Education for Rural People: A Neglected Key To Food Security

In the world there are approximately 800 million people who live in condition of food insecurity and illiteracy. This paper shows that education is a key to food security for rural populations in developing countries. Attention is drawn to rural areas because they are traditionally more disadvantaged by national educational policies. The theoretical foundation of this research is that being educated improves rural people’s capacity to diversify assets and activities, increase productivity and income, foster resilience and competitiveness, access information on health and sanitation, strengthen social cohesion and participation: these are all essential elements to ensure food security in the long run. The main findings of this research are the following: first, the association between food insecurity and primary education is very high, while it decreases progressively with basic, secondary, and tertiary education. Such a two-way relationship is expressed through graphical tools and correlation coefficients. Second, the econometric model shows that primary education is a crucial element to reduce food insecurity in rural areas, even when compared to other factors such as access to water, health, and sanitation. Concluding from this model, an increase of access to primary education by 100% causes a decrease of food insecurity by approximately 20% or 24% depending on the definition of food insecurity and its measurement. Finally, since in most of developing countries the majority of people live in rural areas, and since it is in these areas that the largest proportion of world poverty and hunger exists, we can conclude that education for rural people is a relevant tool for promoting overall national food security.Education, Food Security, Human Development, Cross-

Why had the Money Market Approach been irrelevant in explaining inflation in Azerbaijan during the rapid economic growth period?

The study examines whether inflation process can be explained within the framework of the Money Market Approach in the third stage of economic development of Azerbaijan economy covering 2004-2008. By employing dynamic modeling study concludes that the Money Market Approach has not been relevant for explaining Azerbaijani inflation. Because Azerbaijan, a resource rich small open economy in transition processes, has some stylized facts which are important to take into account in the analysis of the inflation. Since the Money Market Approach seems irrelevant one, the paper puts forward application of other alternative explanations for Azerbaijani inflation in the future. In this regard analyzing inflation in the context of resource dependence seems one of the relevant approaches due to high price increases mainly sourced from oil revenues.Inflation rate; Money Market Approach; Transition economy; Resource Abundance; Oil and Non-oil Sectors; Econometric modeling; Azerbaijan

Subscriber churn in the Australian ISP market

Rapid growth in Internet use, combined with easy market entry by Internet service providers (ISPs), has resulted in a highly competitive supply of Internet services. Australian ISPs range in size from a few large national operators to niche ISPs focused on specialised service. With many ISPs currently not profitable, subscriber retention is an important aspect of survival. This study develops a model which relates the probability of subscriber churn to various service attributes and subscriber characteristics. Estimation results show that churn probability is positively associated with monthly ISP expenditure, but inversely related to household income. Pricing also matters with subscribers preferring ISPs which offer flat-rate pricing arrangements.

Recruitment of Seemingly Overeducated Personnel: Insider-Outsider Effects on Fair Employee Selection Practices

We analyze a standard employee selection model given two institutional constraints: First, professional experience perfectly substitutes insufficient formal education for insiders while this substitution is imperfect for outsiders. Second, in the latter case the respective substitution rate increases with the advertised minimum educational requirement. Optimal selection implies that the expected level of formal education is higher for outsider than for insider recruits. Moreover, this difference in educational attainments increases with lower optimal minimum educational job requirements. Investigating data of a large US public employer confirms both of the above theoretical implications. Generally, the econometric model exhibits a �good fit�.employee selection, overeducation, adverse impact, insiders vs outsiders

How Much is E-Commerce Worth to Rural Businesses?

The probability of a business paying for an e-commerce presence ultimately depends on demographic features, experiences with e-commerce, technological expertise, and knowledge of e-commerce opportunities and limitations. Results allow for the assignment of probabilities associated with various business profiles to determine the willingness to pay for an e-commerce presence.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Was NAFTA behind Mexico's high maquiladora growth?

Although Mexico's maquiladora system is an important and well-recognized component of Mexico-U.S. trade, the connection between the acceleration in maquiladora growth and NAFTA is less clearly understood. A broad cross section of observers -- including journalists, political activists, industry analysts, and academics -- argue that Mexico's maquiladoras have been strongly influenced by NAFTA and have grown rapidly as a result. William C. Gruben finds no such connection when he tests for NAFTA's contribution to fluctuations in maquiladora employment. Instead, he finds that maquiladoras' post-NAFTA growth is connected to changes in Mexican wages relative to those in Asia and the United States and to fluctuations in U.S. industrial production. For every 1 percent change in U.S. industrial production , maquiladora employment changes between 1.2 percent and 1.3 percent. This connection is consistent with declining maquiladora employment in 2001, as U.S. industrial production has fallen, but is not consistent with the contention that NAFTA was responsible for Mexico's high maquiladora growth.North American Free Trade Agreement ; Mexico ; Maquiladora

Reaping Benefits from Management Research: Lessons from the Forecasting Principles Project, with Reply to Commentators

It is often claimed that managers do not read serious research papers in journals. If true, this neglect would seem to pose a problem because journals are the dominant source of knowledge in management science. By examining results from the forecasting principles project, which was designed to summarize all useful knowledge in forecasting, we found that journals have provided 89 percent of the useful knowledge. However, journal papers relevant to practice are difficult to find because fewer than three percent of papers on forecasting contain useful findings. That turns out to be about one useful paper per month over the last half-century. Once found, the papers are difficult to interpret. Managers need low-cost, easily accessible sources that summarize advice (principles) from research; journals do not meet this need. To increase the rate of progress in developing and communicating principles, researchers, journal editors, textbook writers, software developers, web site designers, and practitioners should make some changes. Some examples: Researchers should directly study forecasting principles. Journal editors should actively solicit papers – invited submissions were about 20 times better than standard submissions at producing useful findings that were often cited, and does so at a lower cost. Web-site and software developers should provide practitioners with low-cost ways to use principles. Practitioners should apply the principles that are currently available.journals, meta-analysis, peer review, principles, software, websites.

The Efficiency of Private Universities As Measured By Graduation Rates

It is well known that human capital is enhanced by graduation from a college or university. How efficient are such institutions in conveying this mark of human capital? Efficiency and productivity in private higher education is measured by using undergraduate graduation rates as the output, and demographic variables, the quality of the students, and the annual expenditures (adjusted for academic mission) as inputs. Tests of several models using OLS and stochastic frontier analysis confirm that private schools can increase their graduation rates by increasing focused expenditures and through more selective admissions. Estimated elasticities are reported and point toward increasing expenditures as the most responsive method. Estimate graduation efficiencies of 93.0, 91.5, and near 100% are also reported for four, five and six year graduation rates respectively. A rank correlation with the U S News and World Report 2008 rankings is consistent with our measure of relative efficiencies

Factors Influencing Adoption of Remotely Sensed Imagery for Site-Specific Management in Cotton Production

This research evaluated the factors that influenced cotton producers to adopt remote sensing for variable rate application of inputs. Farmers who were younger, more highly educated, had a larger farm operation, and were more technologically savvy were more likely to have adopted remote sensing.Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,