Today, decentralised sewage disposal plants are increasingly accepted as permanent solution in rural areas. However, it is still debated in which cases they are more appropriate than central systems. The following paper deals with technological and institutional aspects of this problem. It poses...

Within the context of transition and pasture reform in Central Asian and Caucasian countries our study focuses on the pasture reform in Azerbaijan. The pasture reform in Azerbaijan has received little attention in scientific literature although it displays a rapid emergence of individualised...

This article draws mostly (but not entirely) on new institutional economics to consider the likely behaviours of non-government conservation organizations and the implications of these behaviours for biodiversity conservation. It considers how institutional factors may result in behaviour of...

This paper examines the effect of labor organization on integrated pest management (IPM), using cross section data collected from a participatory farming system survey of 157 durian growers in Chanthaburi, Thailand, in 2005. In contrast to many studies of IPM adoption, this work uses the form of...

Policies for rural areas have become an important but complex policy field in the European Union`s Common Agricultural Policy. The purpose of this paper is to report on a methodological approach pursued to model the allocation of EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) funds in...

When applying New Institutional Economics (NIE) to empirical studies one is confronted with typical problems of operationalization. To illustrate some of these problems, this paper utilizes a comparative institutional analysis of the German Water and Soil Associations and alternative governance...

The paper uses function analysis to complement the analytical framework Institutions of Sustainability and to apply it for the analysis of the role of institutions for the multifunctionality of landscapes. This combination of conceptual tools is evaluated through their application to the case of...

Die Mehrdimensionalitat des sozialwissenschaftlichen Verstandnisses von Institutionen stellt eine besondere Herausforderung an deren Analyse. Woraus bestehen Institutionen? Die umfangreiche Literatur uber Institutionen bietet mehrere Kategorisierungen an, die uber die analytische Differenzierung...

The Working Paper compiles three contributions of a regional workshop on "Regional Networks in Agriculture" jointly organized by three subprojects of the DFG-Research Group SUTRA. The workshop took place on January 13, 2005 in Bad Liebenwerda in the district (Landkreis) Elbe-Elster in the German...

In human geography the concepts of regional branch clusters have become increasingly important. In these concepts firms of the same or related supply chains work together and cooperate in networks of the same regional, cultural and social background. According to their regional proximity, firms...