Search results for "Cultural economics"
showing 10 items of 117 documents
Knowing is half the battle: Seasonal forecasts, adaptive cropping systems, and the mediating role of private markets in Zambia
2019
Abstract This paper examines how smallholders living in regions where a drought is forecasted adapt their farm practices in response to receiving seasonal forecast information. The article draws on a unique longitudinal dataset in Zambia, which collected information from farm households before and after a significant drought caused by the 2015/2016 El-Nino Southern Oscillation. It finds that farmers residing in areas forecasted to be drought-affected and receiving seasonal forecast information are significantly more likely to integrate drought tolerant crops into their cropping systems compared to similar households not receiving this information. Moreover, the probability that a farmer imp…
The relationship between environmental values and income in a transition economy: surface water quality in Latvia
2002
A contingent valuation study measured citizen willingness to pay (WTP) for an improvement in surface water quality in Latvia. The average respondent was willing to pay 0.7 per cent of household income for the environmental improvement, but that amount was much less than needed to finance the required investments in treatment facilities. While the income elasticity of WTP for the average resident was low (0.56), it increases as income increases, reaching 0.9 at an income level double the current average. As real incomes increase in Latvia, the demand for environmental quality by citizens can be expected to increase substantially.
Current research issues in production economics
2020
This Special Issue includes a selection of papers originally presented and discussed at the Twentieth International Working Seminar on Pro- duction and Operations Management, Innsbruck, February 19–23, 2018, and subsequently extended and improved. Production and Operations Management was established in the1970s as an academic discipline focusing on scientific topics treating the interface between engineering, management, and economics with a special emphasis on financial consequences of decisions in the produc- tion domain. The subject is interdisciplinary in nature and it therefore contains a wide range of topics. The Working Seminar included sessions such as supply chain management, innov…
Heterogeneous effects of sustainable agriculture practices: micro-evidence from Malawi
2020
Abstract Are the effects of sustainable agricultural practices heterogeneous across agro-ecology and wealth in Malawi? Would a wealth-enhancing policy be associated with increased effectiveness of these practices? Focusing on a nationally representative set of Malawian agricultural households, the article answers the above questions by employing plot-level panel data matched with a set of geo-referenced rainfall and temperature records. The findings suggest a positive correlation between aggregate yield and the adoption of organic fertilizer. A similar result holds for legume intercropping and for hybrid seeds, which are associated to reductions in yield volatility between the two waves. Ne…
On the social value of publicly disclosed information and environmental regulation
2018
Abstract This paper presents an analysis of environmental policy in imperfectly competitive market with publicly disclosed and privately-held information about costs. We examine the potential asymmetry-reducing role of disclosure and its impact on setting environmental taxes. From a policy perspective, our findings show that disclosure with verifiable reports, is a valuable public good, provides greater transparency in the market, and is generally efficiency enhancing. Results suggest that access to publicly disclosed information enables the fine-tuning of the tax rules towards specific environmental circumstances and improves the ability of the regulator to levy firm-specific environmental…
The dark side of the sun: How solar power production affects the market value of solar and gas sources
2015
Abstract Using daily data for the Italian wholesale day-ahead power market over the period 2008–2013, we assess the impact of solar production on the market value of solar and gas sources, defined using the concepts of value factor and unit revenues. We find that, on average, solar generation negatively affects the solar source market value, causing a departure from the grid parity condition and mining their competitiveness once public incentives are removed. This negative relation is not constant over time and becomes stronger for increasing solar penetration in the energy mix. Interestingly, the opposite is found when looking at gas. While the relation between solar production and the gas…
Ranking farms with a composite indicator of sustainability
2011
The assessment of sustainability at farm level has been growing in popularity over the last few years. This article contributes to this line of research by building up composite indicators for different facets—social, economic, environmental, and global—of farm sustainability using a methodological approach that combines data envelopment analysis (DEA) and multicriteria decision making (MCDM) methods, and assigns common weights to each individual sustainability indicator. This approach is applied to a database of 163 farms located in the Campos County, a region belonging to the dry lands of the Spanish Northern Plateau, using 12 individual indicators of sustainability. Our findings show tha…
Agricultural externalities and environmental regulation: evaluating good practice in citrus production
2006
Economic activity takes place in a scenario characterized by an increasing number of environmental regulations aimed at bringing under control the emission of contaminating wastes. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of transforming a code of good practice in nitrogen fertilization on Spanish citrus fruit farms into an environmental regulation of compulsory fulfilment. Using data envelopment techniques, we calculate unrestricted and environmentally regulated short-run maximum profits. Both profit values are then used to compute an index of the cost of regulation. Our results suggest that the cost of shifting from a merely recommended practice to a binding rule is low. On average, the loss…
Designing ecolabels in order to mitigate market failures: an application to agrofood products
2007
For the market for ecofriendly characteristics of agrofood producs effectively, ùeans of mitigationg asymmetric information, informational overload and public goods properties are necessary. Ecolabel success requires a design and an implementation capable of mitigating simultaneously these three sources of market failures. Our contribution differs from many to date by (1) introducing and analyzing the informational overload as a source of market falure and (2) considering the ecolabel, not only as tool to re-establish information summetry between the producer and consumer but also as a way to overcome international overload and public goods problems. We analyze how these sources of market f…
Forest biorefineries – A business opportunity for the Finnish forest cluster
2011
Abstract Bioenergy and biomass-based products offer the greatest new opportunities for diversifying business in the forest cluster. In particular, biorefineries, which can be integrated into the pulp and paper industry, seem to have immense future potential. This article aims to explore the biorefinery concept and related new products and business operations, as well as new business strategies and company models, which are part of the biorefinery value chain. These factors, which contribute to the establishment and success of forest biorefineries, were examined using internet survey responses and compared between Scandinavia, North America and South America. This article looks at the result…