A Dynamic Model of Mesh Size Regulatory Compliance

This paper employs a dynamic model for crimes that involve time and punishment to analyze the use of a net with illegal mesh size in a management regime where each community claims territorial use right over a fishery but has a discount rate that may differ from the social discount rate. The equilibrium stock and harvest levels are found to be much lower if the regulation is violated. Moreover, the optimal penalty for violation must be decreasing in the shadow cost of taking the risk to fish illegally, and increasing the risk of punishment increases the equilibrium stock level.crime, dynamic model, fishery, regulation, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

A Dynamic Model of Mesh Size Regulatory Compliance in Fisheries

The violation of fishing regulations is a criminal activity that leads to depleting fish stock levels across the world. This paper focuses on fishing violations in developing countries. In particular, the paper analyses the use of a fishing net with illegal mesh size in a two regimes, namely a management regime where each community claims a territorial use right over the fishery and a regulated open access regime. This paper employs a dynamic model for fishery crimes that involve time and punishment to analyse the use of a net with illegal mesh size in the different regimes. We found that if the community has territorial use right, the illegal activity in addition to decreasing the intrinsic growth rate and the cost of fishing would increase the community’s effective discount rate and consequently result in a much lower equilibrium stock and harvest relative to the situation where the community only use nets with the legal mesh size. Furthermore, under a regulated open access management the equilibrium stock will be lower if a community violates the regulation and the proportionate change in the risk of punishment is higher than the proportionate change in the harvest potential. Moreover, the optimum penalty for violation must be set higher in the open access fishery relative to the complete territorial use right management regime.Crime; Dynamic Model; Fishery; Regulation

On the Economics of Rational Self-Medication

It has been established in the medical literature that self-medicating with imperfect information about either the use of a genuine or counterfeit drug or based on wrong self-diagnosis of ailment, which is predominant especially in developing countries, is a risky investment in health capital. This paper models the decision to self-medicate and the demand for self-medicated drugs. We suppose that investment in self-medication depends on the perception of its effectiveness. The results obtained show that the decision to self-medicate depends on the relative price and perceived effectiveness of self-medication, the elasticity of the shadow value of health with respect to the quantity of health capital, and the relative effectiveness of self-medication in reducing the unpredictable changes in health capital. Furthermore, if an individual self-medicates, self-medication becomes a normal good: it increases if income increases; and it obeys the law of demand (i.e. it increases if its price, relative to that of the risk-free medication, decreases). Moreover, we have shown that some optimum subsidy can discourage self-medication.Health Production, Self-Medication, Risky Investment, Government Policy, Dynamic Analysis

Ostracism and Common Pool Resource Management in a Developing Country: Young Fishers in the Laboratory

This paper investigates how the possibility to ostracise, which is a familiar punishment mechanism to subjects in an experiment, affects harvest in a common pool resource experiment. The experiment was framed as a fishing problem and the subjects were young fishers in Ghana. We find that the introduction of the possibility to ostracise other members of a group at a cost to the remaining members of a group decreased over-fishing significantly in comparison with the situation where ostracism was not possible. The ostracism was based on at least 50 percent voting rule. Moreover, the subjects demonstrated a strong desire to ostracise those who overfished.Common Pool Resource; Experiment; Ostracism; Fishers

The Bioeconomics of Conservation Agriculture and Soil Carbon Sequestration in Developing Countries

Improving soil carbon through conservation agriculture in developing countries may generate some private benefits to farmers, as well as sequester carbon emissions, which is a positive externality to society. Leaving crop residue on the farm has become an important option in conservation agriculture practice. However, in developing countries, using crop residue for conservation agriculture has the opportunity cost of feed for livestock. In this paper, we model and develop an expression for an optimum economic incentive that is necessary to internalize the positive externality. A crude value of the tax is calculated using data from Kenya. We also empirically investigated the determinants of the crop residue left on the farm and found that it depends on the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the soil, the prices of maize, whether extension officers visit the plot or not, household size, the level of education of the household head, and alternative cost of soil conservation.conservation agriculture, soil carbon, climate change, bioeconomics, Kenya

Can the restrictive harvest period policy conserve mopane worms in Southern Africa? A bio-economic modelling approach

Imbrasia Belina also known as the mopane worm, like other edible insects and caterpillars, is a vital source of protein to Southern African countries. The worms live and graze on mopane trees, which occupy agricultural land. With increasing commercialization of the worm, the management of the worm, which was hitherto organized as a common property resource, has degraded to a near open access. In this paper, a simple bio-economic modeling approach has been taken to show that, for some optimal land allocation, the restrictive period harvest season policy that is advocated by community leaders may not lead to sustainable harvesting of the worm.

Climate variability and maize yield in South Africa: Results from GME and MELE methods

"This paper investigates the impact of climate variability on maize yield in the Limpopo Basin of South Africa using the Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) estimator and Maximum Entropy Leuven Estimator (MELE). Precipitation and temperature were used as proxies for climate variability, which were combined with traditional inputs variables (i.e., labor, fertilizer, seed, and irrigation). We found that the MELE fits the data better than the GME. In addition, increased precipitation, increased temperature, and irrigation have a positive impact on yield. Furthermore, results of the MELE show that the impact of precipitation on maize yield is stronger than that of temperature, meaning that the impact of climate variability on maize yield could be negative if the change increases temperature but reduces precipitation at the same rate and simultaneously. Moreover, the impact of irrigation on yield is positive but with a lower elasticity coefficient than that of precipitation, which supposes that irrigation may only partially mitigate the impact of reduced precipitation on yield. " from authors' abstractYield function, maize, Generalized maximum entropy, Maximum entropy Leuven estimator, Climate variability, Climate change,

Demand for cooking fuels in a developing country. To what extent do taste and preferences matter?

Overreliance on biomass energy, such as firewood and charcoal, for cooking in developing countries has contributed to high rates of deforestation and resulted in substantial indoor pollution which has negatively impacted the health of many individuals. However, the effectiveness of public policies aimed at encouraging households to switch to cleaner fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and kerosene, hinges on the extent to which they are mentally committed to specific fuels. Using data on four cooking fuels (charcoal, firewood, LPG, and kerosene) from the Ghana living standards survey, we found strong evidence that the most preferred fuel is LPG, followed by charcoal, with kerosene the least preferred. In addition, with the exception of kerosene that has price-elastic demand, the price elasticities of demand for the fuel types examined are inelastic. This finding suggests the so-called fuel-ladder is not robust.Demand for fuel Taste and preferences Ghana

Individual Discount Rate and Regulatory Compliance in a Developing Country Fishery

Studies on compliance with fishing regulations have looked at fishery crimes for which the offender faces a one-period decision problem of maximizing an expected utility. Moreover, the returns to the crimes are uncertain because the offender may lose them if caught. This paper extends these models by considering a fishery crime that generates flow of returns until the offender is caught and then punished. Consequently we incorporate into the existing model, the influence of dynamic deterrence in which the discount rate affects violation levels. The predictions of the model are tested on data from an artisanal fishery in Ghana