A proper security architecture is an essential part of implementing robust and reliable networked applications. Security patterns have shown how reoccurring problems can be best solved with proven solutions. However, while they are critical for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and...

Consumers are in general less informed than producers about the quality of agricultural goods. To reduce the information gap, consumers can rely on standards (labels, certifications, geographic indications) that insure quality and origin of the goods. However, these standards do not always fully...

In this paper, we develop a model of regulation for a set of heterogenous farmers whose production yields to environmental externalities. The goal of the regulator is first to offer some income support depending on collective preferences towards income redistribution and second to internalize...

The clear definition of property rights is not a sufficient condition to prevent congestion effects in commons. In this paper we present how interesting can be the coordination among owners in the preservation of the common good. Our approach takes into account economic dynamics and incentive...

Most of the literature attributes credit constraints in small-farm developing-country agriculture to the variability of returns to investment in this sector. But the literature does not fully explain lenders. reluctance to finance investments in technologies that provide both higher average and...

Project-based mechanisms for emissions reductions credits, like the Clean Development Mechanism, pose important challenges for policy design because of several inherent characteristics. Participation is voluntary. Evaluating reductions requires assigning a baseline for a counterfactual that...

The probability that actors in economic relationships break rules increases with the profits they thus expect to earn. It decreases with the probability and level of short- and long-term losses resulting from disclosure. It also decreases with the level of social context factors and intrinsic...

Commercial bank credit is a useful tool for promoting economic growth especially at the early stages of development. It has been observed that between 1996 and the early part of 2000, the growth rate of real credit to the private sector declined significantly in Namibia. This period coincided...

We study firm reputation as a mechanism to assure product quality in perfectly competitive marketsin a context in which both certification and trademarks are available. Shapiro’s (1983) model ofreputation is extended to reflect both collective and firm-specific reputations, and this framework...

Many conservation programs offer financialcompensation to farmers in exchange for socially desiredservices, such as soil conservation or biodiversity protection.Realization of the conservation objective at minimum costrequires payments to just cover the extra costs incurred byeach individual...