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Rotating Saving and Credit Associations in Cameroon: Contractual arrangements between members
No full textThe dissertation examines an informal financial institution in Cameroon: the Rotating Saving and Credit Association. Its describes the operational procedures. RoSCAs are associations formed by a core of individuals who willingly and regularly contribute periodically a fixed or variable amount to a fund which is awarded according to the random or bidding allocations to a sub-set of members in rotation. Its provides an atheoretical evaluation of default in Cameroonian RoSCAs. RoSCAs with large membership sizes and which operate an informal insurance fund experience more partial defaults than otherwise. RoSCAs which take place at variable location experience less defaults than RoSCAs at fix locations. Its attempts to compute the interest rates in bidding RoSCAs and highlights the determinants of the bids. Finally, RoSCAs are modeled in a dynamic stochastic framework. In the calibrated economy, it is proven that there are membership size and contribution in RoSCAs where, on average members derive ex-ante, less utility than if they would living in autarky. There are optimal membership sizes and contribution in which members derive more utility than any other RoSCA. Finally, poor members benefit relatively more from participating in RoSCAs than wealthy members.Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:51:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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ELLIPTICAL SYMMETRY, EXPECTED UTILITY, AND MEAN-VARIANCE ANALYSIS
Get PDFMean-variance analysis in the form of risk programming has a long, productive history in agricultural economics research. And risk programming continues to be used despite well known theoretical results that choices based on mean-variance analysis are not consistent with choices based on expected utility maximization. This paper demonstrates that the multivariate distribution of returns used in risk programming must be elliptically symmetric in order for mean-variance analysis to be consistent with expected utility choices. Then a statistical test for elliptical symmetry is developed and demonstrated. This test enables researchers to determine when data will produce significant differences between risk programming choices and expected utility choices
Uptake of Improved Technologies in the Semi-arid Tropics of West Africa: Why is Agricultural Transformation Lagging Behind?
Get PDFDuring the last 3 decades, donors and governments have invested in the development and dissemination of new technologies in the semi-arid tropics of West Africa. Though a wide range of improved technologies has been developed, adoption remains low without a significant impact on crop productivity, rural income and poverty. Agricultural transformation as occurred in East Asia has not yet occurred in the semi-arid tropics of West Africa. This paper uses data from a regional survey of rural households in 3 countries in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger) to identify the determinants of uptake of improved technologies. Limited productivity gain is found to be a major constraint to the uptake of technologies. In addition, poorly functioning institutions, lack of information or poor exposure of farmers to agricultural innovations, and poor functioning or missing markets have also hindered the uptake of many new technologies.institutions, technology, markets, road infrastructure, information, agricultural productivity, International Development,
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
TOWARD UNDERSTANDING HOUSEHOLD PREFERENCE FOR MILLET VARIETIES IN THE WEST AFRICAN SEMI-ARID TROPICS
Get PDFIn this study, we evaluate the preference of consumers in Niger for different tuwo or couscous characteristics using conjoint analysis. Data were collected through a structured survey administered at 4 sites. Preferences are estimated for three products (couscous, fermented tuwo and nonfermented tuwo) made from 5 pearl millet cutivars. We provide relative valuation for different traits by type of product. Results show that product taste, visual characteristics, and textural attributes are important. The different valuation of characteristics across products and ethnic groups, however, suggests that signals regarding preferences may be very noisy. Consequently, it might be difficult to design pearl millet improvement programs, or food processing programs that are broadly acceptable
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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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