Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Optimal Environmental Taxation With Pre-Commitment And Green R&D, Stuart Mcdonald

Stuart McDonald

Two approaches for modelling investment in R\&D have been developed by d'Aspremont and Jacquemin (AJ, 1988) and Kamien, Muller and Zang (KMZ, 1992), when there are spillovers associated with R\&D effort. This paper examines how these two approaches predict investment in green technology, when environmental policy takes the form of an optimal emission tax. The results show that the two models are equivalent when there are no R\&D spillovers; but when R\&D spillovers are present, significant differences in their predictions are observed. Specifically, the KMZ model predicts higher emission tax rates, higher level of R\&D expenditures and higher levels of …

Constraints In Adoption Of Moongbean Production Technology In Sundarban, West Bengal, Ganesh Chandra

Ganesh Chandra

The new agricultural technologies are considered to be the prime mover to the process of agricultural development in India. Understanding farmers’ perceptions of a given technology is crucial in the generation and diffusion of new technologies and farm household information dissemination. Pulses in India have long been considered as the poor man’s only source of protein. Moongbean (green gram) is one of the important pulse crop in India, plays a major role in augmenting the income of small and marginal farmers of Sundarban. Constraints are the circumstances or causes, which prohibit farmer to adopt improved farm technology. This constraint study …

Wine Tourism In The Temecula Valley: Neoliberal Development Policies And Their Contradictions, Kevin Yelvington, Jason Simms, Elizabeth Murray

Jason L Simms

Wine tourism is a growing phenomenon, with tourists enjoying not only wine but a rural lifestyle that is associated with winegrowing areas and the elusive essence of terroir. The Temecula Valley in southern California, a small wine-producing region and wine tourism destination, is experiencing state-led plans for a vast expansion of production and tourism capacity. This article traces the challenges inherent in this development process, and questions the sustainability of such plans regarding the very environment the wine tourists seek out, especially regarding the availability of natural resources, mainly water, needed to fulfill these plans. The article concludes with a …

Does The Indexing Of Government Transfers Make Carbon Pricing Progressive?, Don Fullerton, Garth Heutel, Gilbert Metcalf

Don Fullerton

We analyze both the uses side and the sources side incidence of domestic climate policy using an analytical general equilibrium model, taking into account the degree of government program indexing. When transfer programs such as Social Security are explicitly indexed to inflation, higher energy prices automatically lead to cost-of-living adjustments for recipients. We show results with no indexing, 100 percent indexing, and partial indexing based on our analysis of actual transfer programs. When households are classified by annual income, the indexing of U.S. transfers is not enough to offset the regressive uses side, but when they are classified by annual …

Sustainability Through Profitability: The Triple Bottom Line, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

Today’s highly competitive, globalized world requires organizations and businesses to think differently about how they are going to stay in business. Businesses can no longer afford to focus on profits as their sole purpose for existence. Organizations must instead think about the “Triple Bottom Line” and its implications for their ability to grow their brand, customer loyalty and profits.

Sustainability Through Profitability: The Triple Bottom Line, Connie Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

Today’s highly competitive, globalized world requires organizations and businesses to think differently about how they are going to stay in business. Businesses can no longer afford to focus on profits as their sole purpose for existence. Organizations must instead think about the “Triple Bottom Line” and its implications for their ability to grow their brand, customer loyalty and profits.

The three components of the Triple Bottom Line are: people and community (social responsibility), planet (environmental sustainability) and profit (the bottom line). Successful 21st century organizations must consider how they are going to actively engage in each of the Triple Bottom …

The Increasing World Population: A Call For Entrepreneurial Leadership And Innovation, Connie Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

According to the United Nations, the world’s population hit seven billion on October 31, 2011. The United Nations is projecting the world population to reach 9.3 billion by 2050. The new population landmark set off alarms in governments and organizations around the world. Most of the growth will occur in the poorest and least developed regions of the world, which already must work to resolve issues related to shortages of quality food, soil, air and water. Many people living in these countries also lack access to education, healthcare and global political capital. More developed countries face many of the same …

The Impact Of Economic Factors On Consumer Health, Christiane Schroeter, Jayson L. Lusk

Christiane Schroeter

This study estimates the relationship between economic factors and consumer health. The results show that increasing prices of food away from home are associated with decreasing the probability of risk factors and health conditions, which emphasizes the need to differ between multiple food types in health demand analysis.

