Regular Online Assessment, Motivation and Learning

In 2002 regular online assessment was introduced as one of the pillars of an improved course in economics for business students. These online tests were introduced in the context of the problem-based teaching format used at Universiteit Maastricht, where students work in small groups guided by tasks. In this student-centred approach it is important that students come well-prepared to their group meetings. For students this is a type of Prisoner’s Dilemma, because students can free-ride on the preparation of other students. It has also characteristics of an Assurance Game, because if a large part of the group is not well-prepared, the students that did prepare well will also get not much out of the group discussion and therefore will be less motivated to prepare for themselves, too. The risk that such an Assurance Game arises is higher when the majority of students is not intrinsically motivated at the start of the course. The interest in the subject matter of the course will certainly not increase when students do not study enough. Regular online assessment may help to solve these dilemmas by forcing students to prepare at least the textbook they have to read before the group meetings.In this paper we discuss the role of online testing in the context of problem-based learning and show that after the introduction of online learning and other innovations students worked harder, had the feeling that they learned more and reported to be more interested in the subject-matter of the course (i.e. economics). It is obvious that the increase in work effort and motivation as the consequence of online testing is not limited to the context of a problem-based learning environment.Economics ;

Happiness and Loss Aversion: When Social Participation Dominates Comparision

A central finding in happiness research is that a person’s income relative to the average income in her social reference group is more important for her life satisfaction than the absolute level of her income. This dependence of life satisfaction on relative income can be related to the reference dependence of the value function in Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) prospect theory. In this paper we investigate whether the characteristics of the value function like concavity for gains, convexity for losses, and loss aversion apply to the dependence of life satisfaction on relative income. This is tested with a new measure for the reference income for a large German panel for the years 1984-2001. We find concavity of life satisfaction in positive relative income, but unexpectedly strongly significant concavity of life satisfaction in negative relative income as well. The latter result is shown to be robust to extreme distortions of the reported-life-satisfaction scale. It implies a rising marginal sensitivity of life satisfaction to more negative values of relative income, and hence loss aversion (in a wide sense). This may be explained in terms of increasing financial obstacles to social participation.public economics ;

Consequences of EU Biofuel Policies on Agricultural Production and Land Use

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, D58, Q13, Q24, Q27, Q28,

A Land Market Cycle in the Netherlands

This paper develops a disequilibrium model of land prices in the Netherlands. It shows that the behaviour of traded quantities and prices of Dutch land have some resemblance with a disequilibrium land market model developed by Søgaard. An error correction model based on Søgaard’s model generates significant results with GDP and the real interest rate as explanatory variables, but regrettably farm income nor government demand for land generate significant results. If the model is correct, bubbles are characteristic for the Dutch land market, and this suggests that there is an opportunity for Dutch government to improve on the timing of buying land for nature policy.land market cycle, land prices, nature policy, Land Economics/Use,

Catching up with history: A methodology to validate global CGE models

As a key adjunct to the process of policy formulation, market models are often called upon to quantify possible opportunities and threats. Significant improvements in computational power, database and modelling capacity contributed to a widespread usage of computable general equilibrium (CGE) frameworks in an array of policy fields. Curiously, however, in contrast to modelling efforts in, for example, the biophysical sciences, CGE model findings are seldom subjected to any systematic validation procedure. A cursory review of the literature reveals isolated single country CGE model validation exercises, although with a dearth of available data, there is a paucity of equivalent studies which implement such a procedure in a global CGE context. This paper takes a first step in this direction by proposing a systematic methodological procedure for evaluating global CGE model performance, using a consistent macro and sectoral historical time series dataset and validation statistics taken from the biophysical literature. Focusing on sectoral output trends, the results show that model simulation performs better than extrapolation from past trends. Notwithstanding, simulation error remains high in some sectors, particularly in small economies which have undergone rapid growth. Further econometric tests reveal that simulation error is mainly caused by sector specific factors rather than country specific characteristics. The latter observation is consistent with previous research on productivity specifications in CGE models, which in concert with the validation techniques proposed in this paper, serves as a promising avenue of future research.Publishe

Modelling the Consequences of Increasing Bioenergy Demand on Land and Feed Use

Bioenergy Production, CGE modeling, Land Demand, Feed Demand, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Impact of EU Biofuel Policies on World Agricultural and Food Markets

This paper assesses the global and sectoral implications of the EU biofuels directive in a multi-region computable general equilibrium framework. Our results show that without mandatory blending or subsidies to stimulate the use of biofuel crops in the petroleum sector the targets of the EU Biofuel directive will not the reached in 2010. With mandatory blending the enhanced demand for biofuel crops has a strong impact on agriculture at the global and European level. The additional demand from the energy sector might slow down or reverse the long term process of declining agricultural prices.Biofuels, EU biofuel directive, agricultural markets, Computable General Equilibrium modeling, Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Agricultural Incomes Development in EU till 2030: Scenario Analysis of Main Driving Factors

Europe’s rural areas are expected to witness rapid changes due to developments in demography, (agricultural) policies, global trade, climate change, technology and enlargement of the European Union. These changes will affect farmers’ production and income level and make the final outcome of this process uncertain. This paper tries to assess this uncertainty by analyzing the results of 34 scenarios of the EURURALIS project. The scenario outcomes were used to investigate agricultural income development and to analyze the impact of different combinations of macroeconomic and policy factors on agricultural income. The results of these scenarios were achieved in a modeling framework consisting of a modified version of the Global Trade Analysis Project model (GTAP) and the more ecological-environmental oriented Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment (IMAGE).Agricultural incomes and production, agricultural policy, long-term scenarios,

Impact of the EU Biofuels Directive on the EU food supply chain

The paper investigates the impact of the EU Biofuels Directive (BFD) on the EU agri-food supply chain using the computable general equilibrium model of the world economy named LEITAP. LEITAP is an extended version of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model including an improved land market modeling, substitution possibilities between capital and energy as well as between different energy sources including biofuels, feed byproducts of the biofuel production process and substitution between different feed components and feed byproducts. The simulation results shows that the implementation of the EU BFD has a pronounced impact on the markets of cereals, oilseeds and sugar and shows only a limited impact on production and consumption of other agrifood commodities which are not directly affected by biofuel production. The harvested area and production of biofuel crops (grains, oilseeds) is expected to increase by 17% and 25% respectively and sugar production by 12% as a direct result the BFD. The EU-imports of these commodities are expected to rise more than twice. The increasing demand for biofuel crops and sugar will lift domestic prices of these commodities by 25% and 19% respectively but overall agri-food price inflation will be limited to 3% in the EU and to less than 1% at world market level.EU Biofuels Directive, food supply chain, indirect land use changes, computable general equilibrium model., Agricultural and Food Policy,

De betekenis van mestverwerking in een circulaire economie

What is the role of manure processing in the transition to a circular economy? To this end, it is first of all important to get a clear picture of what manure processing is and how (manure) policy influences this. Current manure processing fits within a system that is primarily focused on solving current problems. However, the question is whether there is a role for manure processing if the transition to a circular economy is more advanced and, if so, what that role is