Where Have All the Farmers Gone? EU Accession and Structural Change in Bulgaria.

The accession to the European Union (EU) led to dramatic changes in agricultural employment in the new member states and several studies indicate that the introduction of stringent requirements related to food quality was the main reason for the dramatic decline in the number of farmers. This is expected to have important welfare implications for the rural population as especially small, poor farmers, who are not able to make the necessary investments, would be excluded from the value chain. This paper uses a unique dataset based on a panel survey of 295 farm households in the North and South Central Region of Bulgaria. There are four main results. First, we find evidence of a large outflow of agricultural labour from dairy farming activities and 55% of the farm households, which we interviewed in 2009 and that were supplying to a dairy processor in 2003, stopped supplying in 2009. Second, the survey results show that when asked about the main reasons for quitting, households mention the ageing of the household and health problems, but not an increase in quality regulation. Third, we find that an increase in off farm employment alternatives have contributed positively to the decrease in dairy deliveries. Fourth, we find no evidence of negative welfare implications for those farm households who stopped their commercial dairy activities.

Direct payments and rent extraction by land owners: Evidence form New Member States

Since the accession of the eight Central and Eastern European countries, farmers in these countries started to receive substantial agricultural subsidies. Agricultural subsidies alter farmer production incentives and thus factor demand and factor prices. Hence, agricultural support has an impact on land rents. This paper analyses the impact of the introduction of direct payments on land rents in the new member states and correlates econometrically land rental price data with support measures while controlling for other effects. The impact of direct payments on land rents is not only found to be statistically significant, but also economically important as 15% of the direct payments are capitalized in land rents in the new member states.Land rental prices, Farm subsidies, New member states, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q12, Q18,

Shifting gear in the study of the bilingual advantage : language switching examined as a possible moderator

The bilingual advantage is a heavily debated topic in research on bilingualism. The current study further investigated one specific aspect of bilingualism proposed to be a determining factor for the bilingual advantage, namely language switching behaviour. We investigated whether a bilingual advantage can be detected in the executive functions of inhibition and shifting by comparing monolingual and bilingual participants on a Simon task and a colour–shape switching task. Furthermore, we examined the relation between these executive functions and language switching proficiency, as measured by a semantic verbal fluency task. In addition, the current study set out to investigate the convergence of self-reported language switching estimates and actual language switching proficiency. Results revealed a bilingual advantage for shifting, but not for inhibition. However, this bilingual advantage for shifting was not related to language switching behaviour. Additionally, we were unable to identify a relation between objective and subjective measures of switching abilities. These findings seem to confirm the existence of a bilingual advantage, but also once again validate its elusiveness, as demonstrated by the absence of bilingual benefits on our measure of inhibition. It furthermore questions the validity of switching measures employed in previous studies

Drivers of cost system development in hospitals: Results of a survey.

While many hospitals are under pressure to become more cost efficient, new costing systems such as Activity-based costing (ABC) may form a solution. However, the factors that may facilitate (or inhibit) cost system changes towards ABC have not yet been disentangled in a specific hospital context. Via a survey study of hospitals, we discovered that cost system development in hospitals could largely be explained by hospital specific factors. Issues such as the support of the medical parties towards cost system use, the awareness of problems with the existing legal cost system, the way hospitals and physicians arrange reimbursements, should be considered if hospitals refine their cost system. Conversely, ABC-adoption issues that were found to be crucial in other industries are less important. Apparently, installing a cost system requires a different approach in hospital settings. Especially, results suggest that hospital management should not underestimate the interest of the physician in the process of redesigning cost systems.Activity based costing; Cost control; Factors; Hospital context; Hospitals; Industry; Management; Organizational change; Problems; Processes; Studies; Systems;

5D fuzzball geometries and 4D polar states

We analyze the map between a class of `fuzzball' solutions in five dimensions and four-dimensional multicentered solutions under the 4D-5D connection, and interpret the resulting configurations in the framework of Denef and Moore. In five dimensions, we consider Kaluza-Klein monopole supertubes with circular profile which represent microstates of a small black ring. The resulting four-dimensional configurations are, in a suitable duality frame, polar states consisting of stacks of D6 and anti-D6 branes with flux. We argue that these four-dimensional configurations represent zero-entropy constituents of a 2-centered configuration where one of the centers is a small black hole. We also discuss how spectral flow transformations in five dimensions, leading to configurations with momentum, give rise to four-dimensional D6 anti-D6 polar configurations with different flux distributions at the centers.Comment: Latex, 36 pages, 2 figures. v2: typos corrected, references added, published versio