83 research outputs found
TURKMENISTAN'S NEW PRIVATE FARMERS: THE EFFECT OF HUMAN CAPITAL ON PERFORMANCE
No full textAlmost all former socialist countries are introducing private farming as part of land reform. In countries where such farming existed one or two generations ago, land might be restituted to former owners. In Turkmenistan, where there had been little private agriculture and no small landowners, land was distributed to new beneficiaries. This paper shows that the previous position of the new farm “owners” strongly affected what resources they had (land, capital, water) and how effectively they used them. The study is based on a survey conducted in 2000 on a sample of 143 farmers from Turkmenistan’s all five administrative regions. The farmers were divided for analysis into five categories, according to previous positions (managers, middle-level specialists, skilled and unskilled workers, and administrative staff). On the average, all categories of farmers turned a profit. However, the most successful were the middle-level specialists (agronomists, engineers). They had the largest plots, the best land, and the best-equipped farms. Like the managers and the administrative staff, they had savings, some of which they used as startup capital. They diversified their production more than others, and were better able to obtain credit. Former unskilled workers were the least successful, lacking capital, and unable to afford risks, thus growing only wheat and cotton at the expense of other crops and of livestock. Earlier studies have shown that former position affected the share of resources received by individuals in the ex Soviet Union. In addition to confirming the finding, we have shown that former position also affected the use of those resources, and the economic performance of the users. Unfortunately, the sample size was small, and our conclusions remain thus tentative.Farm Management,
Bifurcations of equilibria in DNA elasticity
No full textDNA molecules in the familiar double helical B form are treated here as though they have rod-like structures obtained by stacking the
nearly planar base pairs comprising them one on top of another with each rotated by approximately one-tenth of a full turn with respect
to its immediate predecessor in the stack. As each base in a base pair is attached to the sugar-phosphate backbone chain of one of the
two DNA strands that have come together to form the Watson-Crick structure, and each phosphate group in a backbone chain bears one electronic charge, two such charges are associated with each base pair. Thus, each base pair is subject to not only the elastic forces and moments exerted on it by its neighboring base pairs but also to remote electrostatic forces that, because they are only partially screened out by positively charged counter ions, can render the molecule's equilibrium configurations sensitive to changes in the concentration c of salt in the medium.
The observation that the step from one base pair to the next can be one of several distinct types, each having its own mechanical properties that depend on the nucleotide composition of the step, and the assumption that a base pair is rigid, led to the development of a theory of sequence dependent DNA elasticity [Coleman, Olson, and Swigon, J. Chem. Phys. 118 ,7127-7140, (2003)]. The theory of DNA molecules in aqueous solution developed here is based on but goes beyond that theory. It takes into account the intramolecular electrostatic interactions of the negatively charged phosphate groups in the molecule and the impenetrability of the DNA molecule for cases in which the
electrostatic repulsive forces do not suffice to avoid self penetration. The theory permits one to calculate equilibrium configurations, to determine their stability, and to study the dependence of them on salt concentration and on all kinds of end conditions.
When the intramolecular electrostatic forces are taken into account, the equations of mechanical equilibrium for a DNA molecule with N+1 base pairs are a system of mu*N non-linear equations, where mu, the number of kinematical variables describing the relative displacement and orientation of adjacent base pairs is in general 6; it reduces to 3 when base-pair steps are assumed to be inextensible and non-shearable. An efficient numerically stable computational scheme is here presented for
solving those equations and determining the mechanical stability of the calculated equilibrium configurations. That scheme is employed to compute and analyze bifurcation diagrams in which c is the bifurcation parameter and to show that, for an intrinsically curved molecule, small changes in c can have a strong effect on stable
equilibrium configurations. Cases are presented in which self-contact must be taken into account even though the intramolecular electrostatic forces of repulsion are strong.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-110)
LAMENTATIONS D’UN PATRIARCHISTE : ANALYSE D’AH ! LES FEMMES… D’ISAÏE BITON KOULIBALY COMME UNE RÉPLIQUE AUX ÉCRITS FEMINISTES
No full textThe French-language novel of Black Africa is characterised by an abundance of women\u27s literature, in which men are often presented as the main oppressors of women. In most of these works, men are vilified, blamed and held responsible for the subaltern, oppressed and submissive condition of women. These black women writers denounce patriarchy as a system that perpetuates the inferiorisation and marginalisation of women. In this context, this article argues that Isaïe Biton Koulibaly\u27s collection of short stories, Ah! Les femmes, is a response to African feminist narratives. Its main aim is to absolve men of any guilt while highlighting women\u27s shortcomings, both in the marital sphere and beyond. By focusing on patriarchy as a starting point, we show that the short stories in Ah! Les femmes... are a pretext for arguing for the return of patriarchy. The author seems to illustrate, through her short stories that African women are irredeemably flawed and therefore undeserving of the privileges they enjoy in contemporary Africa. Through the author\u27s work, it is clear that there is a desire to restore the retrograde patriarchal ideology, a system vigorously opposed by African feminist activists in their writings. It is concluded that writers, both men and women, should give priority to promoting gender complementarity in their works rather than adopting partisan positions.
