Econometric analysis of the effects of water hyacinth on the fish catches in Lake Victoria, East Africa
August 2010
Lake Victoria is Africa’s most important source of inland fishery production. The lake serves as a source of human food and raw material for the fishmeal industry. Several challenges face the lake fishery, including the invasion of water hyacinth. This paper analyses the effects of the invasion of water hyacinth on fishing in Lake Victoria. A static catch per unit of effort functions were estimated using Schaefer...
The international trade prospective of agriculture sector in South African
August 2010
The objective of this paper is to analyse the international trade performance of the South African agricultural industry in aggregate and by product group categories. A useful tool in this regard is the Gini and intra-industrial trade coefficient (IIT), which is used to examine the international trade balance of South Africa. Moreover, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) is also used to identify factors that may be necessary...
Truncation and endogenous stratification in various count data models for recreation demand analysis
August 2010
The aim of this paper is to extend the truncated and endogenously stratified Poisson and negative binomial models to three alternative discrete distributions, namely the generalized Poisson, geometric and Borel distributions. Our primary intention here is to demonstrate how the improper treatments of the data generate divergent outcomes by applying those results to the recreation trip data surveyed from the visitors to...
Do non-farm incomes really matter for poverty among small households in rural Bangladesh? A case of advanced villages
July 2010
Given the critical importance of the non-farm sector in rural Bangladesh, this paper examines the comprehensive effects of non-farm incomes on poverty reduction, namely, household production and consumption. The study was based on the original field survey with data from about 175 small households in advanced villages of Bangladesh. Standard micro-econometric techniques were used for the empirical analyses. The study...
Role of the credit rating agencies in the financial market crisis
July 2010
The objective of this paper is to critically examine the role of credit rating agencies in the sub-prime crisis. The paper traces the development of the sub-prime crisis from its origin till the aftermath. It studies the weaknesses of credit rating agencies in performing their basic function of timely and accurate rating of bond obligations. The paper then scrutinizes the diversification of credit rating agencies into...
Rice trade policy options in an open developing economy: The Nigerian case study
May 2010
The Nigerian rice industry is a crucial non-oil, agricultural sector in terms of its gross output and exports. Due to the significance of rice in Nigeria, government has placed a great emphasis on increasing rice production in order to achieve self - sufficiency. The industry is dominated by private sector investment and possesses bright prospects for attracting further private investments for generating greater export...
Convention economics and coordination mechanisms in collective actions: The Uruguay certified beef case
May 2010
Consumers’ interest for food quality and safety increases every day. The sanitary crises that have occurred in the beef cattle market have led to the need to guarantee traceability and the development of specialty brands (origin denominations, natural and organic meats, racial stamps, among others), in which trust in the process is the basic tool for competence. Therefore, this study aims to identify the forms of...
An empirical evaluation of the determinants of household hurricane evacuation choice
May 2010
In this study, we implement a set of probit models to analyze the determinants of household hurricane evacuation choice for a sample of 1,355 households in Florida. This article contributes to the literature by accounting for two issues normally neglected in previous studies; namely, regional variability and within season variability. The empirical results suggest that households living in risky environments (mobile...
The dynamic relationship among poverty, inequality, and growth in rural Ethiopia: A micro evidence
May 2010
The Ethiopian government has boldly set very rapid and sustainable growth and its equitable distribution as its prime development objective to end poverty in the foreseeable future. For this reason, promoting agricultural and rural development has been purported by the government as its top development agenda since it took power some 19 years back. Yet the extent to which the government realizes this objective remains...
Real and conditional convergence in Africa: The case of the Franc zone countries
May 2010
Using the convergence theory inspired by models of endogenous growth, this paper analysed convergence in the economies of the Franc Zone countries in Africa. With an econometric validation based on cross-sectional and panel data, the paper tested a number of hypotheses, the main ones being the convergence of the economies of the UEMOA and CEMAC zones through per capita income, the existence of spillover effects, as well...
Market liberalization and maize production in Nigeria
May 2010
This study examined the impact of market liberalization on maize production in Nigeria. Time series data for a 29-year period (1970 - 1998) were collected. Zellner’s seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model was used as the estimation technique. Output of maize was found to be more during liberalization. Fertilizer price and hectarage planted to maize were the significant variables affecting maize output....
Spatial dimension of poverty in rural Nigeria
May 2010
Poverty is a rural phenomenon in Nigeria. This study investigated poverty profile across geopolitical zones in rural Nigeria, using the 2003/2004 NLSS data. The result of FGT poverty decomposition shows that majority of the poor (84%) live in the rural area. Northwest zone had the highest relative contribution to incidence and depth of national rural poverty (29 and 30%, respectively) while Southwest had the least...
