Assets at marriage in rural Ethiopia

"This paper contributes to the economic analysis of marriage and the family by examining and analyzing the relative importance of potential determinants of assets brought to marriages in rural Ethiopia. One potential determinant is assortative matching, whereby the rich marry the rich and the poor marry the poor, generating a positive correlation between assets brought to marriage by both spouses. Another determinant explored is compensating parental transfers at marriage, whereby parents reduce assets transferred to their marrying children if their spouses bring more. The third determinant analyzed is parents' strategic behavior to improve the marriage-market ranking of their children by transferring more assets to them at the time of marriage." from TextIntrahousehold allocation ,Intergenerational transfers ,Marriage market ,Inheritance ,

Modeling water resources management at the basin level: review and future directions

Water quality / Water resources development / Agricultural production / River basin development / Mathematical models / Simulation models / Water allocation / Policy / Economic aspects / Hydrology / Reservoir operation / Groundwater management / Drainage / Conjunctive use / Surface water / GIS / Decision support systems / Optimization methods / Water supply

Improving information retrieval-based concept location using contextual relationships

For software engineers to find all the relevant program elements implementing a business concept, existing techniques based on information retrieval (IR) fall short in providing adequate solutions. Such techniques usually only consider the conceptual relations based on lexical similarities during concept mapping. However, it is also fundamental to consider the contextual relationships existing within an application’s business domain to aid in concept location. As an example, this paper proposes to use domain specific ontological relations during concept mapping and location activities when implementing business requirements

Is there persistence in the impact of emergency food aid? Evidence on consumption, food security, and assets in rural Ethiopia

"The primary goal of emergency food aid after an economic shock is often to bolster short-term food and nutrition security. However, these transfers also act as insurance against other shock effects, such as destruction of assets and changes in economic activity, which can have lasting deleterious consequences. Although existing research provides some evidence of small positive impacts of timely food aid disbursements after a shock on current food consumption and aggregate consumption, little is known about whether these transfers play a safety net role by reducing vulnerability and protecting assets into the future. We investigate this issue by exploring the presence of persistent impacts of two major food aid programs following the 2002 drought in Ethiopia: a food-for-work program known as the Employment Generation Schemes (EGS) and a program of free food distribution (FFD). Using rural longitudinal household survey data collected in 1999 and 2004, we estimate the impact of these programs on consumption growth, food security, and growth in asset holdings 18 months after the peak of the drought, when food aid transfers had substantially or entirely ceased in most program villages... Overall, these results suggest that emergency food aid played an important role in improving welfare, access to food, and food security for many households following the drought in 2002. However, improved targeting, especially in EGS, and larger, sustained transfers may be required to increase benefits, particularly to the poorest households. The impacts of food aid identified here indicate some persistence or accumulated effects of transfers on consumption growth over time. Although the time lag between receipt of transfers and observed consumption is not more than one year in most cases, the estimated impact on consumption growth relative to the size and timing of transfers suggests possible savings or multiplier effects of emergency food aid." -- Authors' AbstractFood aid, Treatment effects, Propensity score matching, Ethiopia, africa, East Africa, food security, Nutrition security

STABLE ADAPTIVE STRATEGY of HOMO SAPIENS and EVOLUTIONARY RISK of HIGH TECH. Transdisciplinary essay

The co-evolutionary concept of Three-modal stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based on the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and evolutionary path of human evolution are defined by descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctly) parameters simultaneously, that cannot be instrumental reduced to others ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the trends of biological, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic human evolution by two gear mechanism ˗ gene-cultural co-evolution and techno- humanitarian balance. The resultant each of them can estimated by the ratio of socio-psychological predispositions of humanization/dehumanization in mentality. Explanatory model and methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. Integral part of the model is evolutionary semantics (time-varying semantic code, the compliance of the biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy)

Agriculture in the face of changing markets, institutions and policies: Challenges and strategies

