A collection of eighteen articles have been purposely chosen to demonstrate the development of the original and significant contributions of my research over the period 1990 to 2008. Despite the relatively large number of articles, which cover a range of related issues, there is a surprisingly...

This paper offers an explanation for variations in the effectiveness of trade unions to obtain legislative and policy concessions in peak-level tripartite negotiations in post-communist East Central Europe. I examine the usefulness of some standard interpretations for such variations, namely...

Mit zunehmender Globalisierung, nicht zuletzt auch seit den Erweiterungen der Europäischen Union sehen sich Konsumenten mit einer Fülle an Produkten aus einer Vielzahl an Ländern konfrontiert. Doch nicht nur auf Endabnehmer wirken sich diese Veränderung aus, auch gewerbliches Kaufverhalten...

While there is a growing literature that examines the issue of cointegration (co-movement over the long run) among health expenditures, there are no studies that examine the issue of common cycles (co-movement over the short run) among health expenditures. We undertake a multivariate variance...

As one of the measures to smooth income, this paper focuses on the diversification of labor allocation across activities. A key feature of this paper is that it pays particular attention to differences in the covariance between weather risk and agricultural wages and between weather risk and...

During the 2004 food crisis in Niger, the weakness of the main production system, millet, to produce enough food to sustain short term crises, has been revealed. Questions arise how the Nigerian smallholder systems can be assisted by research and development policies to intensify production and...

This study evaluates the welfare implications of tariff reforms in the cereals sector of the SADC region. Applying the global simulation model (GSIM), a multi-country partial equilibrium model, to the cereals industries of thirteen SADC countries, the study computes price and welfare effects of...

In most developing countries, historically, the main strategy for improving the food sector has focused on increasing farm-level production. But in recent years, with the emphasis on value chain analysis, there has been much more focus on subsector studies, demand-driven approaches, and...

There is a strong linkage between the behavior of the rice market and the state of food security inmany regions around the world, particularly in Asia, as made evident in the 2007-08 commoditycrisis. Rice is a staple for the majority of the population in Asia, where roughly 60% of the close...