Analysis of dry season vegetable production in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria
May 2010
The study focused on the costs and returns of small-scale vegetable production in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria. A total of 150 respondents were interviewed using questionnaire. The production system and socio economic characteristics of the farmers were evaluated. Vegetable production was found to be profitable with a Benefit – Cost Ratio (BCR) of 1.64 and the return per capital invested...
Regional trade agreements and its impact on trade flows for South African agricultural products
May 2010
The aim of this study was to measure the impact of liberalisation on the South African agricultural economy, particularly the impact on trade flow of the exchange rate, trade liberalisation and distance of trading partners using the gravity model. The model found that all variables were significant at one percent and carried the expected sign. Only the EU dummy variable had an inverse relationship, implying that the EU...
An application of the von Cramon-Taubadel and Loy error correction models in analyzing asymmetric adjustment between retail and wholesale maize prices in Ghana
April 2010
Previous studies analyzing asymmetric price transmission have been based on an econometric specification that is shown to be inconsistent with cointegration. This study draws on the concept of cointegration to implement the von Cramon-Taubadel and Loy error correction approach in analyzing retail-wholesale maize price transmission in Ghana. Asymmetries are modeled to affect the direct impact of price increases and...
Why is understanding customer attitude toward 4Ps marketing mix important? The case of the livestock input industry in Indonesia
April 2010
One of the main issues of agricultural development in Indonesia was marketing of agricultural products. It was not only due to the weakness of agricultural marketing policy, but also lack of research, particularly research related to the costumer’s attitude of marketing mix. Understanding of costumer’s attitude of marketing mix was really important. Many literatures indicated that one of the advantages of...
Prediction of added value of agricultural subsections using artificial neural networks: Box-Jenkins and Holt-Winters methods
April 2010
Added value of agricultural sub sectors is affected by many factors such as quantity production per agricultural sub sectors and selling price of producers and is related to some factors such as government investment and monetary and financial policies. This study examines the performance of artificial neural network, Box-Jenkins and Holt-Winters-no-seasonal models in forecasting added value of agricultural sub sectors...
Measurement of economic efficiency for smallholder dairy cattle in the marginal zones of Kenya
April 2010
Exotic dairy cattle have been adopted in the transitional zone IV of Kenya contrary to the opinion of experts who previously hypothesized that the "drier transitional zones" could not meet the requirements of the high performing exotic breeds. However, the economic efficiency of these breeds and the factors influencing them have not been ascertained and growers in the region are using these breeds. This study...
Why some rural people become members of agricultural cooperatives while others do not
April 2010
Though agricultural cooperatives are considered as a basis for household food security, there are many rural people in Tigray (Ethiopia) who do not so far become members. The study explores why some rural people become member of cooperatives while others do not using group discussion, household survey and probit model. The result of the study shows the prominent variables that strongly and significantly induce rural...
Gender, environment and poverty linkages
April 2010
Poverty-environment linkages take different forms in rural and urban contexts. In rural areas, critical issues relate to access to natural resources such as land, forests etc. and their sustainable use. In urban areas, the poverty-environment agenda centres around questions relating to the use of natural resources such as water or air as sinks for the disposal of human and industrial wastes, and their impact on the...
Revisiting the synergy between no-till and roundup ready soybean technology
March 2010
The objective of this study has been to identify the factors that influence the concurrent adoption of no-till technology and Roundup Ready (RR) soybean technology. Using data from a survey of 610 soybean growers in the United States and a two-equation probit model, our results reveal that ignoring the simultaneous nature of the decision to use no-till and RR soybean technologies could lead to the mis-specification of...
Are Kenyan smallholders allocatively efficient? Evidence from Irish potato producers in Nyandarua North district
March 2010
Irish potato production in Kenya has been on the decline, yet this crop is a major staple and a source of cash from sales. Using a random sample of 127 smallholder farmers in Nyandarua North district this paper applied a dual stochastic efficiency decomposition technique and a two - limit Tobit model, after disaggregating economic efficiency components using a dual stochastic frontier function, to analyze resource...
An investigation of educational needs of Guilan- Iran's tea–planters
March 2010
Agriculture has various roles on the development of Iran in different aspects. The most obvious roles are: food preparation, rural's migration prevention to urban areas, preservation of economical and political independence and material preparation for many industries. Tea is one of the crops among agricultural productions which it is still confronted with a series of poor natural and managerial barriers and lack of...
Resource use and efficiency of artisanal fishing in Oguta, Imo State, Nigeria
March 2010
This study determined the cost-returns and the efficiency of resources used in artisanal fishing by fishers in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State Nigeria. Data used for the study was obtained from primary and secondary sources using a multi-stage random sampling technique. In the first stage, 10 villages out of the 27 villages in Oguta were selected at random. In the second stage, 4 fishers were selected...
