profitable export crops are not adopted

linking smallholder farmers to markets on extensive and intensive margins evidence from nicaragua abstract access to modern commercialization channels is key for smallholder farmers to move away from subsistence farming and overcome poverty however achieving that goal is challenging for smallholders given their lack of appropriate managerial practices production technology and infrastructure this paper examines the association between receiving trainings in two distinct entrepreneurial practices one direct at the individual and farmer association level and another indirect at the community level and commercialization in non local markets at the extensive and intensive margins we exploit a panel dataset of bean producers in nicaragua that participated in an ngo program implemented between 2007 and 2012 we find opposite results for the two market linkage activities especially on the intensive margin or volume of sales while reciving direct training on entrepreneurial practices ep is positively associated with commercialization training on municipality engagement me activities is negatively associated these correlation patterns are mainly observed among entrant farmers as opposed to those already participating in commercial markets prior to the program implementation we also find varying results for me activities by plot size and leadership position additional estimations show that training activities that are positively correlated with bean commercialization are not necessarily correlated with the commercialization of other crops and vice versa

following up on smallholder farmers and supermarkets in kenya in many developing countries supermarkets are expanding rapidly this affects farmers marketing options previous studies have analyzed welfare effects of smallholder participation in supermarket channels from a static perspective using cross section data we develop a conceptual framework and use panel data to better understand participation and impact dynamics the analysis focuses on vegetable producers in kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with income gains however many farmers have dropped out of the supermarket channel due to various constraints the initial income gains cannot be sustained when returning to the traditional market organizational support may be needed to avoid widening income disparities

an overview of feed in tariffs premiums and tenders to promote electricity from biogas in the eu 28 abstract the eu has assumed objectives for energy sustainability and the fight against climate change in this regard the generation of biogas allows contributions to the 2020 established targets the eu is leader in the production of biogas representing 60 of total global production in 2011 the estimates of the contribution of biogas to electricity generation for 2020 in the eu 28 represent 1 5 within the total energy mix this paper analyzes the measures implemented in the eu 28 to promote biogas relating them to the country targets established in their national renewable energy action plans currently 19 countries apply some measure of price and or amount 14 use feed in tariffs 6 premium tariffs and 1 uses tenders a trend has been observed to reduce public financial support to promote biogas linked to the reduction of the cost of this technology and to the attempt to increasingly link it to the markets however excessive linking to the market hinders its development putting the attainment of 2020 targets at risk consequently the feed in tariff or premium tariff systems used in each country must be designed in agreement with the peculiarities of the development of their markets to be able to guarantee suitable development

supermarkets farm household income and poverty insights from kenya summary the expansion of supermarkets in developing countries may have important implications for poverty and rural development while previous studies have compared farm profits between participants and non participants in supermarket channels wider income effects have hardly been analyzed moreover most existing studies do not account for structural differences between the two groups we address these issues by using endogenous switching regression and building on a survey of vegetable farmers in kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with a 48 gain in average household income which also contributes to poverty reduction to realize these benefits on a larger scale will require institutional support

energy security measurement a sustainable approach abstract the main objective of this paper is to define new energy security indicator with the long term sustainability and to test it in a sample of 28 european union countries for the period 1990 2012 as well as to determine the level of impact of six different indicators on energy security the previous methodologies for measuring of energy security have been mainly focused on security of supply while not taking into account environmental indicators and the social component the newly proposed indicator energy security index differs from the existing measuring methods precisely in a way that it includes environmental and social aspects energy security index recorded a decline in values in most countries in the period 1990 2000 in the period 2000 2008 the values became positive and after 2008 some countries reported again gradual deterioration the index value varies by year and the biggest positive changes were recorded in the case of the netherlands slovenia and spain the four economically strongest eu countries the united kingdom france germany and italy recorded significantly less fluctuations in energy security over 23 years compared to other countries the data for france and denmark show that an increased share of energy from nuclear and renewable sources can compensate even increased energy import dependence the assessment of impact of individual indicators on energy security index was conducted by using principal component analysis and showed that energy intensity gdp per capita and carbon intensity have the greatest impact the countries of the former eastern bloc are facing particular challenges of energy security which is primarily related to the rapid economic growth and at the same time a high degree of dependence on import of energy generating products in terms of energy security the most stable transition was reported in hungary and poland

influence of neighbor experience and exit on small farmer market participation this research analyzes the motivations and dynamics of small farmer participation in supermarket supply chains in developing countries why some small farmers join these new markets and continue their participation why others drop out or decline the relationship from the outset drawing on insights from the technology adoption literature on learning and experimentation and also on findings from a simple two period bayesian model of farmer decisions to participate in a new market we incorporate measures of neighboring farmers experience into the decision model results suggest that farmers delay entry to observe their neighbors outcomes we find a negative relationship between the number of neighbor participants in a given period and a farmer s own decision to enter the supply chain we find evidence that farmers delay entry for strategic reasons allowing neighbors to bear the costs associated with a first wave of adjustment to the market including higher product rejection rates and lower initial annual transactions with supermarkets compared to revenues from marketing in the traditional way results are robust to definitions of neighbors using both administrative and geographic designations our results raise questions about the optimal sequence and level of farmers market participation and exit which remain largely unexplored in the literature