Fertility and rural electrification in Bangladesh

We use a panel dataset from Bangladesh to examine the relationship between fertility and the adoption of electricity with the latter instrumented by infrastructure development and the quality of service delivery. We find that the adoption of electricity reduces fertility, and this impact is more pronounced when the household already has two or more children. This observation can be explained by a simple household model of time use, in which adoption of electricity affects only the optimal number of children but not necessarily current fertility behavior if the optimal number has not yet been reached.

Organizational Capability of Local Societies in Rural Development: A Comparative Study of Microfinance Organizations in Thailand and the Philippines

The importance of organizing local people for development work is widely recognized. Both governmental and non-governmental agencies have implemented various projects that have needed and encouraged collective action by people. Often, however, such projects malfunction after the outside agencies retreat from the project site, suggesting that making organizations is not the same as making a system of making organizations. The latter is essential to make rural organizations self-reliant and sustainable. This paper assumes that such a system exists in local societies and focuses on the capacity of local societies for creating and managing organizations for development. It reveals that (1) such capability differs according to the locality, (2) the difference depends on the structure of the organizations that coordinate people's social relations, and (3) the local administrative bodies define, at least partly, the organizational capability of local societies. We compare two rural societies, one in Thailand and the other in the Philippines, which show clear contrasts in both the form of microfinance organizations and the way of making these organizations.

Publicness and Taken-for-granted Knowledge: A Case Study of Communal Land Formation in Rural Thailand

The lack of public-mindedness can cause problems in the social order of people’s daily lives, such as the tragedy of the commons and the problem of free riders. Some scholars such as Habermas assert that communicative rationality is the solution, expecting that individuals will communicate with each other to reach a consensus without being bounded by aspects of social background. Other scholars advocate the revitalization of traditional community culture. These arguments, however, are not based on reality. By using the case of communal land formation in rural Thailand, the author shows that collective action is neither a revival of tradition nor a result of communication free from social constraints. Rather, cooperation emerges because the people rationally respond to their present needs and have built, through daily social interactions, taken-for-granted knowledge about how they should behave for cooperation.

Measuring global value chains and regional economic integration : an international input-output approach

Firms that are expanding their cross-border activities, such as vertical specialization trade, outsourcing, and fragmentation productions, have brought dramatic changes to the global economy during the last two decades. In an attempt to understand the evolution of the interaction among countries or country groups, many trade-statistics-based indicators have been developed. However, most of these statistics focus on showing the direct trade-specific-relationship among countries, rather than considering the roles that intercountry and interindustrial production networks play in a global economy. This paper uses the concepts of trade in value added as measured by the input–output tables of OECD and IDE-JETRO to provide alternative indicators that show the evolution of regional economic integration and global value chains for more than 50 economies. In addition, this paper provides thoughts on how to evaluate comparative advantages on the basis of value added using an international input–output model.

China's regional economies and value chains : an interregional input-output analysis

Attempts to understand China’s role in global value chains have often noted the case of Apple's iPhone production, in particular the fact that the value added during the Chinese portion of the iPhone’s supply chain is no more than 4%. However, when we examine the Chinese economy as a whole in global production networks, China’s share in total induced value added by China’s exports of final products to the USA is about 75% in 2005. This leads us to investigate how Chinese value added is created and distributed not only internationally but also domestically. To elucidate the increasing complexity of China’s domestic production networks, this paper focuses on the measure of Domestic Value Chains (DVCs) across regions and their linkages with global markets. By using China’s 1997 and 2007 interregional input-output tables, we can understand in detail the structural changes in domestic trade in terms of value added, as well as the position and degree of participation of different regions within the DVCs.

China's inter-regional spillover of carbon emissions and domestic supply chains

In this study, we apply the inter-regional input–output model to explain the relationship between China’s inter-regional spillover of CO2 emissions and domestic supply chains for 2002 and 2007. Based on this model, we propose alternative indicators such as the trade in CO2 emissions, CO2 emissions in trade, regional trade balances, and comparative advantage of CO2 emissions. The empirical results not only reveal the nature and significance of inter-regional environmental spillover within China’s domestic regions but also demonstrate how CO2 emissions are created and distributed across regions via domestic production networks. The main finding shows that a region’s CO2 emissions depend on not only its intra-regional production technique, energy use efficiency but also its position and participation degree in domestic and global supply chains.