Comparative analysis of poverty effects of various candidate biofuel crops in South Africa
February 2010
The aim of this study was to investigate the poverty reduction impact of various potential biofuel crops in South Africa. A simple pro-poor development framework (in which income is substituted for by its function) is specified. After analysis for outliers with considerable leverage, a robust regression option was used to carry out estimations for physical output, values and inputs of each crop. For reasons of data...
Stimulating rural employment and income for cassava (Manihot sp.) processing farming households in Oyo State, Nigeria through policy initiatives
February 2010
Smallholder agriculture is characterized by underemployment during off seasons, low-income earnings and severe post harvest losses. The study thus analyzed the economics of cassava processing by rural farm households to establish the socio-economic and policy strategies required to stimulate rural enterprise. Multistage sampling technique was used to collect data from 150 respondents using structured questionnaire....
Linkage between rural poverty and agricultural productivity across the districts of Uttar Pradesh in India
February 2010
Improvement in agricultural productivity can reduce rural poverty in a major way. In India, various studies inferred that rural poverty is inversely related to the agricultural productivity and argued that agricultural productivity growth reduces rural poverty effectively as it generates income for poor farmers. Indian states are characterized by high variations in rural poverty levels, particularly, in Uttar Pradesh...
Poverty-environmental links: The impact of soil and water conservation and tenure security on household welfare in Kenya
February 2010
This paper investigated the impact of investment in soil and water conservation strategies and tenure security on household welfare in Kenya. The paper used survey data collected from a sample of about 450 households in 2004. The paper estimated reduced form models to test the hypothesis that investments in soil and water conservation affect household welfare. The results showed that strong land rights are directly...
Price and non-price determinants of farm household demand for purchased inputs: Evidence from Northern Ghana
February 2010
The study examined the factors that influence the use of purchased inputs (fertilizer, hired labour, seed and ploughing services) by smallholders in Northern Ghana. The seemingly unrelated regression technique was used to estimate a system of cost share equations of the factor inputs. The elasticities of substitution and factor demand have been estimated. The estimated results suggested that higher amount of remittance...
Bilateral trade in Waemu and Cemac zone
January 2010
In order to measure the effects of the monetary union on the intra zone trade, the study call on, a structural VAR, to which is associated the method of space state model assessment with the aim of distinguishing the impact of an economic policy shock in a group of country in open economy. The sample is constituted in this particular case of the 12 countries of the zone franc; seven countries of the West African...
Comparison of Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) in selection of an asymmetric price relationship
January 2010
Information criteria provide an attractive basis for model selection. However, little is understood about their relative performance in asymmetric price transmission modelling framework. To explore this issue, this research evaluated the performance of the two commonly used model selection criteria, Akaike information criteria (AIC) and Bayesian information criteria (BIC) in discriminating between asymmetric price...
GM technology and sustainable agriculture future: Empirical evidences from Bt cotton farmers in Maharashtra and Gujarat in India
January 2010
World agriculture is passing through a distinct phase of transformation, called the ‘second Green Revolution’ or Gene Revolution, in which modern biotechnology enables the production of genetically modified (GM) crops/ foods that are claimed to help resolve the pressing problems of food security, malnutrition and abject poverty in different parts of the world. However, there are apprehensions the world...
Determinants of household saving: Case study of smallholder farmers, entrepreneurs and teachers in rural areas of Kenya
October 2009
The adoption of liberalization measures in Kenya culminated in a rise and spread of interest rates in the financial sector. The saving rate has however remained low. Most studies have not been conclusive on factors influencing savings in developing countries. This study adopted a microeconomic approach in investigating the factors that influence savings among households of teachers, entrepreneurs and farmers in rural...
Value added milk products: Constraints to women in milk micro enterprises in Kenya
October 2009
As economic crisis deepens in Kenya, more and more women are joining the micro enterprise sector to earn a living. The dairy industry, in particular, provides opportunities for the Kenyan women to operate micro enterprises. However, these women face constraints in their efforts to sell high quality value added milk products. This paper is based on a study carried out in three districts in Kenya: Nakuru, Nairobi and...
An empirical study of the sheep meat production with fuzzy logic
October 2009
In this paper, an effort was made in order to classify the European Union (EU) countries according to the quantity of the sheep meat production. In particular, the implementation of Fuzzy classification, indicated three sheep meat productionclasses in EU, according to their percentage of accession. Furthermore, the convergence in the sheep meat production...
