1,721,002 research outputs found
Building capacity of rural youth and extension workers in agriculture as a business: evidence from a field experiment in Malawi
Get PDFThis thesis examines the effects of agri-business entrepreneurship training on the business skills, entrepreneurial propensity, and expected wages of youth in rural Malawi. Historically, the role of youth in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa has been severely limited due to a variety of political, social, and economic factors. In general, youth have limited access to land, capital, political influence, and agricultural inputs, which are often controlled by governments, private industry, or village elders. This project implemented a learning program in the East Lilongwe district testing the effects of a 10 week agricultural entrepreneurship course that attempted to equip youth with the skills necessary to start a low cost business. Participants were selected in groups at the village level, and by completion of the course expected to have formed a semi-formal business plan. Increasing rural youth’s entrepreneurial knowledge and expectations about the viability and wages of agricultural employment will be a crucial factor in incentivizing extension systems to adopt sustainable training practices as a means of advisory service.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01The student, Ryan Highfill, accepted the attached license on 2017-06-15 at 10:01.The student, Ryan Highfill, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-06-15 at 10:04.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-06-16 at 12:51.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11225 on 2017-09-29 at 10:45:52Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-29T17:45:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2017-06-16Embargo set by: Colleen Fallaw for item 103494
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Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemEmbargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 103494
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Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemEmbargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 103494
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Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemEmbargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 103494
Lift date: 2020-03-02T20:02:46Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 103494 on 2020-03-03T10:15:38Z
Critical Minerals: Corporate Social Responsibility and to What We Owe to Each Other
No full textThis paper delves into the complex dynamics of mineral extraction in Myanmar, a country rich in diverse mineral resources. Myanmar has recently witnessed a surge in foreign investment and trade in its mining sector, particularly in what are called "critical minerals". The demand for these minerals, driven by global trends including electric vehicle production, has led to increased extraction activities, and has made Myanmar the world's third-largest critical mineral producer. However, this growth has brought forth multifaceted challenges, including human rights violations, environmental degradation, and social conflict. Myanmar's governance of the extractive industries is marked by instability and lack of transparency. Despite new legislation mandating environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and the need for responsible corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice, illegal mining persists, which causes harm to both the environment and to local communities. Drawing on Canada's significant role in the global critical mineral market, this study offers key policy considerations to ensure ethical and sustainable mineral extraction abroad. The importance of diplomatic engagement with host countries, stringent environmental regulations and adherence to human rights standards is underscored. Through these practices, Canada can contribute to global resource security, foster sustainable development, and uphold human rights in mineral-rich nations. These priorities align with the nation's commitment to combat climate change and promote ethical mining practices
Smoke Between Neighbours: Measuring the Inter-Provincial Impacts of Wildfires on PM 2.5 Levels
No full textThis paper aims to understand the magnitude of cross-provincial spillovers from wildfire smoke, and the implications of these spillovers on how wildfire management is structured in Canada. Canada’s wildfire management regime is decentralized—with provinces responsible for the majority of wildfire management duties. However, economic theories on decentralization show that, in the presence of inter-jurisdictional spillovers, such a system may not be optimal. If spillover effects are unilateral—one province affects another more than vice versa—then there is reason to have greater centralization. Although there are inefficiencies related to centralization, polycentric theories show that such inefficiencies may be necessary when it comes to emergency management due to the need for resource redundancy. My research uses Distributed Lag Models to determine the impact of wildfire burn area on smoke levels across 22 Canadian municipalities. The results show that, during the wildfire season, approximately 75% of PM 2.5 levels in Canadian municipalities is attributable to cross-border wildfires. Therefore, the impacts of cross-provincial spillovers are not only large, they are greater than intra-provincial wildfires on municipal smoke levels. These results show that wildfire smoke is a matter of national concern, which implicates greater federal responsibility in wildfire management
An Analysis on the Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions on Russian Oil, Specifically the G7+ Price Cap
No full textGiven the economic harm and disruption stemming from the illegal Russian invasion of
Ukraine, this paper aims to analyze the effectiveness of economic sanctions on Russian oil,
specifically the G7+ price cap and import embargo. Past literature on this topic focuses on
the legal framework, economic data and policy process in isolation, whereas this paper
unites these topics for a more holistic understanding and approach. The goals of the policies
