How big is your neighbourhood? Spatial implications of market participation among Filipino smallholders

We present a procedure for estimating two quantities defining the spatial externality in discrete-choice commonly referred to as 'the neighbourhood effect'. One quantity, the propensity for neighbours to make the same decision, reflects traditional preoccupations; the other quantity, the magnitude of the neighbourhood itself, is novel. Because both quantities have fundamental bearing on the magnitude of the spatial externality, it is desirable to have a robust algorithm for their estimation. Using recent advances in Bayesian estimation and model comparison, we devise such an algorithm and illustrate its application to a sample of northern-Filipino smallholders. We determine that a significant, positive, neighbourhood effect exists; that, among the 12 geographical units comprising the sample, the neighbourhood spans a three-unit radius; and that policy prescriptions are significantly altered when calculations account for the spatial externality.

A revised Tobit procedure for mitigating bias in the presence of non-zero censoring with an application to milk-market participation in the Ethiopian highlands

Fixed transactions costs that prohibit exchange engender bias in supply analysis due to censoring of the sample observations. The associated bias in conventional regression procedures applied to censored data and the construction of robust methods for mitigating bias have been preoccupations of applied economists since Tobin [Econometrica 26 (1958) 24]. This literature assumes that the true point of censoring in the data is zero and, when this is not the case, imparts a bias to parameter estimates of the censored regression model. We conjecture that this bias can be significant; affirm this from experiments; and suggest techniques for mitigating this bias using Bayesian procedures. The bias-mitigating procedures are based on modifications of the key step that facilitates Bayesian estimation of the censored regression model; are easy to implement; work well in both small and large samples; and lead to significantly improved inference in the censored regression model. These findings are important in light of the widespread use of the zero-censored Tobit regression and we investigate their consequences using data on milk-market participation in the Ethiopian highlands. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Policy options promoting market participation among smallholder livestock producers: a case study from the Phillipines

We investigate the factors precipitating market entry where smallholders make decisions about participation (a discrete choice about whether to sell quantities of products) and supply (a continuous-valued choice about how much quantity to sell) in a cross-section of smallholders in Northern Luzon, Philippines, in a model that combines basic probit and Tobit ideas, is implemented using Bayesian methods, and generates precise estimates of the inputs required in order to effect entry among the non-participants. We estimate the total amounts of (cattle, buffalo, pig and chicken) livestock input required to effect entry and compare and contrast the alternative input requirements. To the extent that our smallholder sample may be representative of a wide and broader set of circumstances, our findings shed light on offsetting impacts of conflicting factors that complicate the roles for policy in the context of expanding the density of participation.

Intramolecular proton transfer in [Ph2B-OH2](+). Participation of a phenyl group

Ab initio calculations at the HF/6-31+G* level on [Ph2B-OH2](+) show that in the gas phase the structure with the proton attached to an ipso C is lower in energy than the one with the proton on the oxygen atom by 8.40 kcal mol(-1). The transition states and reaction paths for intramolecular proton transfer in [Ph2B-OH2](+) have also been studied.

Educational participation post-16: a longitudinal analysis of intentions and outcomes

The issue of levels of participation in post-compulsory education has been emphasised by the current policy initiatives to increase the age to which some form of participation is compulsory. One of the acknowledged weaknesses of research in the field of children's intentions with regard to participation is the lack of longitudinal data. This paper offers a longitudinal analysis using the Youth Survey from the British Household Panel Survey. The results show that most children can express intentions with regard to future participation very early in their secondary school careers and that these intentions are good predictors of actual behaviour five years later. Intentions to stay on are more consistent than intentions to leave and most children who finally leave at 16 have at some point said they want to remain in education post-16. The strongest association with participation levels is attainment at GCSE. However, there are also influences of gender and parental background and these remain, even after attainment is held constant. The results show the value of focusing on intentions for participation at a very early stage of children's school careers and also the importance of current attempts to reform curriculum and assessment for the 14-19 age group.

Making the least active pay: a simulation of rewards and penalties under Demand Side Participation programs

The orthodox approach for incentivising Demand Side Participation (DSP) programs is that utility losses from capital, installation and planning costs should be recovered under financial incentive mechanisms which aim to ensure that utilities have the right incentives to implement DSP activities. The recent national smart metering roll-out in the UK implies that this approach needs to be reassessed since utilities will recover the capital costs associated with DSP technology through bills. This paper introduces a reward and penalty mechanism focusing on residential users. DSP planning costs are recovered through payments from those consumers who do not react to peak signals. Those consumers who do react are rewarded by paying lower bills. Because real-time incentives to residential consumers tend to fail due to the negligible amounts associated with net gains (and losses) or individual users, in the proposed mechanism the regulator determines benchmarks which are matched against responses to signals and caps the level of rewards/penalties to avoid market distortions. The paper presents an overview of existing financial incentive mechanisms for DSP; introduces the reward/penalty mechanism aimed at fostering DSP under the hypothesis of smart metering roll-out; considers the costs faced by utilities for DSP programs; assesses linear rate effects and value changes; introduces compensatory weights for those consumers who have physical or financial impediments; and shows findings based on simulation runs on three discrete levels of elasticity.