Impacts of the Hutan Kamasyarakatan Social Forestry Program in the Sumberjaya watershed, West Lampung District of Sumatra, Indonesia:

"This paper investigates the impacts of a social forestry program in Indonesia, Hutan Kamasyarakatan (HKm), based on analysis of a survey of 640 HKm and comparable non-HKm plots in the Sumberjaya watershed of southern Sumatra, and of the households operating those plots. The HKm program provides groups of farmers with secure-tenure permits to continue farming on state Protection Forest land and in exchange for protecting remaining natural forestland, planting multistrata agroforests, and using recommended soil and water conservation (SWC) measures on their coffee plantations. Using farmers' perceptions, econometric techniques, and propensity score matching, we investigated the impacts of the HKm program on perceived land tenure security, land purchase prices, farmers' investments in tree planting and SWC measures, and plot-level profits. A significant fraction of HKm group members are not aware of the program or fully aware of its requirements. Although farmers who are aware of the program perceive its strong effects on tenure security and land values, we found insignificant impacts on the actual purchase prices of plots. Nevertheless, our survey revealed that the HKm program has contributed to increased planting of timber and multipurpose trees. We did not find significant impacts on investments in SWC measures or on soil fertility management practices. HKm has had mixed impacts on profits, with timber trees reducing profitability because timber harvesting is not allowed and multipurpose nontimber trees contributing to increased profits. The policy implications of these findings are also discussed in the paper." from Author's AbstractRewards for environmental services, Land tenure contracts, Social forestry, Impact assessment, Land management,

Impacts of the Hutan Kamasyarakatan (HKm) Social Forestry Program in the Sumberjaya Watershed, West Lampung District of Sumatra

This paper assesses the economic impacts of the Hutan Kamasyarakatan (HKm) social forestry program in the Sumberjaya watershed in West Lampung District of Sumatra, Indonesia, which began in 2001 to provide farmer groups permits to use already deforested state Protection Forest (PF) land in exchange for protecting remaining forests, planting timber and agro-forestry trees in their coffee plantations, and using soil and water conservation measures. The study is based on analysis of a survey conducted in 2005 for 640 plots in the watershed, selected using a stratified random sample of land of different tenure categories, and their operator households, and surveys of communities with PF land and HKm groups in the watershed. We find that HKm permit holders are poorer on average than owners of private land, but have comparable wealth to users of other eligible PF land who have not applied or received HKm permits, and users of National Park (NP) land, which is not eligible for HKm. Compared to eligible non-participants, households with a HKm permit by 2005 have greater education, are more involved in producer organizations, and have better access to markets, roads and technical assistance. Many communities and households are not aware of the program or its requirements, including some of those in HKm groups. Program participants and applicants perceive that it substantially increases tenure security, land values, land investments and incomes. Econometric analysis and propensity score matching methods using the survey data provide only limited support for these perceptions, showing that the program had statistically insignificant impacts on land purchase values, soil and water conservation investments, soil fertility management practices, and profits. The program did significantly increase planting of timber and multi-purpose agroforestry trees, but these have offsetting impacts on profits, with multi-purpose trees contributing to higher profits and timber trees causing lower profits because timber harvesting is not allowed. These findings indicate that the program has potentially important pro-poor benefits, though realization of these benefits is limited by potential beneficiaries lack of access to necessary human and social capital, markets and technical assistance; lack of awareness about the program; and program restrictions that require planting of timber trees but prohibit timber harvesting.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Neighborhood Dynamics and the Housing Price Effects of Spatially Targeted Economic Development Policy

Neighborhoods are the result of a complicated interplay between residential choice, housing supply and the influences of the larger metropolitan system on its constituent parts. We model this interplay as a system of reduced-form equations in order to examine the effects of a generous spatially targeted economic development program (the federal Empowerment Zone program) on neighborhood characteristics, especially housing values. This system of equations approach allows us to compute direct effects of the policy intervention as well as the effects mediated through non-price channels such as changes in the housing stock or neighborhood demographics. In the process, we are able to shed light on the rich simultaneity among neighborhood characteristics, including housing prices.economic development, simultaneity

Education and Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Purerto Rico

The existence of intergenerational spillovers to public investments in schooling is often assumed in policy discussions regarding economic development. However, few studies to date have forwarded convincing evidence that externalities exist for developing countries. In this paper, we address this issue using the arguably exogenous schooling consequences of a major hurricane strike on Puerto Rico in the 1950s. Using data from the US. Census of Population for Puerto Rico, we first find that individuals on to margin of school entry at the time of the storm and residing in the most exposed regions of the island had significantly lower levels of education as adults than their counterparts in less exposed regions. Using the interaction of wind speed and age at the time of the storm as an instrument, we then find that maternal education is related to the probability that a child speaks English. Our estimates imply an additional year of education raise the probability that a child speaks English by between 4.3 and 4.5 percentage points, c approximately 24 to 28 percent. We find no conclusive evidence that parental education increases the probability that a child is enrolled, literate, or in an age-appropriate grad, On balance, these findings suggest that education is responsible at least in part for the persistence of human capital across generations.education, intergenerational mobility, natural experiment, hurricane

