Boosting Demand for Biofortified Foods: The Case of Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato Bread in Tamale, Ghana

Abstract: In the context of introducing biofortification of staple crops as a food-based approach to combat micronutrient malnutrition in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), we carried out a survey in Tamale, Ghana to elicit consumers’ preference of and willingness to pay for one of the highly nutritious biofortified staple crop processed product: the Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) bread. Our results indicate that scores of respondents in the sample show preference for OFSP bread. The most important determinants of OFSP bread preference are its sweet taste and soft texture and consumers are willing to pay 0.634 pesewas more for the attribute sweet, 0.204 pesewas more for the attribute soft and 0.265 pesewas more for the attribute yellow on top of the going price of same roll size of normal wheat bread, 50 pesewas. We also investigated the effect of prior knowledge on nutrition and health-enhancing properties of OFSP on consumer choice. We find that consumers with prior knowledge of OFSP were more likely to choose OFSP bread. These findings have multiple implications for OFSP growers, for bakers who are trying to create value-added products to maximize revenue, and for the International Potato Center to restructure scaling up efforts

The relationship between the human and social capital of former politicians and their perceived value on corporate boards in Portugal : an investor’s perspective

The appointment of politicians to the boards of directors of companies remains a highly used corporate strategy nowadays. However, the empirical studies carried out so far remain inconclusive on whether, and to what extent, these appointments create or destroy value for companies. Based on the resource dependency theory, we argue that it is likely that the ability of appointed politicians to bring valuable resources to companies will be related to the human and social capital of these politicians. This dissertation aims to assess the veracity of this statement through the value that investors attribute to each appointment. The forecasts were tested in the Portuguese context, through the study of a group of 44 EuroNext Lisbon Stock companies, between 2010 and 2018, in which 334 director appointments were registered. Our results not only demonstrate that hiring politicians are considered beneficial by investors in Portugal but also suggest that there is a negative relationship between the number of political positions that each politician held and the reactions of investors to his appointment. This adverse reaction can be explained by several factors, such as the preference of investors for specialist directors instead of generalists, or the distrust of frequent changes in position by investors, or even by the Corruption Index that Portugal has.A nomeação de políticos para os conselhos de administração de empresas continua a ser uma estratégia corporativa altamente utilizada nos dias de hoje. Contudo, os estudos empíricos realizados até ao momento continuam inconclusivos sobre se e em que medida estas nomeações criam ou destroem valor às empresas. Com base na teoria de dependência de recursos argumentamos que é provável que a capacidade dos políticos apontados trazerem recursos valiosos para as empresas, esteja relacionada com o capital social e humano desses políticos. Esta tese tem como objetivo avaliar a veracidade desta premissa através do valor que os investidores atribuem a cada nomeação. As previsões foram testadas dentro do contexto português, através do estudo de um conjunto de 44 empresas da EuroNext Lisbon Stock, entre o período de 2010 e 2018, no qual foram registadas 334 nomeações. Os nossos resultados não só demonstram que a contratação de políticos é considerada benéfica pelos investidores em Portugal, como sugerem ainda que existe uma relação negativa entre o número de posições políticas que cada político ocupou e as reações dos investidores à sua nomeação. Esta reação negativa pode ser explicada através de vários fatores, como a preferência dos investidores por diretores especialistas em vez de generalistas, ou pela desconfiança das frequentes mudanças de posição por parte dos investidores, ou ainda pelo Índice de Corrupção que Portugal apresenta