Microfinance and Female Empowerment

In the informal economy of developing countries, female entrepreneurs face a comparative disadvantage for operating high-productivity activities, owing to the prevalence of patriarchal forms of business regulations. Yet, for microfinance institutions (MFIs) to succeed in enhancing female empowerment, increased access to credit must enable female entrepreneurs to tap into the range of high-productivity activities. So when the costs of legality are too high in developing countries, and the informal economy becomes the only affordable venue for operating a business venture, this paper shows that access to microfinancee services becomes only necessary, but not sufficient for female empowerment. Based upon a game-theoretic model of activity choices by ex ante homogeneous women, we argue that conditioning well-trained women's access to credit to the adoption of high-productivity activities may enable MFIs to induce the emergence of networks of female entrepreneurs large enough to mitigate patriarchal practices that raise the costs of operating such activities in the informal economy.Microfinance, female entrepreneurship, supermodular games

Understanding the Persistent Low Performance of African Agriculture

We explain the persistence of low performances in African agriculture by analyzing the determinants of farmers' decisions to modernize their farming practices. Owing to sociocultural factors specific to Sub-Saharan Africa, farmers' decisions on farming practices are strategic complements. We demonstrate that the modernization game these farmers play admits two pure-strategy, Pareto-ranked, symmetric Nash-equilibria. The equilibrium where all farmers choose to modernize their farming methods is preferred to the one where all of them choose to stick to a traditional method. We argue that scarcity and economic opportunities put forward by neo-Boserupian theories of induced-innovation as determinants of the onset agricultural innovations are, in the context of African countries, only necessary, but not sufficient to generate modernization of farming methods. Deliberate action to enhance aadoption of agricultural innovations must therefore take the African's sociocultural context into consideration, or risk failure.Sub-Saharan Africa, Agricultural modernization, Fertilizer adoption, Supermodular games

Farsighted Coalitional Stability in TU-games

We study farsighted coalitional stability in the context of TUgames. Chwe (1994, p.318) notes that, in this context, it is difficult to prove nonemptiness of the largest consistent set. We show that every TU-game has a nonempty largest consistent set. Moreover, the proof of this result points out that each TU-game has a farsighted stable set. We go further by providing a characterization of the collection of farsighted stable sets in TU-games. We also show that the farsighted core of a TU-game is empty or is equal to the set of imputations of the game. Next, the relationships between the core and the largest consistent set are studied in superadditive TU-games and in clan games. In the last section, we explore the stability of the Shapley value. It is proved that the Shapley value of a superadditive TU-game is always a stable imputation: it is a core imputation or it constitutes a farsighted stable set. A necessary and sufficient condition for a superadditive TU-game to have the Shapley value in the largest consistent set is given.

Are Foster Children Made Better Off by Informal Fostering Arrangements?

Research on the effects of informal child fostering arrangements on the welfare of the children involved highlights cross-country disparities. Why may there be differences across countries with regard to the effects of informal child fostering arrangements? If in all countries reporting a high incidence of foster children Hamilton’s rule applies, then these cross-country differences are puzzling. Our model of child fostering arrangements builds on the fact that a child’s school performance is jointly influenced by his nutrition status and the time he has available at home to develop his learning skills and prepare for national school tests. Given this feature of academic performance, fostering out may become a poor parent’s best option for enhancing his child’s academic excellence, by trading off study time for better nutrition. We show that child fostering arrangements embedding this human capital motive for out-fostering make the foster child better off when nutrition is paramount to a child’s ability to achieve academic excellence.Child fostering, child nutrition, foster child's welfare

