The small-scale pepper producers in the El Roble settlement Costa Rica face a monopsonistic market. Only one processing firm is buying the fresh pepper bunches. The processor has all bargaining power to decide on the price paid to the farmers and the quality selection criteria. The rejection...

Costa Rica has been successful in attracting high-tech foreign direct investment (FDI). An aggressive FDI-assisted development strategy was pursued by the country in the 1980s as a response to the economic crisis; yet there are serious concerns about the effectiveness of such strategy from a...

This paper presents an analysis of the contribution of some institutional innovations to a more inclusive growth in the coffee and the palm oil sectors. The paper presents an historical approach, considering the concepts of growth and sustainable development, but specially the notion of...

The classic dual economy models of developing countries hold minimum wages (among other institutions) accountable for persistent dualism. They note that applying or enforcing minimum wage laws in only one sector of the economy will create wage differentials which will not be eroded with labor...

This paper investigates the effects of legal minimum wages on wages, employment, hours worked and monthly earnings among workers covered by minimum wage legislation as well as those for whom it does not apply (the uncovered sector) in Costa Rica. This country’s large uncovered sector and...

Property market forecasts play a crucial role in modern real estate valuation methodologies and, consequently, flawed forecasts can have adverse impacts on the accuracy of valuations. This thesis identifies property industry inconsistencies in the formulation and application of office rent...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Tobin's q value is widely used by financial analysts as a performance indicator ratio. The market value of a firm over the replacement cost of fixed assets and inventory serves as an indication of whether value is created by investing internally in the firm, or whether value is...

The objective of this paper is to assess empirically the impacts of further reform of the CommonAgricultural Policy (CAP) on the agri-food sector in Finland. To meet the objective, aneconometric model for Finnish agriculture - built as a part of the AGMEMOD project - wasutilised. The projection...

This study is Work In Progress and focuses on Phase 1 of the proposed study. Phase 2 will be implemented in spring 2011. The purpose of phase 1 is to introduce ESI (Economic Sentiment Indicator) to the field of tourism demand studies. The proposed study is intended to develop a demand model in...

I argue that household specialization and investment in firm-specific human capital explainthe male marriage premium. First I develop a model of human capital in which to-be-married men invest in human capital over two rounds. The promise of high returns to the second round of investment...