The Impact of Extension and Ecosystem Services on Smallholders’ Credit Constraint.

On formal credit markets, access to formal credit and reasonable credit terms of smallholder farmers
in rural sub-Saharan Africa is limited due to adverse selection. Financial institutions operating in
rural areas often cannot distinguish between borrowers (farmers) that are creditworthy and those that
are not, thus, allocate limited resource to agriculture to reduce credit risk. In the presence of limited business quality signaling by smallholder farmers, financial institutions shall demand for collateral and/or offer unfavorable contract terms. Moreover, agricultural productivity of rural sub-Saharan
Africa, dominated by subsistence or small-scale farmers, is also negatively impacted by the adverse
effect of climate change. A strategy that may make the farming practices of smallholder farmer’s
climate resilient and profitable may also improve smallholder farmer's access to formal credit. This
study investigates to what extent participating in ecosystem and extension services (EES) programs
signals business quality of smallholders, thus granting them credit accessibility. We collected data
on 210 smallholder farmers in 2013, comprising farmers that receive payments for ecosystem
services (PES) and farm management training from the International Small Group Tree Planting
Program (TIST) Kenya to test the aforementioned theory empirically. We use game theory,
particularly a screening and sorting model, to illustrate the prospects for farmers with EES to access
formal credit and to improve their credit terms given that they receive PES and banking services
training. Furthermore, the PES’ long term duration (10 – 30 years) generates stable cash-flow which
may be perceived as collateral substitute. Results suggest that smallholder farmers in the TIST
program were less likely to be credit constraint compared to non-TIST farmers. Distance to market,
education, livestock and farm income are factors that determine access to credit from microfinance
institutions in rural Kenya. Amongst farmers that have obtained loans, those keeping business records
enjoy more favorable formal credit conditions. These farmers were observed to pay ca. 5 percent less
interest rate in microfinance charges. For TIST farmers, this type of farm management practices may
be attributed to the banking services and other training they receive within the program. While the
availability of classical collateral (farmlands) and PES may reduce interest rate, the latter was found
to be statistically insignificant. This research underlines the importance of an effective extension
services in rural areas of developing countries and the need to improve gains from conservation
agriculture and ensuing PES. The benefits associated with EES and PES may encompass agricultural
financing.

Employers, trade unions and concession bargaining in the Irish recession

The issue of concession bargaining between employers and unions during the Great Recession has received little attention in the research literature. This article presents a systematic analysis of the conduct of concession bargaining during the recession in Ireland in the context of three forms of concession bargaining identified in the international literature: integrative concession bargaining, distributive concession bargaining and ultra concession bargaining – each with different but overlapping sets of institutional foundations and implications for employers and trade unions. Drawing on focus groups of managers and union officials and a representative survey of employers, the article shows that distributive concession bargaining has been the predominant form in the Irish recession. This form of concession bargaining is likely to have few lasting direct effects on employer or union roles in collective bargaining but nevertheless appears to have significant indirect implications for the silent marginalization of unions in workplaces.

UK Public Private Partnerships and the Credit Crunch: A Case of Risk Contagion?

During the past twenty years, the UK has relied heavily on Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and especially the Private Finance Initiative in the procurement of infrastructure and services. Discussing the causes of the credit crunch and its effects on PPP, this paper notes that the provision of new public sector infrastructure and related services has been adversely affected by the impact of the credit crunch on Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs). These problems have arisen primarily from the unwillingness of commercial banks to replace collapsed PFI bond financing unless new PFI contracts reduce financial risks; which, in turn, is likely to increase the cost of these projects to the public sector. Additional financial strains have arisen for the UK government from the need to bail out collapsed PFI projects. Overall we find evidence that the UK commitment to PFI has not only increased immediate fiscal pressures on the UK when these have become least palatable, but has also created fiscal vulnerabilities at local and national levels which are likely to hamper the country’s ability to launch counter-cyclical responses to the ongoing crisis.

Socialized credit and the working-class family economy: a comparative history of Britain and France 1900-2000

This paper provides a comparative analysis of working class consumer credit in Britain and France from the early twentieth century through to the 1980s. It indicates a number of similarities between the two nations in the earlier part of the period: in particular, in the operation of doorstep credit systems. For the British case study, we explore consumer finance offered by credit drapers (sometimes known as tallymen) whilst in France the paper explores a similar system that functioned in the coalmining communities around the city of Lens. Both methods operated on highly socialised relationships that established the trust on which credit was offered and long-term creditor/borrower relationships established. In the second part of the paper, we analyse the different trajectories taken in post-war France and Britain in this area of working class credit. In France this form of socialized credit gradually dwindled due to factors such as ‘Bancarisation’, which saw the major banks emerge as modern bureaucratized providers of credit for workers and their families. In contrast, in Britain the tallymen (and other related forms of doorstep credit providers) were offered a new lease of life in the 1960s and 1970s. This was a period during which British credit providers utilised multiple methods to evade the hire purchase controls put in place by post-war governments. Thus, whilst the British experience was one of fragmented consumer loan types (including the continuation of doorstep credit), the French experience (like elsewhere in Europe) was one of greater consolidation. The paper concludes by reflecting on the role of these developments in the creation of differential experiences of credit inclusion/exclusion in the two nations and the impact of this on financial inequality.

Expecting Too Much: European Union’s Minority Protection Hide-and-Seek

EU’s deference to the Member State approaches in minority protection can intensify the oppression of
the vulnerable groups, its insistence on non-discrimination on the basis of nationality in the minority regions with special rights in place can equally produce injustice. Its inability to protect EU-wide minorities, like the Roma, is equally problematic. Although a ‘value’, minority protection functions incoherently, if at all. It is time to approach the EU as a highly specific minority protection arena not to be confused with its component parts – the Member States. The reform of the Member State-centred thinking should start at the level of approaching the core issues. It should include the assessment of such questions as what is a minority in the EU’s context of a missing majority, what is the appropriate depth of EU’s intervention in the area of minority protection, i.e. how much room for manœuvre should reasonably be left with the Member States without disrupting the effectiveness of EU’s regulation, as well as the approach to defining what a success in minority protection should be, in the
EU context. The latter should be done, in particular, with due regard to the division of competences between the EU and the Member States in this and other relevant fields. This paper briefly explores a series of diverse casestudies – from migrant EU citizens, Baltic Russians, and sexual minorities to, most importantly, Roma rights to make the first attempt to test the proposed synergetic approach.