Les Marchés Électroniques: le Cas de l'Encan Électronique du Porc

Le 6 mars 1989, un nouveau mécanisme de mise en marché du porc d'abattage fait son apparition au Québec : l'Encan Électronique du Porc. Ce système d'enchères invalidait la plupart des ententes et des contrats signés jusqu'alors au Québec entre abattoirs et producteurs de porcs et imposait toute une série de nouvelles règles de vente auxquelles devaient se soumettre l'ensemble des agents de l'industrie québécoise du porc : même un producteur qui possédait lui-même des installations d'abattage n'avait plus le droit de s'approvisionner à même son troupeau. C'est dire l'ampleur des changements que l'implantation de l'Encan Électronique du Porc a entraînés dans le fonctionnement général du marché. L'industrie porcine occupe une place importante au sein de l'industrie agro-alimentaire au Québec. Depuis plusieurs années, le porc est la deuxième production agricole en importance de la province après le secteur laitier et le Québec est la province qui produit le plus de porcs annuellement au pays. Ce secteur regroupe une dizaine d'abattoirs spécialisés et quelque 3500 fermes porcines dispersées sur le territoire québécois. De plus, on estime à 30 000 le nombre d'emplois directs et indirects générés par cette industrie. Enfin, à lui seul, le marché primaire du porc représente un secteur 1 d'activités de près de 700 millions de dollars au Québec. Cette monographie entend traiter des marchés électroniques en général mais à travers un cas de figure qui est, à notre connaissance, le premier - et toujours le seul - marché électronique centralisé à avoir été implanté au Québec au sein d'une industrie d'envergure. Dans le premier chapitre, nous passerons en revue la documentation et les principaux travaux consacrés aux marchés électroniques nord-américains de l'agro-alimentaire et tenterons de définir les conditions essentielles à la création et au maintien d'un marché électronique. Le second chapitre relatera le genèse de l'Encan Électronique du Porc, après avoir analysé l'importance de l'industrie porcine au Québec et le contexte socio-économique qui prévalait avant l'introduction de ce marché électronique. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous décrirons les règles de fonctionnement actuelles de l'Encan Électronique du Porc ainsi que les modifications qui leur ont été apportées depuis 1989 pour résoudre les problèmes rencontrés. Ce chapitre expliquera aussi comment les problèmes relatifs aux modalités de fonctionnement du marché sont résolus. Enfin, dans le dernier chapitre, nous traiterons des bénéfices et des coûts du mécanisme actuel de mise en marché des porcs d'abattage. Nous serons alors à même d'évaluer les avantages et les désavantages que présente un tel système de vente pour l'industrie du porc au Québec.

Towards the total synthesis of lactonamycin

The natural product lactonamycin (1) was isolated in Japan by Matsomoto et al.. Biological evaluation of lactonamycin (1) against Gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus showed significant levels of antimicrobial activity and it was especially active against clinically isolated-MRSA and - VRE. In addition to interesting biological properties, lactonamycin (1) possesses an intriguing molecular architecture (Figure 1). The novel, highly functionalized hexacyclic aglycone core, known as lactonamycinone (2) contains, in the western half, a highly-oxygenated fused perhydrofuranfuranone bicycle connected to a labile tertiary methoxy group, and in the eastern half, a naphtha[e]isoindole ring system. Adding to the structural complexity of lactonamycin (1), a 2,3,6- trideoxy sugar unit is connected to the core via a highly hindered tertiary glycosidic linkage. [Molecular structure diagrams appear here. To view, please open pdf attachment] Figure 1 - Structures of lactonamycin (1) and lactonamycinone (2). A key step in the current strategy is an electrodecarboxylation reaction to introduce the angular methoxy group. Various experiments towards this electrodecarboxylation reaction are described using simple model substrates. In particular, the synthesis of model system (3) and investigations towards ABCD tetracycle model system (4) are described alongside our efforts towards the synthesis of lactonamycin (1) (Figure 2). Finally, a new synthesis of known boronic ester 5 was investigated using the biomimetic resorcylate methodology developed in the group. [Molecular structure diagrams appear here. To view, please open pdf attachment] Figure 2 – Structures of carboxylic model system 3, ABCD tetracycle model system 4 and boronic ester 5

Farsighted coalitional stability in TU-games

We study farsighted coalitional stability in the context of TUgames. Chwe (1994, p.318) notes that, in this context, it is difficult to prove nonemptiness of the largest consistent set. We show that every TU-game has a nonempty largest consistent set. Moreover, the proof of this result points out that each TU-game has a farsighted stable set. We go further by providing a characterization of the collection of farsighted stable sets in TU-games. We also show that the farsighted core of a TU-game is empty or is equal to the set of imputations of the game. Next, the relationships between the core and the largest consistent set are studied in superadditive TU-games and in clan games. In the last section, we explore the stability of the Shapley value. It is proved that the Shapley value of a superadditive TU-game is always a stable imputation: it is a core imputation or it constitutes a farsighted stable set. A necessary and sufficient condition for a superadditive TU-game to have the Shapley value in the largest consistent set is given