Who Really Benefits from Agricultural Subsidies? Evidence from Field-Level Data

The idea that agricultural subsidies are fully capitalized into farmland values forms the foundation of the argument that subsidies are entitlements and removing them would drastically reduce farmland asset values. Surprisingly little evidence substantiates this claim. Using field-level data and explicitly controlling for potentially confounding variables we find that landlords only capture between 14 – 24 cents of the marginal subsidy dollar. The duration of the rental arrangement has a substantial effect on the incidence. Initially, landlords extract 44 cents of the marginal subsidy dollar, but the incidence falls by 1.5 cents with each additional year of the rental arrangement. This duration effect reveals that rental market frictions play an important role in the farmland rental market.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Production Effects of Decoupled Commodity Program Payments: An Instrumental Variables Approach

Instrumental Variables, IV, Policy, Agriculture, Subsidies, Production, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Q1, Q12, Q15, Q18,

ESRI Demand Responsiveness Enquiry. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 115 1975

Irish manufacturing industry suffered a fall in its sales volume in 1975 over it's 1974 level. In an effort to clarify the relative importance of price competitiveness vis a vis other factors, the authors conducted a survey amongst firms in Irish manufacturing industry in December 1975. The results indicate what managers of firms perceived as the reasons for their poor sales performance. The questions put, of their very nature require subjective answer. Thus, managers, when faced with a leftward shift in their firms demand curve, were asked to distinguish the separate effects of a fall in consumer demand, and of any loss of price competitiveness. An effort was also made to assess the degree of price responsiveness of demand amongst sectors in both domestic and export markets. The normal caveats about this type of subjective enquiry of course apply. The survey covered those firms which participate in the monthly CII/ESRI Business Opinion Survey. Of a total of 320 questionnaires despatched, 218 usable replies were received, a response rate of just over 68%. For the purposes of the survey the firms were classified in accordance with the ten sector classification used by the CSO in the Quarterly Industrial Enquiry. The actual processing and calculation of the results was carried out by computer, each firm's replies being weighed by that firm's turnover weight as used in the CII/ESRI survey. Sectoral output weights were derived from the finer sectoral classification of the same survey

Labour Management for Profit and Welfare in Extensive Sheep Farming

Sheep welfare is an emerging topic in research and food marketing, and recent studies suggest that farm labour is a key factor for both animal welfare and productivity in extensive sheep farming systems, although little research has been done into labour utilisation in these systems. This paper reports field data collection on two commercial farms and the use of a linear programming (LP) model to link labour economics and animal welfare analysis. The model maximises the number of ewes to clooked after over the lambing period, when constrained by labour availability for various key tasks and by a pre-determined level of sheep welfare. The results show a trade-off between welfare level and labour input per sheep. Dropping tasks with less significant welfare and productivity consequences is an effective way of increasing carrying capacity (from 977 ewes/shepherd to 1428), as is working longer hours (1174 ewes/shepherd) or only doing the legal minimum of welfare checking (labour reduced from 0.68 min/ewe to 0.44 min/ewe) . The field data suggest that farmers currently provide high welfare, and that, despite much time spent away from the flock (e.g. driving), they spend a large amount of time (39% of total) with their sheep.Labour, Sheep, Linear Programming, Animal Welfare, Livestock Production/Industries, Q10, Q19, Y1,

Addressing Conflicting Reviewer Feedback

Addressing conflicting reviewer feedback is a common issue that all scholars face. In this Mentoring Corner, authors provide an example of manuscript feedback, including conflicting feedback, to describe a procedure for processing and organizing reviewer feedback. They describe how this process can be used to distill and address reviewer feedback in a way that may help new scholars progress manuscripts further in the publication process

Preservice Teachers’ Algebraic Reasoning and Symbol Use on a Multistep Fraction Word Problem

Previous research on preservice teachers’ understanding of fractions and algebra has focused on one or the other. To extend this research, we examined 85 undergraduate elementary education majors and middle school mathematics education majors’ solutions and solution paths (i.e., the ways or methods in which preservice teachers solve word problems) when combining fractions with algebra on a multistep word problem. In this article, we identify and describe common strategy clusters and approaches present in the preservice teachers’ written work. Our results indicate that preservice teachers’ understanding of algebra include arithmetic methods, proportions, and is related to their understanding of a whole

Improved hydrogen gas production in microbial electrolysis cells using inexpensive recycled carbon fibre fabrics

Growing energy demands of wastewater treatment have made it vital for water companies to develop less energy intensive processes for treating wastewater if net zero emissions are to be achieved by 2050. Microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) have the potential to do this by treating water and producing renewable hydrogen gas as a product, but capital and operational costs have slowed their deployment. By using recycled carbon fibre mats, commercially viable MECs can brought closer to reality, where recycled carbon fibre anode MECs treating real wastewater (normalised ~3100 L d−1) were producing 66.77 L H2 d−1 while graphite felt anode MECs produced 3.65 L H2 d−1 per 1 m3 reactor, anodes costing £5.53 m−2 and £88.36 m−2 respectively, resulting in a total anode cost saving of 93%. This could incentivise the development of larger pilot systems, opening the door for generating greater value and a more sustainable wastewater treatment industry

A comprehensive framework for automotive sustainability assessment

Business efficiency, stakeholder pressure and the need for legislative compliance compel the automotive sector to design and manufacture fuel-efficient, low-impact, environmentally responsible and sustainable vehicles. Managing and responding to these multiple and sometimes conflicting interests requires the measurement of economic, environmental and societal performance. Although a number of automotive sustainability measures are mentioned within the literature, there is no single and unique approach for the complete and integrated sustainability assessment of vehicles. This study has developed a comprehensive automotive sustainability assessment framework by selecting a set of sustainability assessment criteria from the literature and refining these through an interview study with 24 automotive experts from academia, car manufacturers, consultancies and non-governmental organisations. Based on this approach, 26 midpoint and 9 end-point environmental, resource, social and economic impact categories have been identified for the construction of a framework for automotive sustainability assessment. The proposed framework can be used as a decision-supporting tool at the early stages of the vehicle development process. It allows source and sustainability issues to be identified throughout the entire vehicle life cycle and provides the means to sharpen analysis and discussion around these issues. The framework can also serve as a design structure for a wide range of sustainability assessment methods and tools (e.g. multi-criteria decision adding or sustainability accounting methods). It serves as guidance on what needs to be measured in an integrated sustainability assessment of vehicles and leaves the choice of what to include in the decision-making process to the discretion of individual companie

The C.1.1.- E.S.R.I. Quarterly and Monthly Surveys of Business Attitudes: Methods and Uses. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, March 1975

Beginning with the fourth quarter of 1961, the Confederation of Irish Industry (C.1.1.) and the Economic and Social Research Institute (E.S.R.I.) have been jointly administering a quarterly survey of businessmen's attitudes in the Republic of Ireland. The results of this survey were circulated to C.I.I. members and since 1968 were published in the E.S.R.I.'s Quarterly Economic Commentary. Similar monthly surveys have been carried out on a coordinated basis by the member countries of the European Economic Community since 1961. On Ireland's accession to the E.E.C. it was decided to revise the C.1.1.-E.S.R.I. survey so as to ensure comparability with those in other member countries. The process of revision has now been completed: the last quarterly survey referred to the fist quarter of 1974, while the first monthly survey was carried out in March 1974, and has been continued on a regular basis since then. The purpose of this note is to describe the methods and coverage of the two surveys, to outline the uses to which the results may be put, and to suggest some directions for further research into both the methods and application of the surveys