Case Study of Applied LIP Approach/Activities in the Philippines The Training Services Enhancement Project for Rural Life Improvement (TSEP-RLI) Experience

TSEP-RLI was a technical cooperation project jointly conducted by GOP thru DA-Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and GOJ thru JICA aimed at institutionalizing the training program for Rural Life Improvement (RLI) at the (ATI). As expected, farmers, fisherfolk, women, youth and extension agents were provided with efficient and effective training services from ATI leading to the improvement of quality of life in the rural areas through efforts of human resource development. The ATI- Bohol was chosen as the model center where participatory trials and various activities of the project were undertaken for five years. These activities were participatory surveys and data collection of on-farm and off-farm productive activities; planning workshop for RLI; feedbacking of survey results and action plans to the community and the Local Government Units (LGUs), and signing of Memorandum of Agreement between the Project and participating LGUs. The above activities were done to facilitate the planning and development of most effective and necessary rural life improvement activities, to confirm the willingness of the people to support and participate and to formalize the partnership between the Project and the LGUs. Since the concept of rural life covers a vast range of activities, a consensus had been reached that the total aspects of rural life be grasped in three spheres, namely, Production & Livelihood (P/L), Rural Living Condition (RLC) and Community Environment (C/E). The RLI for Ubi (Yam) Growers was one of the pilot activities undertaken in two pilot barangays and the target beneficiaries were members of the Rural Improvement Club (RIC- a group of organized women) with the LGU of the Municipality of Corella as the implementing partner. During the planning workshop, the barangay residents articulated their desire to promote production and processing of ubi (sphere on P/L - as the entry point), lack of nutritious food was one of the identified problem (sphere on RLC- expansion point) and environmental degradation such as deforestation, and soil erosion was another problem articulated by the community people (sphere on C/E- expansion point). Major activities that were undertaken namely, Ubi cooking contest, cooking/processing seminar, training courses on entrepreneurial development, ubi production and storage technology, packaging and product design, human resource development and simplified bookkeeping motivated the beneficiaries as well as developed and enhanced their skills & capabilities while strengthening their associations. Their participation to the 5 ubi festivals and other related activities had brought some impacts on their economic and rural life improvement activities. The seven principles of TSEP-RLI include the participatory process, holistic approach, dialogical approach, bottom -up training needs assessment, demand-driven approach, cost sharing approach and collaborative implementation with other agencies including LGUs and the community.

Structural Changes and Formation of Rusta-shahr in Post-Revolutionary Rural Society in Iran

The following paper is based on the author's two-year research and fieldwork in Iran and examines the process of political and social changes since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent impact of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. This paper focuses on the transition of traditional, small villages into rusta-shahr or small rural cities and the first and second nation-wide elections of shoura or councils which were the first steps toward self-government. The author is guardedly optimistic regarding this democratic process but warns of possible future social unrest if changes are not more "balanced" between cities and rural areas and if the employment needs of the burgeoning younger generation are not met, political and social consequences may be catastrophic.

Regional Cooperation of Small & Medium Firms in Japanese Industrial Clusters

This study examines the effects of intra-regional cooperation among firms and institutions on the growth of firms, using the unique data set of questionnaire survey collected in the three major industrial clusters in Japan. In contrast to the existing studies on regional innovations or agglomeration economies, this study explicitly focuses on the detailed contents of cooperative activities with two specific viewpoints: 1) the contents of regional cooperation in each of the three production stages of R&D, commercialization, and marketing, and 2) the detailed types of alliance partners. Our results demonstrate three points: 1) positive correlations are observed between the intensity of regional cooperation and the firm growth rate and R&D expenditure, 2) horizontal cooperation such as alliances with universities and cross-industry exchange organizations has positive significant effects on the growth rate of firms, which is in contrast with the previous studies that stressed only the role of vertically integrated inter-firm linkages in Japan, and 3) contents and partners of regional cooperation are different among the three clusters based on different dominant industries.

