Potential income gains for rural households in North Eastern Thailand through trade with organic products

The study groups households in North Eastern Thailand according their income and grade of specialisation in crop production to derive representative household types. For these household types a linear optimization model is run to calculate net incomes under four scenarios. These are certified organic farming, organic farming in the initial and transitional phase and a self-sufficient farming. Simulations for the different management scenarios show that per ha cash profits are about double under certification while they can only be increased by 30 percent under self-sufficient farming, even under favourable assumptions. But transition costs to organic farming are high due to reduced yields at the beginning. According to the figures and model used, only under certified organic production it pays to hire non household workers. Labour hence is a major limiting factor.organic agriculture, Thailand, household income, Consumer/Household Economics, International Relations/Trade,

Comparing Accuracy and Costs of Revealed and Stated Preferences: The Case of Consumer Acceptance of Yellow Maize in East Africa

For quite a while, stated preferences have been a major tool to measure consumer preferences for new products and services. Revealed preference methods, in particular experimental economics, have gained popularity recently because they have been shown to be more incentive compatible, and therefore more accurate. However, this advantage comes at the expense of higher survey costs. In the developing countries with limited funding for research, it is important to determine whether the extra cost can be justified by the extra gain in accuracy. A survey of 100 farmers was carried out in Western Kenya to determine consumer preference for yellow maize using the contingent valuation, choice experiments and experimental auction methods. Experimental auctions produced the most realistic results for mean willingness to pay. They are also the most accurate at all budget levels, but also the most expensive. Considering their accuracy and realistic results, we conclude that they should be the recommended method in measuring consumer preference in developing countries, since the extra cost is more than recovered by the gain in accuracy.Kenya, maize, consumer, experimental auctions, stated preference, WTP, Crop Production/Industries, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, D6, Q12,

Improving the Use of Experimental Auctions in Africa: Theory and Evidence

Experimental auctions have not been widely used in Africa. However, auctions are important tools for evaluating new products and technologies. To increase the quality of these experiments, we explore an alternative first-price bidding mechanism that is more similar to African market exchanges and we analyze factors likely to affect bidding. Experiments with African consumers show that the proposed first-price mechanism has no advantage over conventional second-price mechanisms. Results show high and significant cash-in-hand, experimenter, and time of day effects in main rounds, and significant ordering effects in test rounds. These effects need to be carefully considered when applying the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism in Africa.Africa, BDM mechanism, experimenter effect, first-price auction, income effect, order effect, time of day effect, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Sustainable Management of Urban Green Infrastructure – The Challenge of Providing High-Quality Green in Multi-Storey Residential Construction

Vienna is known as one of the most liveable cities worldwide (Mercer, 2015), not least because of Vienna’s green infrastructure (GI). These qualities of life and the trend of urbanisation lead to strong population growth in Vienna. It is predicted that the Viennese population will grow from 1.8 million (2015) to 2 million in 2029 (MA 23, 2014); to offer living space, the creation of up to 120,000 new homes is planned until 2050 (MA 18, 2014). The growth and the resulting exploitation pressure on the (green) areas pose a major challenge for the City of Vienna. The loss of green space induced by land use results in the reduction or loss of ecosystem services. The negative effects of the decline of green areas and the increasing soil sealing already occur especially in areas of high population density. Furthermore, increasing heat stress and risks related to natural disasters like the flood event in 2002 show the importance of green space in urban areas for the maintenance of ecosystem functions. Therefore, a challenge of the next years will be to maintain a high-quality and efficient network of GI. At the moment, the floor area ratio (“Geschoßflächenzahl”) and other values like the degree of soil sealing, the density rate for buildings, building heights etc. are the defining parameters for urban development in Vienna and regulate the degree of building coverage. The supply of the neighbourhoods with open/green space is determined only indirectly. Besides, those parameters are not able to state the quality of green space for humans. Vienna has already recognised the importance of GI and develops guides for developers and urban planners to contribute to encourage GI in the city (MA 18, 2014; MA 22, 2013; MA 22, 2015). But a clear framework for the conservation and provision of minimum standards for urban green space, however, is still missing; incentives for implementation of GI elements are primarily given through grants. Some cities have developed defining parameters or policy instruments for GI to enable a management of open space supply and quality (e.g. Berlin: “Biotope Area Factor”; Malmö: “Green Space Factor”; Seattle: “Green Factor”, Helsinki...), but in the current practice of applying the green space factors almost only ecological aspects are taken into account (Kruuse, 2011; Szulczewska et al., 2014). Socio-cultural aspects such as usability, aesthetics or recreation are rarely considered. For urban planning and administration it would be important to start thinking about a green space factor which, beneath size and space consumption, also takes into account socio-cultural aspects. The main objective of the “AddedValueGreen!” project was to develop a green and open space factor (“Grünflächenfaktor” or “GFF”) which encompasses regulating, socio-cultural and economic effects of urban GI (uGI). The focus was on the management and intervention of private and housing-related spaces to secure a certain amount of high-quality open/green space on building lots. Through the evaluation of housing projects by using the GFF, deficits in the green space supply and quality can be identified and recommendations to improve the GI can be derived. Furthermore, it will be possible to integrate this evaluation tool into other planning levels or management tools

