Men at Work in a Land Down-under

We use new training data from waves 3-6 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to investigate the training and wages of full-time men. We explore the extent to which the data are consistent with the predictions of human capital theory or with recent alternative theories based on imperfectly competitive labour markets. According to the raw data, most work-related training received by full-time private sector men is general but it is also paid for by employers. Our fixed effects estimates reveal that this training is associated with higher wages in current and in future firms, and that the effect in future firms is larger and more precisely determined. These results are more consistent with the predictions of human capital theory based on imperfectly competitive labour markets than with the alternative of perfect competition.work-related training, full-time men, training costs, general human capital, turnover

Estimating the Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply to a Firm: Is there Monopsony Down-under?

In this paper we estimate the elasticity of the labour supply to a firm, using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Estimation of this elasticity is of particular interest because of its relevance to the debate about the competitiveness of labour markets. The essence of monopsonistically competitive labour markets is that labour supply to a firm is imperfectly elastic with respect to the wage rate. The intuition is that, where workers have heterogeneous preferences or face mobility costs, firms can offer lower wages without immediately losing their workforce. This is in contrast to the perfectly competitive extreme, in which the elasticity is infinite. Therefore a simple test of whether labour markets are perfectly or imperfectly competitive involves estimating the elasticity of the labour supply to a firm. We do this, following the modelling strategy of Manning (2003), and find that the Australian wage elasticity of labour supply to a firm is around 0.71, only slightly smaller than the figure of 0.75 reported for the UK. These estimates are so far from the perfectly competitive assumption of an infinite elasticity that it would be difficult to make a case that labour markets are perfectly competitive.monopsony, imperfect competition, separation, labour supply elasticity

Estimating the Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply to a Firm: What Evidence Is There for Monopsony?

In this paper we estimate the elasticity of the labour supply to a firm, using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Estimation of this elasticity is of particular interest not only in its own right but also because of its relevance to the debate about the competitiveness of labour markets. The essence of monopsonistically competitive labour markets is that labour supply to a firm is imperfectly elastic with respect to the wage rate. The intuition is that, where workers have heterogeneous preferences or face mobility costs, firms can offer lower wages without immediately losing their workforce. This is in contrast to the perfectly competitive extreme, in which the elasticity is infinite. Therefore a simple test of whether labour markets are perfectly or imperfectly competitive involves estimating the elasticity of the labour supply to a firm. We find that the Australian wage elasticity of labour supply to a firm is around 0.71, only slightly smaller than the figure of 0.75 reported by Manning (2003) for the UK. These estimates are so far from the perfectly competitive assumption of an infinite elasticity that it would be difficult to make a case that labour markets are perfectly competitive.monopsony, imperfect competition, separation, labour supply elasticity

Evidence for upscaling of dry season irrigation technologies in Ghana: Market opportunities

United States Agency for International Developmen

Risk aversion in agricultural water management investments in Northern Ghana: Experimental evidence

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is one of the regions in the world most affected by food price volatility and production variability. Poor small-scale farmers in this region are particularly vulnerable to this variability. As a result, households may be reluctant to adopt new agricultural water management (AWM) technologies when they involve more risk than what they mitigate. Despite risk’s role in agricultural water management investments, there have been few attempts to estimate the magnitude and nature of risk aversion in relation to this type of farm decisions. To partially close this gap, this paper uses an experimental approach applied to 137 households in Northern Ghana. We find that more than 70 percent of households are moderately or slightly risk averse. This contrasts with other studies in SSA, where most household decision-makers exhibit severe to extreme risk aversion. We also find that households that stand to lose as well as gain something from participation in games are less risk averse than households playing gains-only games. This result suggests that most farmers’ current wealth put them at risk of falling into a poverty trap. Thus, the losses from the riskiest investments on AWM technologies may fall more heavily on the poor, suggesting that additional efforts be given to the creation of viable insurance mechanisms

Climate change governance in agroforestry systems: a systematic review

Agroforestry has the potential to fundamentally transform socio-ecological systems to address the root causes of climate vulnerability. Although there is increasing interest in agroforestry as a transformative adaptation strategy, its implementation is often discouraged by the need to involve multiple stakeholders, sectors, and governance levels with potentially different interests. We draw on a systematic review of sixty-four peer-reviewed papers on climate change governance in agroforestry systems to (1) outline the current state of the literature, (2) characterise how governance is conceptualised, (3) investigate governance challenges, and (4) provide insights into effective governance. The review finds that most relevant papers have been published in the past three years, and most of these papers are found in interdisciplinary journals. The main governance challenges include coordinating polycentricity, overcoming power imbalances, and sharing, translating, and integrating different types of knowledge. However, few empirical studies of agroforestry governance have been completed. A richer conceptual framework of governance is required to improve our ability to navigate the role of sustainable land management practices such as agroforestry in successful climate change adaptation and mitigation

Food Security Under a Changing Climate: Exploring the Integration of Resilience in Research and Practice

Climate change poses significant risks to our food systems, thus jeopardising the food security of millions of people worldwide. The concept of resilience is increasingly being proposed as a framework to find solutions to these challenges. In this chapter, we assess how resilience has been integrated in discussions about climate change and food security by both academics and practitioners. We performed a targeted review of the academic literature on climate change, food security, and resilience and found that despite a growing body of literature on the subject, the pathways through which actions translate into resilience and then into food security remain unclear. An examination of a sample of projects implemented through the Adaptation Fund revealed that many good practices with potential for resilience-building are used but also that suitable indicators and methods to monitor and evaluate resilience and its outcomes are lacking. Based on our findings, we conclude that while the concept of resilience has accompanied and may have favoured a transition towards more integrated approaches and interventions in work related to climate change and food security, further efforts are needed to identify an efficient and rational sequence of interventions to improve food security in response to climate threats

Mainstreaming biodiversity in business decisions: taking stock of tools and gaps

Most businesses depend on biodiversity, either directly, indirectly as ecosystem services, or through their supply chains. In negatively impacting biodiversity, businesses risk losing essential resources and services. As a result, it is important for the private sector to demonstrate strong and improved performance on biodiversity. This paper reviews and compares tools and approaches that help businesses measure their performance on biodiversity issues. Through a literature review and interviews of tool developers, we assess how tools are constructed, how they measure biodiversity performance, how and where they are being used by different businesses and how they contribute to achieving international targets for biodiversity. We found that tools perform a range of functions and are mostly applied at product, site, and supply chain level. Further efforts are needed to align tools with global biodiversity goals. Key knowledge gaps remain to better capture dependence on biodiversity and spatial spillover effects