Résumé Le roman francophone d’Afrique noire se caractérise par une production littéraire féminine foisonnante, où l’homme est souvent présenté comme le principal oppresseur des femmes. Dans la plupart de ces œuvres, il est diffamé, culpabilisé et tenu responsable de la condition subalterne, opprimée et soumise des femmes. Ces écrivaines noires dénoncent le patriarcat comme un système perpétuant l’infériorisation et la marginalisation des femmes. Dans ce contexte, cet article soutient que le recueil de nouvelles, Ah ! Les femmes d’Isaïe Biton Koulibaly constitue une réponse aux récits féministes africains. Son objectif principal est de dédouaner l’homme de toute culpabilité tout en mettant en lumière les défauts des femmes, aussi bien dans la sphère conjugale qu’au-delà. En se focalisant sur le patriarcat comme réflexion de base, nous démontrons que les nouvelles dans Ah ! Les femmes … sont un prétexte pour plaider le retour du patriarcat. L’auteur semble illustrer, à travers ses nouvelles, que les femmes africaines portent des défauts irrémédiables et par la suite, ne méritent pas les privilèges dont elles jouissent en Afrique contemporaine. A travers l’œuvre de l’auteur, il apparait clairement une volonté de restaurer l’idéologie patriarcale rétrograde, un système vigoureusement combattu par les activistes féministes africaines dans leurs écrits. Il est conclu que les écrivains, hommes comme femmes, devraient privilégier la promotion de la complémentarité des genres dans leurs œuvres plutôt que d’adopter des positions partisanes
PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY OF SMALL AND LARGE FARMS IN MOLDOVA
No full textThe paper presents a comparative analysis of the productivity of small and large farms in Moldova based primarily on cross-section data from three farm surveys conducted by the World Bank and USAID in 2000 and 2003. The survey data are supplemented where feasible with time series from official national-level statistics. We calculate partial land and labor productivity, total factor productivity, and technical efficiency scores (using Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis algorithms) for the two categories of small individual farms and large corporate farms. Our results demonstrate with considerable confidence that small individual farms in Moldova are more productive and more efficient than large corporate farms. This finding is not restricted to Moldova, as a similar result has been obtained by other authors in Russia (2005) and in the U.S. (2002), where a recent study has found that an increase of farm size reduces, rather than increases, agricultural productivity. Policies encouraging a shift from large corporate farms to smaller individual farms, rather than the reverse, can be expected to produce beneficial results for Moldovan agriculture and the economy in general. The government of Moldova should abandon its inherited preference for large-scale corporate farms and concentrate on policies to improve the operating conditions for small individual farms. At the very least, the government should ensure a level playing field for farms of all sizes and organizational forms, and desist from biasing its policies in favor of large farms.family farms, corporate farms, comparative performance, technical efficiency, total factor productivity, agrarian reforms, transition countries, Farm Management, D24, J24, P27, P31, P32, Q12, Q15, R14,
IRRIGATION PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS WITH WATER-CAPITAL SUBSTITUTION
No full textThe dynamics of biomass growth implies that the yield of irrigated crops depends, in addition to the total amount of water applied, on irrigation scheduling during the growing period. Advanced irrigation technologies relax constraints on irrigation rates and timing, allowing to better adjust irrigation scheduling to the varying needs of the plants along the growing period. Irrigation production functions, then, should include capital (or expenditures on irrigation equipment) in addition to aggregate water. We derive such functions and study their water-capital substitution properties. Implications for water demand and adoption of irrigation technologies are investigated. An empirical application confirms these properties.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
DUALITY OF FARM STRUCTURE IN TRANSITION AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF MOLDOVA
No full textThe duality of farm structure in Moldova is manifested by the existence of a relatively small number of large corporate farms at one extreme and a very large number of small and very small family farms at the other. “Medium-sized” family farms, the backbone of any market agriculture, virtually do not exist in Moldova. Moldovan agriculture is characterized by a much greater concentration of land in large farms than agriculture in market economies. The small individual farms on the whole are more productive and more efficient than the large corporate farms. They produce higher incomes for rural families than corporate farms. The main conclusion of the paper is that land should be allowed to flow from large corporate farms to small family farms through the medium of land markets until an equilibrium is established between the two farm sectors at a new level closer to that observed in market economies.farm structure, efficiency, productivity, land fragmentation, land concentration, farm size, Moldova, Farm Management, Productivity Analysis,