Determining The Impact Of Food Price And Income Changes On Obesity, Christiane Schroeter, Jayson Lusk, Wallace Tyner

Christiane Schroeter

Despite the significant rise in obesity in the U.S., economic research on obesity is still in its infancy. This paper employs a microeconomic approach to investigate the effects of price and income changes on weight in an effort to determine how a high-calorie food tax, a low-calorie food subsidy, and/or income changes affect body weight. Although raising the price of high-calorie food will likely lead to decreased demand for such goods; it is not clear that such an outcome will actually reduce weight. The model developed in this paper identifies conditions under which price and income changes are mostly likely …

Childhood Obesity In The U.S.: How Effective Are School Prevention Programs?, Christiane Schroeter, R. I. Carreira

Christiane Schroeter

This study uses a logistic regression to analyze the 2004-2005 Arkansas Center for Health Improvement body mass index data from four school districts in Arkansas. We conclude that the probability of elementary school children being overweight or at risk of being overweight depends on economic factors, demographics, and food availability.

Do College Students Learn By Correcting Missed Exam Questions?, Christiane Schroeter, Steven V. Green, Erin Bess

Christiane Schroeter

This study determines the learning benefit of correcting missed exam questions. The results show that in addition to exams being an assessment tool, they can also be used as a tool for student learning. The availability of this information will provide help considering design, development, and improvement of traditional assessment methods for student learning.

The Impact Of Health Information And Demographic Changes On Aggregate Meat Demand, Christiane Schroeter, Ken Foster

Christiane Schroeter

Over the past few decades, U.S. meat consumption patterns have changed. Figure 1 shows the U.S. per-capita meat consumption from 1970-1999. Consumers have increased their total meat consumption by 9.3% from 1970 to 1999, however, the composition of the meat consumption changed as well. While beef consumption has consistently decreased since 1985 - that of poultry and fish have increased. Per capita pork consumption has not changed on average from the 1970’s to the 1990’s.

Oceania - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopedia, Vol 2, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

The earliest historical record of tobacco use in Oceania dates back from 1616 on islands off the northwest coast of New Guinea. Tobacco cultivation may have been introduced to the philippines by the Spanish as early as 1575, but it was after large-scale cultivation began to flourish in Europe in the 1590's that the use of tobacco, if not always its cultivation, rapidly spread, with introductions by the Dutch in Java in 1601 and almost immediate diffusion throughout what is now Indonesia, with Halmahera becoming a center of cultivation and export (as was Java) by 1616.

Missionaries - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopeida, Vol. 1, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

For centuries, many missionaries have reflected the ambivalent and sometimes shifting views held by their peers back home, with their actions shaped by local circumstances as well as moral debates. In other cases, missionaries-most notably Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, and members of various evangelical sects of Protestantism-have long been opposed to smoking. Today, most missionaries around the world at least publicly speak out against tobacco use because of associated health risks. Whether only by example or as direct interoducers or suppliers, missionaries joined other colonial agents in the spread and support of tobacco use historically, regardless of what their common …

Uses Of Wild Plants In Ndumba, Eastern Highlands Province, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

For Papua New Guineans,l as well as for those who wish to understand them better, traiditional knowledge of the local natural environment is a priceless resource. In the face of increasing commitments to a cash economy, however, many communities are rapidly losing their awareness and appreciation of the rich animal and plant worlds which are immediately available to them. As Powell has recently observed (1976), the recorded information regarding traditional plant knowledge and uses has tended to be widely-scattered in the literature and relatively difficult to access, especially for those who stand to benefit the most from it. A recent …

Heterogeneous Transport Costs And Spatial Sorting In A Model Of New Economic Geography, Corey Lang

Corey Lang

Transportation costs are of central importance in the New Economic Geography literature, though assumptions about transportation costs continue to be simplistic. This paper begins to address these simplifications by assuming that transportation costs for manufactured goods are heterogeneous. Basic results are consistent with standard models showing dispersion of economic activity for high transport costs and eventual agglomeration as transport costs decline. However, several novel features arise too. Many unstable, dispersed equilibria exist for high average transport costs, but converge to a stable equilibrium path as transport costs decrease. Equilibrium paths smoothly transition from dispersion to agglomeration and do so at …

Comparison Of Phenolic Compounds And Antioxidant Capacities Of Traditional Sorghum Beers With Other Alcoholic Beverages, Fatouma Abdoul-Latif, Romaric G. Bayili, Louis C. Obame, Mamoudou H. Dicko Prof.

