The worsening degradation of natural resources urgently requires the adoption of more sustainable management practices. This need has led to growing interest and investment in monitoring systems for tracking the condition of natural resources. This study is concerned with the design of...

Costa Rican coffee farmers are almost fully exposed to world price variability. Yet, despite small farm sizes, specialization in coffee, and a marketing system that prolongs uncertainty and aggravates cash flow problems, this study finds that most farmers still manage their price risks...

"Production systems in low-income developing countries are generally poorly diversified, focusing on rainfed staple crop production and raising livestock. These activities are inherently risky and investment and production decisions by farm households are therefore made within environments that...

This paper considers supply decisions by firms in a dynamic setting with adjustment costs and compares the behavior of an optimal control model to that of a rule-based system which relaxes the assumption that agents are explicit optimizers. In our approach, the economic agent uses believably...

In this study, an economywide model focused on Morocco's rural economy is used as a laboratory for analyzing issues at the core of such a rural development strategy.The model is used to explore the effects of alternative scenarios for water tariffs and sales, and supply-side advances (irrigation...

There is rising skepticism about the potential positive environmental impacts of first generation biofuels. Growing biofuel crops could induce diversion of other crops dedicated to food and feed needs. The relocation of production could increase deforestation and bring significant new volumes of...

South Africa's high involuntary unemployment and small informal sector are attributed to an underperforming formal sector and barriers to entry in the informal sector. This paper examines the economywide linkages between the formal and informal economies while accounting for different types of...

The Agreement on South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) entered its second phase of implementation in 2008. The creation of a free trade area is expected to affect its participants—Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—very differently given their diversity in...

From chronic shortages of milk, India has emerged today as the largest producer of milk in the world crossing 80 million tonnes. This has been achieved largely through a smallholder economy in which "Operation Flood", one of the world's largest dairy development programmes, played an important...

"This paper is a description and an analysis of trade liberalization under CAFTA. It shows that in the short run the impact of the agreement is likely to be small... Since the U.S. already grants tariff-free access under the CBI, trade liberalization in the CAFTA treaty appears to be asymmetric,...