Female work participation in the emerging labour market- Case study of Sarhali village of Tarn-Taran district
September 2009
The work participation scenario is changing in case of women workers due to changing living standards and growth of consumerism more and more women are joining the work force and opt for either jobs or self employment. Women are working because of gross economic necessity, to raise standard of living, to make use of their qualification, to pass their idle time or to earn their livelihood. This article takes into...
Income and factor analysis of sweet potato landrace production in Ikom agricultural zone of Cross River state, Nigeria
September 2009
This study was carried out to evaluate the income generation level and constraints of sweet potato landrace production in Ikom agricultural zone of Cross River state, Nigeria. The multi-stage sampling procedure was followed. The first stage involved the selection of Ikom agricultural zone out of Calabar and Ogoja agricultural zones, which was purposively selected. The reason is that there are a lot of farm settlements...
The determinants of cassava productivity and price under the farmers’ collaboration with the emerging cassava processors: A case study in East Lampung, Indonesia
August 2009
This study identified the impact of the emerging cassava processors to the cassava production in Sukadana, East Lampung, Lampung, Indonesia. 80 cassava farmers in Sukadana were surveyed to know their relationships with processors, production cost structures and cultivation practices. Regression analysis showed that harvesting age was a critical factor to determine the cassava yield and price in the study area. Three...
Characterization and frequency analysis of consecutive days maximum rainfall at Boalia, Rajshahi and Bangladesh
August 2009
Probability distributions were to predict rainfall status of various return period estimating one day and two to seven consecutive days annual maximum rainfall of Boalia, Rajshahi, Bangladesh). Three commonly used probability distributions (viz: Normal, Log Normal and Gamma distribution) were tested to determine the best fit probability distribution using the comparison of chi-square values. Results showed that the...
Emerging rural development issues
July 2009
The wealth of the emerging world - the next 15 - 25 years
July 2009
The article introduces a new economic concept - domestication of a territory. In the past, harnessing the Ricardian advantage of each successive unique territory meant the development of a brand new technological package along with social institutions, custom tailored to the land’s specifics. Today, we face a similar necessity of improving the productivity of territories of the developing world. They are rich,...
Measuring agricultural productivity growth in MENA countries
July 2009
This paper investigates the patterns of agricultural productivity growth in 16 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries during the period 1970 - 2000. We use a nonparametric, output-based Malmquist index to examine whether our estimates confirm or invalidate the previous studies results indicating the decrease of agricultural productivity in developing countries. We will show that on average, agricultural...
Current technology issues
June 2009
A plan to place successfully organic products in the Cypriot market
June 2009
This study aims to introduce a plan to place successfully organic products in the Cypriot market. In this sense, it attempts to offer more insight into Cypriot organic market. The research focused on three levels; consumers, producers and retailers of organic products in order to collect information regarding the production process of organic products, the difficulties in their disposal, the availability and quality of...
Diagnosis of business failures in Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria
June 2009
This study explores the causes of business failures especially manufacturing firms in Ikwerre Local Government Area (KELGA) of Nigeria. The study samples were drawn from five (5) randomly selected manufacturing firms such as Rizonpalm Limited, Unizon Limited, Johnson Nigeria Limited, Chinda Limited, and Chizi Limited. Data were collected through the use of questionnaire and personal interviews of the sample elements of...
Recent researches and development issues
May 2009
Analysis of rural and urban households’ food consumption differential in the North-Central, Nigeria: A micro-econometric approach
May 2009
This paper examines whether there are differences in food consumption patterns between the rural and urban households in the North-central Nigeria using food consumption data obtained from households’ seven days memory recall. While analytical tools like the descriptive statistics were used, the nature of data on fruits and vegetable with a lot of zero consumption led to the employment of the double-hurdle...
Women entrepreneurship in Asian developing countries: Their development and main constraints
May 2009
With limited data and information, this paper aims to examine recent developments of women entrepreneurship in Asian developing countries. This issue is currently very important since it is part of ongoing national efforts to alleviate poverty in developing countries in relation to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Greater opportunities for women to become entrepreneurs (or to have better income paid jobs) will...
Strategies for effective loan delivery to small – scale enterprises in rural Nigeria
May 2009
Economic growth and development cannot be achieved without putting in place well-focused programmes to reduce poverty through empowering the rural entrepreneurs with credit. In noting this, government has initiated many programmes to enhance adequate loan to rural entrepreneurs. However, these programmes have achieved mixed successes. This paper therefore examines the determinants of loan acquisition to rural enterprise...
Economics evaluation of relative profitability in small hold dairy farms in western Kenya
May 2009
The development and implementation of farm policies requires the general understanding of the farmers’ response to the availed technology. Where farmers have similar resource endowment, generalization of policies would help improve their production levels. The farmers profit levels were used in comparing their relative efficiency in dairy farming in western province Kenya where a bilateral donor agency had come up...
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