Exogenous, unobserved factors often confound the effects of alliance networks. More capable farmers might be less likely to exit and more likely to have a large number of alliances. In this case the negative correlation between alliance network size and exit likelihood is due to the unobserved...

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors influencing productive activities of the Korean rural elderly. Utilizing data from the 2004 survey "Living Profile and Welfare Service Needs of Older Persons in Korea," this study predicted the productive activities of the rural elderly. All...

It is widely believed that block-rate pricing separates income redistribution from efficiency consideration. We show that social optimum can not be implementable by block-rate pricing. Particularly, block-rate pricing with marginal cost as the highest block induces over production and...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/29/10.

I study the economic consequences of shifting bargaining power in relational contracts through interventions such as the formation of a Bargaining Group (BG) for the side of sellers in a market where buyers traditionally hold significant market power. Existing theories of relational contracts...

A changing world of increasing complexity, fluctuating prices, high energy costs and limited data necessitate creative blending of economic theory and available empirical statistics to understand the welfare impacts in a specific market. In this paper, a programming approach is used in tandem...

This paper evaluates the production and trade trends for maize and maize products in southern Africa, individual countries’ revealed comparative advantages in producing these products, and the expected implications of freer trade in this sector. The analysis employs mainly annual bilateral...

The purpose of this study is to assess and evaluate the most important risks in selected Europeanand international food chains from the perspective of the buying company. The primary objectiveis to identify the “non-acceptable” risks in terms of damage potential and likelihood of...

Based on statistical analyses of the financial data, the study showed that organisational instabilitycharacterised the period under examination. On average, change of ownership or of management, or evenmergers or de-mergers occurred every 3.7 years. The “stable” periods are too short for...

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