in question are to reduce Russian oil revenue and maintain global oil supply. Upon
completing the research, it is clear that the sanction regime and policy is well written, but
increasingly lacking in enforcement as time goes on. This results in lower efficacy meaning
that in spite of high initial reductions to Russian profits, the impact is lessening since policy
implementation on December 5, 2022. However, despite initial concerns, Russian oil
production remains high and even though the price cap is being imposed imperfectly, it is
working. The more Russia sells, the greater the influence of the policy. As time has passed,
Russia has found ways to circumvent the sanctions, further revealing the lack of
enforcement. Nevertheless, overall gains from oil sales are down, world oil demand is
fulfilled, and the policy is negatively affecting Russian finances
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Investigating the heterogeneous effects of temperature on economic growth
Get PDF"This paper investigates the effect of temperature on economic growth on a panel of 156 countries over a 50-year time period. We use random fluctuations in a country's annual average temperature over time as our strategy for identifying the causal effect of temperature on GDP per capita growth. Previous work has found that temperature has a statistically significant relationship with growth when fitting data from all countries with a nonlinear model. We hypothesize that countries with different observable characteristics have differing responses to changes in temperature and we use recursive model partitioning to find data-driven splits in the dataset. We run the model on a number of country-level characteristics and we find that GDP per capita percentile and historical mean temperature are the variables that best fit the data. We divide the countries into four groups: low income - low temperature (20 countries), low income - high temperature (70 countries), high income - low temperature (36 countries), high income - high temperature (33 countries). We obtain different coefficients for the relationship between temperature and growth for each group. We also use agricultural GDP per capita growth as a dependent variable and obtain coefficients for the relationship between temperature and agricultural GDP per capita growth. We compare our results with results obtained from a model that does not have any splits (Burke et. al., 2015). We find that dividing countries into groups using a data-driven method has a significant impact on future projections of GDP per capita growth under different climate change scenarios and how we interpret the effects that changes in average temperatures might have on countries. A model that does not split countries into groups overestimates the gains that low temperature countries might make from rising temperatures and underestimates the ability of high income - high temperature countries to capitalize on the high temperatures that they regularly experience. Our model takes into account adaptations to historical temperatures that countries may have and we find that low temperature countries have lower ""optimum temperatures"" that help them achieve maximum growth and likewise, high temperature countries have higher ""optimum temperatures."" We predict that low income - low temperature countries and high income - low temperature countries are likely to face low growth (1.73 % and 0.00879 % respectively) in the year 2100; low income - high temperature countries will face negative growth (-3.19 %) and high income - high temperature countries will face positive growth (3.16 %)."Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01The student, Qi Qi Amanda Ang, accepted the attached license on 2017-07-20 at 16:39.The student, Qi Qi Amanda Ang, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-07-20 at 16:45.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-07-21 at 10:58.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11564 on 2018-03-02 at 13:03:08Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-02T20:02:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2017-07-21Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 105093
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Agricultural productivity and climate shocks in developing countries
Get PDFThis dissertation contains three chapters studying factors limiting agricultural productivity in developing countries. Climate change is a significant threat for the developing world countries, and agricultural households experience changes in their productive context, forcing them to adapt to the new environment. Governments and international organizations have been coordinating their efforts to reduce and temper the effects of these shocks by investing in infrastructure, in the development of markets and favoring the adoption of new production practices.
The overall goal of this thesis is to understand how weather shocks affect agricultural productivity and how adaptation and mitigation work in the context of climate change. In the first chapter, I compile a novel dataset on irrigation dams to study the role of irrigation on mitigating the effect of climate shocks on civil conflict in Indonesia. In the second chapter, I use a novel combination of primary panel data and crop simulations to decompose farmers’ yield gaps to measure how much of the gap is driven by risk aversion. In the third paper, I study the impact of a demand shock on agricultural inputs markets in Zambia.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2022-05-01The student, Nicolas Gatti, accepted the attached license on 2020-04-28 at 14:02.The student, Nicolas Gatti, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2020-04-28 at 14:09.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2020-04-29 at 13:20.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #15104 on 2020-08-25 at 17:28:27Made available in DSpace on 2020-08-26T23:57:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2020-04-29Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 115745
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Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemAuthor requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Onl
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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