simulated

Bayesian modelling of panel dat

Credibility of propensity score matching estimates. An example from Fair Trade certification of coffee producers

International audienc

ASSESSMENT OF TARGETING IN THE RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME: A CASE STUDY OF THE AUSTRIA INVESTMENT SUPPORT MEASURE

Targeting is a central part of many public support schemes to increase cost-effectiveness of policy intervention. Interestingly, targeting in the Rural Development Programs (RDP) of the EU has so far not been quantitatively evaluated for investment support schemes. In this article we suggest how the effectiveness of targeting in the investment support schemes can be evaluated with routinely available data. For an Austrian case-study we find that targeting of investment support measures could be substantially increased if eligibility criteria were used more extensively, as maximum aid-intensity differentiation turns out not to be effective and selection through ranking is not selective if the budget constraint is not binding

ANALYZING THE EFFECT OF AGRI-ENVIRONMENT MEASURES ON NITRATE CONCENTRATION IN GROUNDWATER FOR AUSTRIA

The Austrian agri-environment program (ÖPUL) from 2000-2006 introduced several measures to reduce nitrate concentration in groundwater. We apply spatial econometric methods on a country-wide panel dataset to assess the partial effects of ÖPUL and other determining factors on nitrate concentration in groundwater. Preliminary results reveal that organic farming and refraining from using inputs on arable land have a measurable negative effect on nitrate concentration

Randomised Controlled Trials for the Evaluation of the CAP: Empirical Evidence about Acceptance by Farmers

To conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the Common Agricultural Policy it would be necessary to exclude a random selection of farms from participation. This exclusion might limit the acceptance of RCTs. We assess the acceptance of an innovative alternative RCT called the ‘unconditional payment RCT’ (upRCT). UpRCTs allow for the evaluation of the impact of policy measures in which farmers receive a payment conditional on the adoption of farm management practices (e.g., agri-environment-climate measures). We surveyed Austrian farmers who participated in the ‘refrain from silage’ measure to compare the acceptance of a conventional RCT and an upRCT using thought experiments. The acceptance of the farmers was between 18% and 51%, and the treatment effects of both variants were of comparable size. Our survey suggests that acceptance of the up-RCT is about twice as high as the acceptance of the conventional RCT. We discuss that upRCTs are useful when a new measure is introduced or when the up-RCT is conducted for several years

Effects of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy on the Development of Regional GDP in Austria

More than half of the EU's population lives in rural areas. Regional GDP rates differ substantially between rural and urban areas as well between rural areas themselves. One of the main objectives of the EU regional funds is achieving cohesion between regions. In the current programme period, 35.6 percent of the EU budget is spent on "cohesion for growth and employment". The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which has its own objectives, calls for most of the 42.5 percent share of the EU budget to be spent on "preservation and management of natural resources".Gemeinsame Agrarpolitik Europäische Union GAP-Reform