Second Generation Pakistanis in the UK from 1994 to 2005

In spite of being the second largest immigrant group in the United Kingdom, Pakistanis are still one of the most disadvantaged immigrant groups with respect to labour market integration. Hence, dealing with their labour market integration is the first step to improve it. This paper compares second generation Pakistanis in the United Kingdom with their British peers and analyses, whether the gap between the two ethnicities with respect to labour market integration decreased or not. Both groups in the analysis were born in the United Kingdom and possess British nationality. The only difference is the ethnicity; while Pakistanis have Pakistani ethnicity; British people have “white” ethnicity. The analysis covers people whose age are between 18 and 33 years old and compares the time period of December 1993-February 1995 and December 2004-February 2006. To carry out this analysis, I operationalise labour market integration as employment chance and utilise the United Kingdom Quarterly Labour Force Survey data. Empirical findings show that the gap between the labour market integration of second generation Pakistanis and their British peers in the sample did not change significantly from 1994 to 2005.

The Ri chicken breed and livelihoods in North Vietnam: characterization and prospects

For the last twenty years, the consumption of poultry meat has boomed in Vietnam as in the rest of the developing world. Capital-intensive production has grown rapidly to satisfy this demand. Based on a few numbers of genetically uniform strains, these systems threaten biodiversity. In Vietnam, both rural and urban households still keep indigenous chickens as part of a diversified livelihood portfolio. In line with the national in situ conservation strategy, this study approached the context of local poultry keeping in two rural and one suburban districts of Northern Vietnam. It aimed at understanding households’ willingness, constraints and opportunities for practice improvement, including breeds’ management. As the Ri chicken constitutes the large majority of backyard flocks, two particular objectives of this study are the morpho-biometric characterisation of phenotypic diversity among individuals classified as Ri by farmers and an assessment of their productive potential. Chicken was found to hold a different place in livelihoods of the three districts with consequences on the management of genetic resources. The most favourable conditions for improvement of the Ri breed was found in the rural district of Luong-Son, due to market integration. In the more remote district of Ky-Son, living standards were lower and much would be gained from Ri conservation. Ri breed was the most threatened in the suburban Gia-Lam district, where poultry was a minor side-activity, lacking incentive for genetic management. From motives and constraints, tracks about breeding goals are suggested. Further considerations about conservation, improvement, market integration and livelihoods are proposed.

Domestic policy responses to the food price crisis: The case of Bolivia

In face of the global food crisis of 2007-2008, severe concerns arose about how developing countries would be affected by the extreme short-term fluctuations in international commodity prices. We examine the effects of the crisis on Bolivia, one of the poorest countries of the Americas. We focus on the effectiveness of the domestic policy interventions in preventing spillovers of the development of international food prices to domestic markets. Using a cointegration model, we study price interdependencies of wheat flour, sunflower oil and poultry. The analysis suggests that the policy measures taken had little effect on food security during the food crisis. Throughout the entire period, perfect price transmission between the Bolivian poultry and sunflower oil markets and the respective international reference markets existed. Bolivian prices were determined by international prices and the policy interventions in the markets of these two commodities were not found to have had an effect. The government's large-scale wheat flour imports did not shield Bolivian consumers from the shocks of international prices.

How do domestic policies affect the integration of Ethiopian fertiliser markets with world markets?

Frequent shifts in policy on fertiliser markets have occurred in Ethiopia with the aim of facilitating both physical and economic access of farmers to fertiliser. The last shift was the introduction of a monopoly on each stage of the supply chain in 2008. Furthermore, government control of prices and margins as well as stockholding programmes are also present on the markets. This paper evaluates the effect of these policies on the integration of domestic with world markets of fertiliser, using cointegration methods. Time series data of diammonium phosphate (DAP) and urea prices on world, import and retail markets between 1971 and 2012 are used. The findings show high transmission of price signals from world markets to import prices for both DAP and urea. However, between import and retail prices there is no evidence of cointegration for urea, while for DAP full price transmission is concluded. In the retail market, domestic transaction costs associated with storing large volumes of fertiliser act as a buffer between import and retail prices, especially for urea. Therefore, economic benefits could be achieved by reducing the size of stocks and revising the demand estimation process.