The effect of ownership structure, country governance, and financial development on the capital structure of unlisted eastern European firms

This paper investigates the determinants of capital structure for a sample of 20,713 unlisted firms from 11 eastern European countries over the period 1994-2004. We employ usual firm-specific financial variables as well as country-specific variables that describe the degrees of governance structure and financial development of each country. Using regression analysis, our results indicate that firm ownership concentration and country governance structure are insignificant explanatory variables to the degree of leverage of the firms in our sample. On the other hand, indicators of country financial development are robust determinants of capital structure. However, the marginal explanatory power of country-specific variables is small. We conclude that firm-specific characteristics are decisive in capital structure.

Impacts of wildlife on household food security and income in northeastern Tanzania

We evaluated the impacts of wildlife on household food security and income in three semi-arid villages adjacent to Lake Manyara National Park (LMNP) and Mkomazi Game Reserve (MGR) in Northeastern Tanzania. Survey data were collected using both household interviews and human-wildlife conflict related archive information from the village government offices. Crop destruction by wildlife influenced both household food security and cash income. Crop damage to households was, on average, 0.08 ton/annum, equivalent to two months household loss of food and reduced household cash income by 1.3%. A combination of measures is proposed as incentives for conservation. These include provision of economic incentives, soft loans to initiate non-farm (e.g., ecotourism, business enterprises) projects to ease dependency on natural resources, increasing of reserves buffer zones and fencing of reserves.