Pr. Mamoudou H. DICKO, PhD

Thirty samples of sorghum beers “dolo” were selected from traditionally fermented household manufacturers from Burkina Faso. Dolo samples were screened for their total phenolic content, proanthocyanidins and putative antioxidant capacities, and were compared with industrial beers and wines. Total phenols were measured using the Folin-Ciocalteu method. Proanthocyanidins content were determined by the method of HCl-butanol hydrolysis. Antioxidant activities were evaluated both with 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay and by the trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) using 2,2’-azinobis(3-ethyl-benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid radical) (ABTS•+). The average contents of total phenols and proanthocyanidins were 506 μg GAE/ml of dolo and 45 μg APE/ml of dolo, respectively. An …

Challenges Of Development In 21st Century By Dr. Ruby Ojha, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

This book makes a path-breaking contribution to encourage discourse on some of the most neglected areas in the mainstream economics. This scholarly contribution towards understanding of the macroeconomic parameters affecting development economics goes beyond economic history and examines wide range of contemporary development problems. The book provides up-to-date reference material for development economics, gender economics, International Trade and Economics of infrastructure. The scholar has examined wide range of contemporary concerns in development studies using prism of economics. She has touched specialised areas such as gender economics, environmental economics and inter-disciplinary work on social sector of the economy. International Trade and …

Targeting Maps: An Asset-Based Approach To Geographic Targeting, Corey Lang, Christopher B. Barrett, Felix Naschold

Corey Lang

Proper targeting of policy interventions requires reasonable estimates of the benefits of the alternative options. To inform such decisions, we develop an integrated approach stemming from the small-area estimation literature that estimates the marginal returns to a range of assets across geographically defined subpopulations. We create a series of maps that can be overlaid with traditional poverty maps to identify strong candidate areas for intervention, though an efficiency/equity tradeoff sometimes exists. We apply our method using recent Ugandan data. Results are consistent with independent empirical findings and suggest asset specific transfer schemes would improve with a spatially targeted strategy.

Farm-Level Characteristics Of Southern Nebraska Farms/Ranches With Annually-Planted Crops, John M. Antle, Susan M. Capalbo, Christine N. Heggem, Richard T. Clark, Nancy Norton, Roger Selley

Nancy B. Norton

The information presented in this report represents data collected from farming and ranching operations in the southern two tiers of counties in Nebraska. This study was based on a random sample of 15 1 southern Nebraska farms that have annually-planted crop acreage. Information was obtained for the 1997 crop year. This data set is referred to as the MSU/UNL survey data.

From the MSU/UNL survey data, the average size of the farming operations in the survey, in 1997, was 1,3 16 acres. Of these, 856 acres were planted to annual crops, and the remaining 460 acres included 61 acres in …

Challenges Ahead Of Ailing Indian Agriculture, Venkatanarayana Motkuri

Venkatanarayana Motkuri Mr.

This paper examines changes in Indian agriculture and points out challenges ahead.

Ghana: Budget Monitoring By Send-Ghana And Its Partners Helps Improve Nutrition For Children And Support Local Farmers, Tony Dogbe, Joana Kwabena-Adade, International Budget Partnership

International Budget Partnership

Between 2007 and 2010, the Social Enterprise Development (SEND-Ghana) Foundation, one of the IBP’s partners, monitored the performance of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP, a government program that integrates social protection interventions), engaging with 50 district assemblies, 50 focal civil society organizations (CSOs), and 50 District Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC)/Citizens Monitoring Committees (DCMC) in seven regions across the country. SEND-Ghana used information from this monitoring exercise to promote improvements in the program with district assemblies and officials from collaborating ministries, departments, and agencies directly at the national, regional, and district levels, but also indirectly through the media.

The …

Who Tipped Over China’S Vegetable Basket?, Qian Forrest Zhang

Qian Forrest ZHANG

No abstract provided.

The Changes And Non-Changes Of China's Rural Land, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Qian Forrest ZHANG

No abstract provided.

