INTERNATIONAL VARIATION IN RETURN ON EQUITY IN THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES

The objective is to analyze the effects of country- and firm-specific factors on the return on equity in the beverage and tobacco and food and consumer-products industries for 11industrialized nations. The results indicate that country- and firm-specific factors are important in explaining variation in return on equity within countries but not generally across countries or time.beverage and tobacco industry, country- and firm-specific factors, food and consumer-products industry, globalization, unbalanced panel data, variation in return on equity, Agribusiness,

From Their Point of View: A collaborative approach to exploring the educational experiences of Black Caribbean boys in secondary school.

Historically, Black Caribbean children have faced disadvantage in education. From the 1970s Black Caribbean pupils received fewer O levels than white pupils and were over-represented among those classed as educationally subnormal. In the last decade, a continued trend of Black Caribbean boys over-represented in permanent exclusions in comparison to their white counterparts. Research also shows that Black Caribbean boys are disproportionally identified with SEMH in secondary schools. This research aimed to provide Black Caribbean boys with a unique opportunity to share their lived experience of secondary school within the UK. A collaborative element was used. 4 Black Caribbean boys formed a focus group to construct the interview questions. The study adopted a qualitative design with semi-structured interviews. Four boys between 14 and 15 years of age were interviewed. The researcher adopted an interpretivist epistemological stance and used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to interpret the data. Seven superordinate themes were identified across the participants: ‘Positive influence of peers’, ‘The perceived negative perceptions of black people’, ‘Dealing with the perception of teachers’, ‘Effective support from teachers’, ‘The impact of school policy and initiatives’ ‘The influence of family’ and ‘The impact of teachers of the same ethnicity’. The researcher identified from the findings experiences which fostered the resilience of the participants. Collaborating with the students ensured that their voices are foregrounded in the research. Implications for Educational Psychologists and school professionals are suggested, along with suggestions for further research

Fertilizer Demand for Biofuel and Cereal crop Production in the United States

The emergence of biofuel production has impacted almost all sectors of the agricultural industry and the general economy and has produced a large body of research into how increased production of biofuels will impact the agricultural sector and the general economy. All research is in agreement that total biomass production will be required to increase to meet food and fuel demands. The increase in biomass will, of necessity, require increased use of fertilizers. Research on fertilizer demand has been scarce over the last decade. Because of the recent increase in the demand for grain crops and livestock in an era with little excess capacity in commodity production, the pressure to increase output will fall to increased use of fertilizers. In addition, there is some evidence of increasing scarcity in the principle macro nutrients (eg phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium). Thus, there is an urgent need to initiate research into the demand for fertilizers to determine the economic implications of expanded crop and livestock production. This analysis can provide crop producers and policy makers with important information on the role of nutrients in the economics of expanding uses for the major grain and forage crops. Most researchers have focused on total fertilizer (N.P.K) demand for total crop production which does not capture the effects of individual fertilizers on the individual crops. This study focuses on nitrogen demand for biofuel and cereal crop production and the impact on crop prices in the United States using the method of feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) estimation by weighted least squares regression. The results show that nitrogen fertilizer is very much responsive to corn price, wheat price, nitrogen price, phosphate price, and potash price. Results also indicate that increase in nitrogen price decreases nitrogen demand while increases in the price of corn, wheat, and other fertilizers increases the demand for nitrogen fertilizer.Nitrogen demand, corn production, fertilizer prices, biofuel production., Agricultural and Food Policy, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

A CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON OF EFFICIENCY OF FIRMS IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY

Stochastic frontier analysis is used to determine the relative efficiency of firms in the food industry in industrialized countries. Using panel data analysis, the firm-specific factors, firm-size, the corporate tax rate and number of years of operation and country-specific effects as potential sources of efficiency are investigated. Relevant implications are discussed.Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON OF EFFICIENCY OF FIRMS IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY

Stochastic frontier analysis is used to determine the relative efficiency of firms in the food industry in industrialized countries. Using panel data analysis, the firm-specific factors, firm size, the corporate tax rate and number of years of operation and country-specific effects as potential sources of efficiency are investigated. Relevant implications are discussed.Agribusiness, Industrial Organization, Productivity Analysis,

INTERNATIONAL VARIATION OF RETURN ON EQUITY IN THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES

The objective was to analyze the effects of country and firm specific factors on the return on equity in the beverage and tobacco and food and consumer products industries for eleven industrialized nations. The results indicated that country and firm specific factors were important in explaining variation in return on equity within countries but not generally across countries or time.variation on return in equity, globalization, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Financial Dollarisation: Effects on Economic Growth in Ghana

This study sought to examine the effects of financial dollarisation on economic growth in Ghana. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration was applied on quarterly data from the World Bank and Bank of Ghana (BOG) for the period of 1999 to 2018. It was revealed that financial dollarisation exhibited a negative and statistically significant effect on economic growth both in the short-run and long-run. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the Bank of Ghana should develop the financial market by continuing the implementation of the financial sector reforms to foster a growing financial sector to promote economic growth in the economy.Keywords: Autoregressive distributed Lags, Financial dollarisation, Economic growth, Foreign currency deposit, Ghana. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-19-03 Publication date:June 30th 202

Perceptions of Students on Introductory University Mathematics: Perspective Study on First Year Undergraduate Students

This paper mainly sought to find out how students’ perceptions influence students in their introductory university mathematics: The perspective of first-year undergraduate students of the University of Cape Coast. Specifically, the study sought to find out first-year students’ perceptions about SHS mathematics and also to find out the perception students have about introductory university mathematics. The population size of the study was 600 students. The research design used was the descriptive survey and the stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample. A questionnaire was designed and used to collect the data. From our findings, it was established that students have a positive perception about SHS mathematics and the introductory university mathematics course. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that teachers are encouraged to use learner centered approach of teaching mathematics with little regard to the teacher centered approach since the former ensures active participation of students in the teaching-learning process and facilitates understanding while the latter makes students mere passive listeners Keywords: Perception, introductory, students, undergraduate and first-year DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-25-01 Publication date:September 30th 202

ESTIMATION OF MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF UNSATURATED SOILS FROM A SOIL-WATER CHARACTERISTIC CURVE

The small-strain shear modulus and shear strength are two crucial mechanical behaviors used in the design of geotechnical structures and in the analyses of earth materials subjected to static and dynamic loadings. Traditional testing methods for these parameters are expensive and time-consuming. This research aimed to address these challenges by developing a model based on the inverse relationship between mechanical behavior of unsaturated soils and the soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC). The proposed model integrates a scaling function to align the SWCC with the mechanical property curve. Empirical relationships were established for the scaling function, specifically aligning with the air-entry value of the SWCC. Recognizing that empirical relationships derived from small laboratory samples may not fully represent field conditions, this study calibrated the proposed relationships using data from large scale tests in a box. To achieve this, two soils were compacted within a large-scale test box with sensors positioned to measure matric suction, volumetric water content, and electrical conductivity at varying densities. Accelerometers were also placed to capture seismic data within the box. By correlating the small-strain shear modulus determined from shear wave velocity measurements with the proposed model, calibrations were made to better reflect large-scale test conditions. Subsequently, the modified model was applied to a field site, demonstrating satisfactory agreement with the measured data