Rural development is a veritable tool for fighting poverty and achieving economic prosperity at the grassroots level. The concept of rural development embraced by most countries connotes a process through which rural poverty is alleviated by sustained increases in the productivity and incomes of...

The advocation of micro – financing was triggered by the poor performance of the conventional finance sector. The essence was to reach the overwhelming population of the poor to assist in the drive to alleviate poverty. Barely a million had been provided with some credit in Nigeria while a...

The study investigated the allocative efficiency among Fadama Fluted pumpkin farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. It specifically sought to analyze the Farmers’ socio-economic profile; estimate their allocative efficiency as well as its determinants. A multistage random sample of 120 Fadama Fluted...

The study examined the productivity growth in food crop production in Imo State with emphasis on the decomposition of total factor productivity into technical progress, changes in technical and allocative efficiency and scale effects. A panel data set comprising 210 observations drawn over 2001...

The study examined the Relative Efficiency of Small and Medium Scale Agribusiness Enterprises in Imo state, Nigeria using the stochastic translog profit function approach. A multi-stage and simple random sampling technique were used in selecting four hundred eighty enterprises (240 each from...

Several recent papers argue that contracts provide reference points that affect ex post behavior. We test this hypothesis in a canonical buyer-seller relationship with renegotiation. Our paper provides causal experimental evidence that an initial contract has a highly significant and...

We present an international trade model with multiproduct firms. Firms are heterogeneously endowed with two types of capabilities that jointly determine the trade-off within firms between managing a large portfolio of products and producing at low marginal cost. The model can explain many of the...

This paper reports data from a laboratory experiment on two-period moral hazard problems. The findings corroborate the contract-theoretic insight that even though the periods are technologically unrelated, due to incentive considerations principals can benefit from offering long-term contracts...