This paper proposes a new concept of rural development in an uncertain world. The nature of risk and uncertainty is discussed and risk management is defined as a positive model of economic and social behaviour. Some relevant paradigms for rural development are briefly reviewed and evaluated...

Rural development was traditionally associated with agriculture. The policy shift towards integrated rural development reflects the complex linkages and interactions within the system of overall rural development. Putting too much emphasis on agriculture and ignoring its linkages to the rest of...

The standard Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) approach to investigating the underlying dynamics of economic variables assumes a constant co-integration space. This paper relaxes this assumption by implementing a regime switching VECM that allows for shifts in both the drift and the long-run...

The expected utility approach to decision making advocates a probability vision of the world and labels any deviation from it ‘irrational’. This paper reconsiders the rationality argument and argues that calculating risks is not a viable strategy in an uncertain world. Alternative strategies...

The paper discusses some of the problems of subsistence agriculture in countries in transition and proposes a methodology for analysis. It demonstrates that approaches which ignore the dualistic agriculture structure cannot provide consistent estimates of the behavioural parameters of the total...

The paper demonstrates the effects that the largely ignored, phenomenon of subsistence farming can have on agricultural development in countries in transition. The problem of subsistence consists of the different economic behaviour of subsistence farms compared to commercial ones. The paper...

When analysing food consumption data a number of problems arise when one departs from the comparative statics of conventional demand theory. Two of these properties, non-linearity and non-stationarity present a major challenge for econometric modelling. A new method for time series analysis,...

In line with recent suggestions about the potential positive effects of subsistence agriculture in fragile economies, this paper discusses and explains the effects of subsistence agriculture with emphasis on transition countries. Some micro-economic models of subsistence agriculture are reviewed...

In most countries of Central and Eastern Europe the process of transition to market economy resulted in an increasingly subsistence type of agriculture. The extent of subsistence farming varies from one country to another, but the phenomenon is universally present. The very existence, yet...