Transport Sector and Regional Price Differentials: A SCGE Model for Chinese Provinces

With regression formulas replaced by equilibrium conditions, a spatial CGE model can substantially reduce data requirements. Detailed regional analyses are thus possible in countries where only limited regional statistics are available. While regional price differentials play important roles in multi-regional settings, transport does not receive much attention in existing models. This paper formulates a spatial CGE model that explicitly considers the transport sector and FOB/CIF prices. After describing the model, performance of our model is evaluated by comparing the benchmark equilibrium for China with survey-based regional I-O and interregional I-O tables for 1987. The structure of Chinese economies is summarized using information obtained from the benchmark equilibrium computation. This includes regional and sectoral production distributions and price differentials. The equilibrium for 1997 facilitates discussion of changes in regional economic structures that China has experienced in the decade.

Clusters and Innovation: Beijing's Hi-technology Industry Cluster and Guangzhou's Automobile Industry Cluster

This paper proposes a flowchart approach to the automobile industry cluster policy and the hi-technology industry cluster policy to prioritize policy measures. First, in the automobile industry cluster, suppliers of parts and components to anchor firms such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota of Japanese assembly makers in Guangzhou, China, can innovate partly because the suppliers have become independent of their anchor firms in the Japanese Keiretsu system. Second, concerning the hi-technology industry clustering in Beijing, we show that the existence of universities is a precondition for the industrial cluster policy and that the leadership of the Zhongguancun Science Park Management Committee of Beijing Municipality is crucial to the success of the industrial cluster policy. The flowchart for the hi-technology industry is different from the one for the automobile industry cluster.

Seasonal migration and micro-credit in the lean period : evidence from northwest Bangladesh

This paper investigates the relationship between access to micro-credit and temporary seasonal migration, an issue which is largely ignored in the standard rural-urban migration literature. Seasonal migration due to agricultural downturns is a common phenomenon in developing countries. Using primary data from a cross-sectional household survey from the northwest part of Bangladesh, this study quantifies the factors that influence such migration decisions. Among other results, we find that network effects play a significant role in influencing the migration decision, with the presence of kinsmen at the place of destination having considerable impact. Seasonal migration is a natural choice for individual suffering periodic hardship; however the strict weekly loan repayment rules of Micro-credit Institutes can have an adverse effect on this process, reducing the ability of borrowers to react to a shock. Our result suggests that poor individuals prefer the option of not accessing the micro-credit and opt for temporal seasonal migration during the lean period. The results have numerous potential policy implications, including the design of typical micro-credit schemes.

Compilation, application and challenge of IDE-JETRO's International Input-Output tables

International input-output tables are among the most useful tools for economic analysis. Since these tables provide detailed information about international production networks, they have recently attracted considerable attention in research on spatial economics, global value chains, and issues relating to trade in value-added. The Institute of Developing Economies at the Japan External Trade Organization (IDE-JETRO) has more than 40 years of experience in the construction and analysis of international input-output tables. This paper explains the development of IDE-JETRO’s multi-regional input-output projects including the construction of the Asian International Input-Output table and the Transnational Interregional Input-Output table between China and Japan. To help users understand the features of the tables, this paper also gives examples of their application.

Changing local elite selection in Thailand : emergence of new local government presidents after direct elections and their capabilities

Before rural local government units were established in Thailand, reform debates within the country faced a crucial issue: Candidates at the rural sub-district levels might adopt electioneering methods such as vote buying and the patronage system of the local political and economic elite, the methods that had been used in the national elections. In fact, the results of the 2006 survey in this paper, which followed the introduction of direct elections in rural local government units in 2003, contrast with the result anticipated during the debates on political reform. The preliminary data of the survey shows that the decentralization process and the introduction of the direct election system in the rural areas had some effect in changing the selection process of the local elite in Thailand.