Since the late 1980s, agriculture in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) has been under considerable adjustment pressure due to changing political, economic and institutional environments. These changes have been linked to the transition process, as well as the ongoing integration into the European Union and the world market. Reduced subsidies, increased environmental and food quality demands, as well as structural changes in the supply, processing and food retailing sector call for major structural adjustments and the improvement of farmers' managerial abilities. Though such changes always carry significant threats to farms, they also offer new opportunities for the farms' entrepreneurial engagement. Upcoming changes in the agricultural environment and their possible consequences for farm structures across Europe are thus still timely subjects. The objective of the IAMO Forum 2006 is to contribute to the success of agriculture in the CEECs, as well as their neighboring countries, in today's increasingly competitive environment. Concrete questions the conference focuses on are: What are the most suitable farm organizations, cooperative arrangements and contractual forms? How to improve efficiency and productivity? Where do market niches lie and what are the new product demands? CONTENT: Preface; Jarmila Curtiss, Alfons Balmann, Kirsti Dautzenberg, Kathrin Happe. The success of gradualism: Empirical evidence from China's agricultural reform; Jikun Huang, Johan F. M. Swinnen, Scott Rozelle. Land reform and farm restructuring in Moldova, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan: A stocktaking; David Sedik. Land market developments, imperfections, and effects in transition countries; Johan F. M. Swinnen, Pavel Ciaian, Liesbet Vranken. Farmland markets, boom/bust cycles, and farm size; Charles B. Moss, Andrew Schmitz. Duality of farm structure in transition agriculture: The case of Moldova; Zvi Lerman, Dragos Cimpoies. Organizational restructuring of the agrarian sector in Bulgaria during the pre-accession period; Julia M. Doitchinova, Ivan St. Kanchev, Albena Miteva. Governance of Bulgarian farming - Modes, efficiency, impact of EU accession; Hrabrin Bachev. Leadership may have a decisive influence on the successful transition of production cooperatives - A social capital approach; Csaba Forgács. Contractual arrangement and enforcement in transition agriculture: Theory and evidence from China; Hongdong Guo. Contractrual relationships in the Hungarian horticultural sector; Imre Ferto. Contract farming in China: Perspectives of smallholders; Hongdong Guo, Robert W. Jolly, Jianhua Zhu. Are macro policies adjusted to institutional arrangements at the micro level? Some evidence from Polish Agriculture during transition; Jan Falkowski, Dominika Milczarek. The Austrian private foundation as a legal form in farm management, with special emphasis on tax issues; Hermann Peyerl, Günter Breuer. Credit as a tool of integration between the Polish farms and buyers of their products; Alina Danilowska. Who, why and how: Problems of farmers' interest representation in Poland; Aldona Zawojska. How competitive is milk production in the Central and Eastern European countries in comparison to Western Europe? Mikhail Ramanovich, Torsten Hemme. Production and trade of animal products in selected ECO countries; Farhad Mirzaei, Olaf Heidelbach. European agriculture without direct payments - A partial equilibrium analysis; Oliver Balkhausen, Martin Banse. Measuring the degree of market power in the Ukrainian milk processing; Oleksandr Perekhozhuk, Michael Grings. Determinants of foreign direct investments in the food processing industry: An empirical analysis for Ukraine; Oksana Luka. Allocative efficiency of corporate farms in the Leningrad region; David Epstein. Pathways towards efficient levels of machinery investments needed for the sustainable development of arable farms in Bulgaria; Nikolay Naydenov. Small-scale farming in Romania - Shadow prices and efficiency; Johannes Sauer, Borbala Balint. How large is the marginal product of land in the Moscow region? Natalia Il'ina, Nikolay Svetlov. Spatial price transmission on the Turkish wheat market - An initial application; Enno-Burghard Weitzel, Ahmet Bayaner. Farm to retail price transmission on the pork market: A German-Hungarian comparison; Lajos Zoltán Bakucs, Imre Ferto, Heinrich Hockmann, Oleksandr Perekhozhuk. The nature of selected price transmissions in the agri-food chain and their consequences; Lukáš Čechura. Labor mobility in transition countries and the impact of institutions; Thomas Herzfeld, Thomas Glauben. Choosing to migrate or migrating to choose: Migration and labor choice in Albania; Carlo Azzarri, Gero Carletto, Benjamin Davis, Alberto Zezza. Rural non-farm employment in Ukraine; Oleg Nivyevskiy, Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel. Opportunities and challenges for farm household livelihood strategies: Pluriactivity in Finland and the UK; Claire Newton. Territorial aspects of enterprise development in remote rural areas of Europe; Zuzana Bednarikova, Tomas Doucha, Zdenek Travnicek. New policy approaches for rural development: The experience of two case regions in Eastern Germany; Theodor Fock --