Stigma, social relationship and HIV testing in the workplace : evidence from South Africa

This paper explores whether a worker's unwillingness to make his/her HIV-positive status or test-taking experience known by colleagues impedes his/her decision to test for HIV. After analyzing the new survey data provided by employees working for a large multinational enterprise in South Africa (2009-2010), this study finds that this unwillingness is negatively associated with test-taking (at the enterprise's on-site clinic) of workers who are extensively networked with close colleagues (i.e., know their phone numbers). It appears that the expected disutility associated with HIV/AIDS-related stigma prohibits test uptake. When introducing HIV counseling and testing programs into a corporate sector, providing all workers with an excuse to test in the workplace and/or inducing them to privately test outside the workplace may be effective in encouraging the uptake.

Food quality awareness : cases from shrimp producers in Thailand and vegetable producers in Vietnam

The high number of import rejections of food commodities suggests that producers in exporting countries are not complying with established standards. To understand why this is the case, we explore the behavior of producers and consumers in developing countries. First, we examine the successful transformation of production practices adopted by shrimp producers in Thailand. In support of the dramatic change in practices, we observe an important role played by the public sector in providing a means to visualize chemical residues and to control processes upstream of the supply chain via a registration system and a traceability system called Movement Document. Furthermore, very active information sharing by the private sector contributes to the dissemination of useful technical and market information among producers. We also examine the knowledge and perceptions of consumers with respect to food safety in Vietnam. We find that consumers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City behave differently toward the third-party certification VietGAP, probably owing to differences in the history of market mechanisms between the two cities.