DEATH (MACHINES) AND TAXES
No full textIn the defense policy literature, it is widely believed that there is a pronounced bias towards the procurement of a less than optimal number of excessively sophisticated weapons. In this paper, we consider the possibility that this perceived bias is the result of the timing and informational structure of defense procurement decisions, and the inter-relationship of this structure with overall fiscal policy. Specifically, this paper presents a model that suggests that tax smoothing considerations of the type first articulated in Barro (1979) could lead social welfare maximizing decision makers to choose a higher level of weapon quality than would be optimal if government revenue could be raised without resort to distortionary taxation.Defense procurement, Weapon quality, Tax smoothing, Public Economics, H57,
AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE IN THE TRANSITION FROM SOCIALIST COLLECTIVE FARMING
No full textCooperative enterprise has appeal as a means of filling gaps in the economic institutions of the rural sectors of the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. But in addition to problems that have faced cooperatives in the West because of their inherent characteristics, the Soviet-era legacy created cultural burdens that cooperatives will have to overcome. A review of countries’ experiences since 1989 indicates some commonalities in attempts to create “new cooperatives,” but also instructive differences across countries. The evidence so far is unfavorable for cooperatives in agricultural production. In marketing and input supply the current situation is more promising. In both production and marketing, the economic institutions remain in flux. Unique approaches involving cooperatives may take permanent root, but their long-term prospects are in doubt.Agribusiness,
DOES LAND REFORM IN TRANSITION COUNTRIES INCREASE CHILD LABOR? EVIDENCE FROM THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA
No full textThis paper investigates the issue of child labor in the context of land reforms in transition economies, using farm household data from the Republic of Georgia. The results show that an increase in landholdings as an outcome of the land reform can, in the presence of market imperfections, lead to an increase in child labor. This is because the increased demand for labor on the family farm is stronger than the wealth effect generated by the land reform. However, this result is not uniform across farm families. First, it is only relevant for boys, because girls tend to assist in household activities rather than in farm work. Second, larger households are able to meet the increased demand for farm labor without the need for additional child labor. To the extent that smaller households tend to be poorer, it is mostly the poor households that sacrifice the future wellbeing of their male children in order to satisfy current needs. In this sense, the land reform may lead to a higher rural inequality in the long run. The policy implications are that land reforms in transition countries should include, as an integral ingredient, the development of rural land, labor and credit markets, in order to avoid the repercussions associated with increased child labor.Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use,
TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY IN RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE
No full textFor decades, Russian agriculture had had little technological progress and virtually no foreign investment, which resulted in a stable production possibilities frontier and made the sector ideally suited to production function analysis. The production function estimations reported in Chapters 10-13 add to a series of previous studies of the input/output relationship in Russian agriculture (e.g., Clayton, 1980, 1984; Gray, 1981; Johnson and Brooks, 1983), which generally followed the same methodology. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, however, the average response production functions gave way in the economics literature to more sophisticated production analysis techniques that measured not only productivity but technical efficiency as well (Aigner, et al., 1977; Bauer, 1990). Some of the major methodological advances in applying technical efficiency analysis to individual firms were made by a joint Russian-American team in Moscow in the early 1980s (Jondrow, et al., 1982; Danlin et al., 1985), but lack of data for many sectors of the Russian economy precluded the application of this technique until the end of the decade. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the initial optimistic expectation was that many sectors of the new Russian economy could rapidly achieve both higher productivity and higher technical efficiency once market forces prevailed. Our research attempts to understand why this has not happened in Russian agriculture in terms of technical efficiency.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,
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