PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY OF SMALL AND LARGE FARMS IN MOLDOVA

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the productivity of small and large farms in Moldova based primarily on cross-section data from three farm surveys conducted by the World Bank and USAID in 2000 and 2003. The survey data are supplemented where feasible with time series from official national-level statistics. We calculate partial land and labor productivity, total factor productivity, and technical efficiency scores (using Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis algorithms) for the two categories of small individual farms and large corporate farms. Our results demonstrate with considerable confidence that small individual farms in Moldova are more productive and more efficient than large corporate farms. This finding is not restricted to Moldova, as a similar result has been obtained by other authors in Russia (2005) and in the U.S. (2002), where a recent study has found that an increase of farm size reduces, rather than increases, agricultural productivity. Policies encouraging a shift from large corporate farms to smaller individual farms, rather than the reverse, can be expected to produce beneficial results for Moldovan agriculture and the economy in general. The government of Moldova should abandon its inherited preference for large-scale corporate farms and concentrate on policies to improve the operating conditions for small individual farms. At the very least, the government should ensure a level playing field for farms of all sizes and organizational forms, and desist from biasing its policies in favor of large farms.family farms, corporate farms, comparative performance, technical efficiency, total factor productivity, agrarian reforms, transition countries, Farm Management, D24, J24, P27, P31, P32, Q12, Q15, R14,

Productivity and Efficiency of Small and Large Farms in Moldova

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the productivity of small and large farms in Moldova based primarily on cross-section data from three farm surveys conducted by the World Bank and USAID in 2000 and 2003. The survey data are supplemented where feasible with time series from official national-level statistics. We calculate partial land and labor productivity, total factor productivity, and technical efficiency scores (using Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis algorithms) for the two categories of small individual farms and large corporate farms. Our results demonstrate with considerable confidence that small individual farms in Moldova are more productive and more efficient than large corporate farms. This finding is not restricted to Moldova, as a similar result has been obtained by other authors in Russia (2005) and in the U.S. (2002), where a recent study has found that an increase of farm size reduces, rather than increases, agricultural productivity. Policies encouraging a shift from large corporate farms to smaller individual farms, rather than the reverse, can be expected to produce beneficial results for Moldovan agriculture and the economy in general. The government of Moldova should abandon its inherited preference for large-scale corporate farms and concentrate on policies to improve the operating conditions for small individual farms. At the very least, the government should ensure a level playing field for farms of all sizes and organizational forms, and desist from biasing its policies in favor of large farms.Land Economics/Use,

Teacher Responses to Anxiety in Children Questionnaire (TRAC): psychometric properties and relationship with teaching staff characteristics

This study describes the development and evaluation of a new measure, the Teacher Responses to Anxiety in Children (TRAC) questionnaire in 74 primary school teachers. TRAC presents 9 hypothetical scenarios in which a child displays generalized anxiety/worry, social anxiety or separation anxiety symptoms. Teachers rate each scenario on six subscales that reflect different ways of responding to child anxiety. Overall, TRAC showed good internal reliability, with factor analytic results suggesting that it assesses three factors: Autonomy-Promoting, Anxiety-Promoting and Reward responses. Male teachers were significantly more likely than female teachers to use Anxiety-Promoting responses. More experienced teachers reported significantly more reinforcement of anxious avoidance than less experienced teachers, and teaching assistants reported significantly fewer overprotective responses. Teaching staff reported significantly more Autonomy-Promoting responses in social anxiety or generalised anxiety/worry scenarios compared to separation anxiety scenarios. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for teacher training in the management of child anxiety

Equivariant differential characters and symplectic reduction

We describe equivariant differential characters (classifying equivariant circle bundles with connections), their prequantization, and reduction

COOPERATIVES AND INVESTOR OWNED FIRMS: DO THEY MARCH TO THE SAME DRUMMER?

Agribusiness,

Performance of Cooperatives and Investor-Owned Firms in the Dairy Industry

A comparison of regional dairy cooperatives with investor-owned dairy firms from the period 1976-87 produced empirical findings that are at variance with the hypotheses suggested by the theory of cooperatives. The cooperatives in the sample performed significantly better than the IOFs when compared by leverage, liquidity, asset turnover, and coverage ratios, while the rate of return to equity was not found to be significantly different. Techniques are also proposed for valuing the nonmarket aspects of cooperatives that are not captured by financial ratio analysis.Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries,

VIP: Incorporating Human Cognitive Biases in a Probabilistic Model of Retweeting

Information spread in social media depends on a number of factors, including how the site displays information, how users navigate it to find items of interest, users' tastes, and the `virality' of information, i.e., its propensity to be adopted, or retweeted, upon exposure. Probabilistic models can learn users' tastes from the history of their item adoptions and recommend new items to users. However, current models ignore cognitive biases that are known to affect behavior. Specifically, people pay more attention to items at the top of a list than those in lower positions. As a consequence, items near the top of a user's social media stream have higher visibility, and are more likely to be seen and adopted, than those appearing below. Another bias is due to the item's fitness: some items have a high propensity to spread upon exposure regardless of the interests of adopting users. We propose a probabilistic model that incorporates human cognitive biases and personal relevance in the generative model of information spread. We use the model to predict how messages containing URLs spread on Twitter. Our work shows that models of user behavior that account for cognitive factors can better describe and predict user behavior in social media.Comment: SBP 201

The symplectic Deligne-Mumford stack associated to a stacky polytope

We discuss a symplectic counterpart of the theory of stacky fans. First, we define a stacky polytope and construct the symplectic Deligne-Mumford stack associated to the stacky polytope. Then we establish a relation between stacky polytopes and stacky fans: the stack associated to a stacky polytope is equivalent to the stack associated to a stacky fan if the stacky fan corresponds to the stacky polytope.Comment: 20 pages; v2: To appear in Results in Mathematic

Estudio de las formaciones marinas de la Costa Atlántica de la provincia de Buenos Aires

La edad de las valvas de moluscos de diferentes niveles de la costa Atlántica cerca de La Plata, Prov. de Buenos Aires, determinada por el método de C^, indica que el depósito ha tenido lugar entre 35.700 B.P. y 2.990 B.P. Se realizó un estudio sedimentológico, químico y micro- paleontológico de los sedimentos de diferentes excavaciones del área, y por medio del mismo se encontró una gran similitud. Luego de este estudio se consultó la literatura relativa al área. Se concluye que desde el Pleistoceno hasta la actualidad, la oscilación del nivel del mar no es mayor de 13 metros.The age of the shells of the different sea levels of the Atlantic coast near La Plata, Prov. of Buenos Aires, found through Ci4 method, indicates that their deposition took place Between 35.700 B.P. and 2.990 B.P. A sedimentological, chemical and micropaleontological study of the sediments in different excavations of the area was made and among them, a great similitude was found. After this study the literature about the area was consulted. The conclusion was that from the Pleistocene up to now, the sea level oscilation is not greater than 13 meters

5-dimensional contact SO(3)-manifolds and Dehn twists

In this paper the 5-dimensional contact SO(3)-manifolds are classified up to equivariant contactomorphisms. The construction of such manifolds with singular orbits requires the use of generalized Dehn twists. We show as an application that all simply connected 5-manifoldswith singular orbits are realized by a Brieskorn manifold with exponents (k,2,2,2). The standard contact structure on such a manifold gives right-handed Dehn twists, and a second contact structure defined in the article gives left-handed twists.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure; simplification of arguments by restricting classification to coorientation preserving contactomorphism