125,600 research outputs found
Agricultural transformation: Lessons from experience
No full textIt is now fifteen years ago that the Berlin Wall fell, the start of a vast set of changes throughout the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Reforms in the Communist world had started earlier further east: first in China in the late 1970s and in Vietnam in the mid 1980s. The changes affected society in a multitude of ways. They affected the way the political and economic system operated but also the social organization of society, the psychology of the people living in the countries, and the culture of day-to-day life. In this essay I focus on how these changes affected the rural economy and the agricultural and food sector. I will discuss developments and performances of the countries during transition, the causes behind them, and the policy lessons they imply. My analysis relies heavily on work I have done with various co-authors on these issues and I refer to these publications for details on some of the issues and arguments which I will forward here somewhat too brief to do justice to their complexity. For more detailed arguments and analyses I refer in particular to Rozelle and Swinnen (2004) and Macours and Swinnen (2000, 2002).Political Economy,
Beer Drinking Nations. The Determinants of Global Beer Consumption.
No full textIn this paper we analyze the evolution of beer consumption between countries and over time. Historically, there have been major changes in beer consumption in the world. In recent times, per capita consumption has decreased in traditional " beer drinking nations" while it increased strongly in emerging economies. Recently, China has overtaken the US as the largest beer economy. A quantitative empirical analysis shows the relationship between income and beer consumption has an inverse U-shape. Beer consumption initially increases with rising incomes, but at higher levels of income beer consumption falls. Increased openness to trade and globalization has contributed to a convergence in alcohol consumption patterns across countries. In countries that were originally "beer drinking nations", the share of beer in total alcohol consumption reduced while this is not the case in countries which traditionally drank mostly wine or spirits. Climatic conditions, religion, and relative prices also influence beer consumption.
Powered exoskeletons for walking in multiple sclerosis
No full textFeys, P (corresponding author), Hasselt Univ, Fac Rehabil Sci, REVAL Rehabil Res Ctr, Agoralaan Gebouw A, B-500 Hasselt, Belgium.
[email protected]
Policy Reform and Agricultural Adjustment in Transition Countries
No full textAfter the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 1980s, dramatic institutional and economic reforms took place in countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Agriculture was dramatically affected by these changes in policies. There are significant differences among reform policies in transition. However, most implemented substantial reforms in price and trade policies; privatization of property rights of land, farms, and agri-food businesses; and reforms of the institutions governing exchange. In this paper, we review key reforms and adjustments and discuss the causes of the differences between countries. In most cases changes in output, input use, and productivity were caused by a combination of initial conditions and reform policies. These interactions are particularly important in understanding the changes in productivity and labor adjustment patterns.Agricultural and Food Policy,
Globalization, Privatization, and Vertical Coordination in Food Value Chains in Developing and Transition Countries
No full textFood and agricultural commodity value chains in developing and transition countries have undergone tremendous changes in the past decades. Companies and property rights have been privatized, markets liberalized, and economies integrated into global food systems. The liberalization and privatization initially caused the collapse of state controlled vertical integration. More recently, private vertical coordination systems have emerged and are growing rapidly as a response to consumer demand for food quality and safety on the one hand and the farms' production constraints caused by factor market imperfections. In this paper we (a) demonstrate the importance of these changes, (b) discuss the implications for efficiency and equity and (c) provide empirical evidence on the effects in several developing and transition countries.Industrial Organization,
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
From Public to Private Governance in the Food Supply Chains of Emerging Economies
No full textFood and agricultural commodity value chains in developing and transition countries have undergone tremendous changes in the past decades. Companies and property rights have been privatized, markets liberalized, and economies integrated into global food systems. The liberalization and privatization initially caused the collapse of state-controlled vertical integration. More recently, private vertical coordination systems have emerged and are growing rapidly as a response to consumer demand for food quality and safety on the one hand and the farms' production constraints caused by factor market imperfections. In this paper we (a) demonstrate the importance of these changes, (b) discuss the implications for efficiency and equity and (c) provide empirical evidence on the effects in several developing and transition countries.Agricultural and Food Policy, Industrial Organization,
Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
No full textDistorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe 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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