8,987 research outputs found
Reforming Cote d'Ivoire's cocoa marketing and pricing system
No full textCote d'Ivoire has historically taxed cocoa producers. Market reforms over the past 10 years have somewhat succeeded in making domestic and foreign marketing more transparent and competitive. But they have not done much to raise producer prices in real terms or as a share of the FOB (free on board) price. Maintaining fixed producer prices and marketing costs and margins has encouraged rent-seeking and led to efficiency losses. New reform will fully liberalize the country's export marketing system by eliminating public management of exports. This means the end of mandatory export authorization, of public forward sales, and of fixed minimum producer prices and marketing margins. The new reform is expected to improve producers'incomes. The authors find that the benefits from the new reform (in terms of lower implicit taxes, lower marketing costs and margins, and higher producer prices) will outweigh the costs from eliminating public forward sales and fixed producer prices. Results from a general equilibrium model indicate that reducing export taxes would have a small negative effect on aggregate income but would improve income distribution for poorer rural areas. The fact that Cote d'Ivoire has market power in the world cocoa market justifies a higher optimal export tax than the current one. But raising export taxes may eventually reduce its market share and worsen income distribution, at the expense of the poorer rural sector.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Labor Policies,Consumption,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies
Teacher-nonteacher pay differences in Cote d'Ivoire
No full textBecause base salaries for teachers in Cote d'Ivoire are higher than wages of workers in other occupations, there is some question about whether teachers are overpaid. This paper used multivariate analysis based on the monthly wage rate functions to investigate the differences between teachers andother occupations. It was found that the base salaries for teachers contained an economic rent component, largely due to the wage setting behaviour of the Ivorian government. This salary premium disappears, however, when the total renumeration package is considered, i.e. including in-kind benefits, bonuses and commissions, which are more widely received by non-teachers. Policymakers should thus be cautious when considering budget cuts that would lower teachers salaries, cuts certain to make the teaching profession less attractive.Teaching and Learning,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Girls Education,Skills Development and Labor Force Training
Rent-sharing, hold-up, and manufacturing wages in Cote d'Ivoire
No full textLabor costs in Francophone Africa are considered high by the standards of low-income countries, at least in the formal sector. Are they a brake on industrialization, or the result of successful enterprise development? Are they imposed on firms by powerful unions, or government regulations, or a by-product of good firm performance? The authors empirically analyze what determines manufacturing wages in Cote d'Ivoire, using an unbalanced panel of individual wages that allows them to control for observable firm-specific effects. They test the rent-sharing, and hold-up theories of wage determination, as well as some aspects of efficiency-wage theories. Their results lean in favor of both rent-sharing, and hold-up, suggesting that workers have some bargaining power, and that in Cote d'Ivoire workers can force renegotiation of labor contracts, in response to new investments.Economic Theory&Research,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences
Dairy Market Participation with Endogenous Livestock Ownership: Evidence from Cote d'Ivoire
No full textThis study evaluates determinants of dairy market participation by agricultural households in Cote dIvoire by using the Heckman selection model to correct for endogenous cattle ownership. A key result is that ignoring the population of non-owners biases estimates of market participation parameters. These findings are important in light of the widespread application of livestock market participation analyses that assume cattle ownership is exogeneous.Cote dIvoire, dairy, endogenous adoption, Heckman selection model, market participation, Livestock Production/Industries,
Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Cote d’Ivoire
No full textDistorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,
The use of the Hopfield neural network to measure sea-surface velocities from satellite images
No full textThe knowledge of ocean surface circulation is of major
importance for many applications, including the understanding
of global climate, resources exploitation, and containment of
chemical spills. In this letter, sea-surface feature tracking based
on the Hopfield neural network (NN) is described. The method is
based on the minimization of an energy function that represents
the feature tracking problem. A Hopfield NN is used to merge
cross-correlation information with prior knowledge of sea-surface
flows and image contextual information. It has been tested on
real satellite images. A set of five Advanced Very High Resolution
Radiometer thermal images of the coastal zone of California, along with a data set of coincident surface drifters positions, was used to test the method. Results of the new analysis are compared within situ data and previous results using other techniques. The method can be used on various kinds of images for tracking and also find other applications in image registration and pattern recognition
Criteria to Evaluate the Quality of Outcome Reporting in Randomized Controlled Trials of Rehabilitation Interventions
No full textNo standardized guideline for the reporting of outcomes measures in randomized controlled trials of rehabilitation interventions is currently available. This study includes four phases to identify, synthesize, and make recommendations for potential attributes of reporting criteria of outcome measures in rehabilitation randomized controlled trials. First, we surveyed the author instructions for rehabilitation journals to determine how journals require authors to report outcomes. Second, we reviewed all consolidated standards of reporting trials extensions to determine how other speciality groups require reporting of outcomes in randomized controlled trials. Third, we conducted a focused scoping review to examine the nature and variations of criteria used to evaluate the quality of outcome measures in randomized controlled trials. Finally, we synthesized the information from phases 1-3 and propose four criteria specific to the reporting of outcomes in randomized controlled trials of rehabilitation interventions: (1) clearly describe the construct to be measured as outcome(s); (2) justify the selection of outcome measures by mapping to World Health Organization International Classification of Function, Disability, and Health (International Classification of Functioning) framework; justify the psychometric properties (relevance, validity, reliability) of the selected measurement tool; (3) clearly describe the timing of outcome measurement, with consideration of the health condition, the course of disease, and hypothesized effect of intervention; and (4) complete and unselective reporting of outcome data
The welfare effects of private sector participation in Guinea's urban water supply
No full textIn 1989 the government of Guinea enacted far-reaching reform of its water sector, which had been dominated by a poorly run public agency. The government signed a lease contract for operations and maintenance with a private operator, making a separate public enterprise responsible for ownershipof assets and investment. Although based on a successful model that had operated in Cote d'Ivoire for nearly 30 years, the reform had many highly innovative features. It is being transplanted to several other developing countries, so the authors evaluate its successes and failures in the early years of reform. They present standard performance measures and results from a cost-benefit analysis to assess reform's net effect on various stakeholders in the sector. They conclude that, compared with what might have been expected under continued public ownership, reform benefited consumers, the government, and, to a lesser extent, the foreign owners or the private operator. Most sector performance indicators improved, but some problems remain. The three most troublesome areas are water that is unaccounted for (there are many illegal connections and the quality of infrastructure is poor), poor collection rates, and high prices. The weak institutional environment makes it difficult to improve collection rates, but the government could take some steps to correct the problem. To begin with, it could pay its own bills on time. Also, the legislature could authorize the collection of unpaid bills from private individuals.Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Water Conservation,Town Water Supply and Sanitation
Transvenous cardiac pacing
No full textAT: Critical Care; RE: 25 ref.; SC: 0I; ZA; VE; CASource type: Electronic(1) http://upei-resolver.asin-risa.ca?sid=SP:CABI&id=pmid:&id=&issn=1096-2867&isbn=&volume=15&issue=3&spage=165&pages=165-176&date=2000&title=Clinical%20Techniques%20in%20Small%20Animal%20Practice&atitle=Transvenous%20cardiac%20pacing.&aulast=Cote&pid=%3Cauthor%3ECote%2c%20E%3bLaste%2c%20N%20J%3C%2Fauthor%3E%3CAN%3E20003034042%3C%2FAN%3E%3CDT%3EJournal%20article%3C%2FDT%3
KIPs Literature Review
No full textLiterature review for KIP's programme reviewing recent literature related to remote sensing in 5 categories including Biodiversity, Biomass Sequestration, Carbon Emissions, Hydrology and Nutrient Emissions
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