Impact of Off-farm Income on Farm Efficiency in Slovenia

The paper investigates the impact of off-farm income on farm technical efficiency for the Slovenian Farm Accountancy Data Network farms in the years 2004-2008. Farm stochastic frontier time-varying decay inefficiency is positively associated with total utilised agricultural areas and total labour input, and vice versa with intermediate consumption and fixed assets. We find a positive association between farm technical efficiency and the off-farm income. Farm technical efficiency has increased steadily over time, the process, which was led by the off-farm spill over effect and most efficient farms. Farm technical efficiency is also positively associated with economic farm size, while association with subsidies is mixed depending on the estimation procedure. Quantile regression confirms the positive and significant associations between farm technical efficiency and off-farm income, and between farm technical efficiency and farm economic size, as well as also the positive association between farm technical efficiency and subsidies, but the results are sensitive by quantiles.Off-farm income, Stochastic frontier analysis, Panel regression, Quantile regression, Slovenia, Farm Management,

Conglomeration Versus Strategic Focus: Evidence from the Insurance Industry

We provide evidence on the validity of the conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis for financial institutions using data on U.S. insurance companies. We distinguish between the hypotheses using profit scope economies, which measures the relative efficiency of joint versus specialized production, taking both costs and revenues into account. The results suggest that the conglomeration hypothesis dominates for some types of financial service providers and the strategic focus hypothesis dominates for other types. This may explain the empirical puzzle of why joint producers and specialists both appear to be competitively viable in the long run.

Sorting, Peers and Achievement of Aboriginal Students in British Columbia

We use administrative data on students in grades 4 and 7 in British Columbia to examine the extent to which differences in school environment contribute to the achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students as measured by standardized test scores. We find that segregation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students is substantial, and that differences in the distribution of these two groups across schools account for roughly half the overall achievement gap on the Foundation Skills Assessment tests in grade 7. The substantial school-level segregation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal student across schools means that Aboriginal students on average have a higher proportion of peers who are themselves Aboriginal, as well as a higher proportion of peers in special education. We estimate the effect of peer composition on value-added exam outcomes, using longitudinal data on multiple cohorts of students together with school-by-grade fixed effects to account for endogenous selection into schools. We find that having a greater proportion of Aboriginal peers, if anything, improves the achievement of Aboriginal students.Aboriginal education, peer effects

Lending to Small Businesses: The Role of Loan Maturity in Adressing Information Problems

We investigate what determines the maturity of loans to small, informationally opaque businesses.We find that longer maturities are associated with collateral pledges, better financial condition, good credit history, and less informational opacity of the borrower.However, we do not find a positive association between stronger firm-creditor relationships (which can attenuate these information asymmetries) and longer maturities.The evidence suggests that creditors use shorter maturities to induce more frequent renegotiation of contract terms, thus enforcing closer monitoring of more informationally opaque and risky borrowers.Overall, our results are consistent with shorter loan maturities mitigating the consequences of borrower-lender informational asymmetries.small business;bank lending;loans;information

Femal Representation - Is it Important for Policy Decisions?

This paper studies whether the degree of female representation in Swedish local councils affects local public expenditure patterns. Theoretically, the individual preferences of elected representatives may impact public expenditure if full policy commitment is not feasible. To empirically address the question I first analyze the preferences expressed by elected local council representatives using survey data. This permits me to make precise predictions about the effects of female representation on spending. The subsequent panel study on the composition of public spending in Swedish municipalities supports the predictions derived from the survey.Political representation; Local public expenditure; Gender; Survey data; Panel data

Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program

Approximately $30 billion (2000$) has been spent on Superfund clean-ups of hazardous waste sites, and remediation efforts are incomplete at roughly half of the 1,500 Superfund sites. This study estimates the effect of Superfund clean-ups on local housing price appreciation. We compare housing price growth in the areas surrounding the first 400 hazardous waste sites to be cleaned up through the Superfund program to the areas surrounding the 290 sites that narrowly missed qualifying for these clean-ups. We cannot reject that the clean-ups had no effect on local housing price growth, nearly two decades after these sites became eligible for them. This finding is robust to a series of specification checks, including the application of a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design based on knowledge of the selection rule. Overall, the preferred estimates suggest that the benefits of Superfund clean-ups as measured through the housing market are substantially lower than the $43 million mean cost of Superfund clean-ups.