Cartels In An "Nth-Best" World: The Wholesale Foodstuff Trade In Ibadan, Nigeria, Harlan M. Smith Ii, Margaret E. Luttrell

Harlan M. Smith

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of the economic functions and associated welfare implications of the cooperative associations that dominate the wholesale trade in two staple foods. Questionnaire responses lead to several conclusions. Individual traders face incomplete markets, imperfect information, and little government-provided institutional and physical infrastructure. The associations are sophisticated "Coase-like" responses to this market environment: they focus on reducing their members' transaction costs, and hence the marginal private costs of trading. Thus it is likely that these associations enhance efficiency. We conclude with a critique of current government policy with respect to this trade.

Toxicity Assessment And Analgesic Activity Investigation Of Aqueous Acetone Extracts Of Sida Acuta Burn F. And Sida Cordifolia L. (Malvaceae), Medicinal Plants Of Burkina Faso, Kiessoum Konate, Adama Hilou, Raïssa Rr Aworet-Samseny, Alain Souza, Nicolas Barro, Mamoudou H. Dicko Prof., Jacques Datté, Bertrand M’Batchi

Pr. Mamoudou H. DICKO, PhD

Background Sida acuta Burn f. and Sida cordifolia L. (Malvaceae) are traditionally used in Burkina Faso to treat several ailments, mainly pains, including abdominal infections and associated diseases. Despite the extensive use of these plants in traditional health care, literature provides little information regarding their toxicity and the pharmacology. This work was therefore designed to investigate the toxicological effects of aqueous acetone extracts of Sida acuta Burn f. and Sida cordifolia L. Furthermore, their analgesic capacity was assessed, in order to assess the efficiency of the traditional use of these two medicinal plants from Burkina Faso. Method For acute toxicity …

Environmental Impacts Of Stover Removal In The Corn Belt, Alicia English, Wallace E. Tyner, Juan Sesmero, Phillip Owens, David J. Muth Jr.

David J. Muth

When considering the market for biomass from corn stover resources erosion and soil quality issues are important to consider. Removal of stover can be beneficial in some areas, especially when coordinated with other conservation practices, such as vegetative barrier strips and cover crops. However, benefits are highly dependent on several factors, namely if farmers see costs and benefits associated with erosion and the tradeoffs with the removal of biomass. This paper uses results from an integrated RUSLE2/WEPS model to incorporate six different regime choices, covering management, harvest and conservation, into a simple profit maximization model to show these tradeoffs.

Applying Experimental Economics To Obesity In The Family Household, Mariah D. Ehmke, Travis Warziniack, Christiane Schroeter, Kari Morgan

Christiane Schroeter

The objective of this study is to identify experimental economic tools that can be employed to explain the role of economic behavior in overweight and obesity in the household. We identify three economic experiments that can be used to understand how parent-child economic relationships relate to obesity. Loss aversion experiments are discussed as a tool to understand challenges some individuals face in achieving a healthy diet. Finally, testbed experiments are introduced as a means to test and understand new policies and incentives for better health at the household level.

Economic Factors And Body Weight: An Empirical Analysis, Christiane Schroeter, Jayson L. Lusk

Christiane Schroeter

With this study, we investigate the effects of changes in economic factors on body weight by constructing a utility theoretic model. The model is empirically estimated by combining data on individuals’ body weight, demographic and physical activity information, and state level measures pertaining to the prices of food away from home, food at home, and wages. By combining these data sources, we aim to estimate directly the weight effects of price and income changes. The empirical analysis suggests that decreasing the price of food at home could decrease body weight, a finding which has important public policy implications.

Obesity Economics For The Western United States, Mariah D. Ehmke, Tina Willson, Christiane Schroeter, Ann Marie Hart, Roger Coupal

Christiane Schroeter

The estimated obesity-related health care costs across the Western region in 2008 were $16.2 billion (this is an inflation-adjusted estimate based on the work of Finkelstein, Fiebelkorn, and Wang (2004)). 25 The Western populations, the percentage of obese adults in each state, and the estimated annual obesity-related expenditures by state are summarized in Table 1. The cost estimates include only direct health care expenditures related to obesity. The actual cost of obesity is much higher and includes not only obesity-related illness and disease, but also indirect costs resulting from missed work days and lower worker productivity as well as valued …