scholarly journals Roaming through the Maze of Maize in Northern Ghana. A Systems Approach to Explore the Long-Term Effects of a Food Security Intervention

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Mangnus ◽  
A.C.M. van Westen

Central to food security interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa stands the value chain approach. The underlying idea is that connecting farmers to input and output markets and sources of knowledge and technology will enhance their food security status. In spite of positive impacts measured in especially food supply, there is scant evidence of the long-term effects on food security. For a better grasp of the impacts of a maize value chain intervention in North Ghana, we have experimented with an approach that focuses on interactions and feedback loops between the value chain and its local context. Such approach allowed us to identify dynamics that affect food security in the long run. In the case of Northern Ghana farming systems, household income and diets are increasingly dependent on maize, which increases risk of food insecurity in case of climate setbacks or market shocks. The exercise reveals how a linear value chain approach obscures the dynamic effects cascading from the intervention that may actually hamper food security in the long run. A systems approach may help to better grasp the consequences of external interventions at the local level.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sviatlana Engerstam

PurposeThis study examines the long term effects of macroeconomic fundamentals on apartment price dynamics in major metropolitan areas in Sweden and Germany.Design/methodology/approachThe main approach is panel cointegration analysis that allows to overcome certain data restrictions such as spatial heterogeneity, cross-sectional dependence, and non-stationary, but cointegrated data. The Swedish dataset includes three cities over a period of 23 years, while the German dataset includes seven cities for 29 years. Analysis of apartment price dynamics include population, disposable income, mortgage interest rate, and apartment stock as underlying macroeconomic variables in the model.FindingsThe empirical results indicate that apartment prices react more strongly on changes in fundamental factors in major Swedish cities than in German ones despite quite similar development of these macroeconomic variables in the long run in both countries. On one hand, overreactions in apartment price dynamics might be considered as the evidence of the price bubble building in Sweden. On the other hand, these two countries differ in institutional arrangements of the housing markets, and these differences might contribute to the size of apartment price elasticities from changes in fundamentals. These arrangements include various banking sector policies, such as mortgage financing and valuation approaches, as well as different government regulations of the housing market as, for example, rent control.Originality/valueIn distinction to the previous studies carried out on Swedish and German data for single-family houses, this study focuses on the apartment segment of the market and examines apartment price elasticities from a long term perspective. In addition, the results from this study highlight the differences between the two countries at the city level in an integrated long run equilibrium framework.


2019 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 567-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Laudenbach ◽  
Ulrike Malmendier ◽  
Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi

Growing evidence in macrofinance suggests long-lasting effects of personally experienced outcomes on beliefs. To understand the underlying mechanism we turn to the neurological foundations of memory formation. We propose that emotional tagging plays a crucial role in assigning weights in the belief formation process. We use exposure to communism as well as variation in its emotional tagging to predict long-run beliefs. We show that living under communism has long-term effects on beliefs about its benefits. In addition, positive and negative emotional tags strongly affect the (pro- or anti-communist) direction of beliefs, providing anchors to memory that seem hard to reverse.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0248743
Author(s):  
Md Mazharul Islam ◽  
Majed Alharthi ◽  
Md Wahid Murad

Objective While macroeconomic and environmental events affect the overall economic performance of nations, there has not been much research on the effects of important macroeconomic and environmental variables and how these can influence progress. Saudi Arabia’s economy relies heavily on its vast reserves of petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, gold, and copper, but its economic growth trajectory has been uneven since the 1990s. This study examines the effects of carbon emissions, rainfall, temperature, inflation, population, and unemployment on economic growth in Saudi Arabia. Methods Annual time series dataset covering the period 1990–2019 has been extracted from the World Bank and General Authority of Meteorology and Environmental Protection, Saudi Arabia. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration has served to investigate the long-run relationships among the variables. Several time-series diagnostic tests have been conducted on the long-term ARDL model to check its robustness. Results Saudi Arabia can still achieve higher economic growth without effectively addressing its unemployment problem as both the variables are found to be highly significantly but positively cointegrated in the long-run ARDL model. While the variable of carbon emissions demonstrated a negative effect on the nation’s economic growth, the variables of rainfall and temperate were to some extent cointegrated into the nation’s economic growth in negative and positive ways, respectively. Like most other nations the short-run effects of inflation and population on economic growth do vary, but their long-term effects on the same are found to be positive. Conclusions Saudi Arabia can achieve both higher economic growth and lower carbon emissions simultaneously even without effectively addressing the unemployment problem. The nation should utilize modern scientific technologies to annual rainfall losses and to reduce annual temperature in some parts of the country in order to achieve higher economic growth.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
ELSA WIDIA ◽  
ENDRIZAL RIDWAN ◽  
FAJRI MUHARJA

Direct Foreign Investment (FDI) has been considered as one of the important strategies in long-term economic development. FDI is seen not only as a capital transfer but also has an important effect on increasing the host economy. FDI then became popular in many countries, so it was interesting to analyze the effects produced, both positive and negative. This research focuses on countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with the aim of conducting empirical studies on opportunities for employment creation by FDI. However, due to limited data in several countries, this study only involved Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The type of data used in this study is annual data covering from 1980-2017. Using estimation Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) allows to see short-term and long-term effects. The test results prove that the influence between variables is more visible in the long run


2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Lyons ◽  
Alison Brown ◽  
Zhigang Li

Abstract:This article analyzes the value chain for Chinese manufactured goods such as garments and textiles sold in sub-Saharan Africa. It explores the opportunities for Africans with small, private businesses in the export trade from China, the potential for long-term business development, and how strategies of engagement have changed over time. It finds that the value chains for low-cost goods vary. There is great diversity of entry levels and opportunities for socioeconomic mobility, and traders evolve diverse strategies to obtain and defend their position in the chain. These findings are discussed in terms of understandings of international value chains, the informal economy, and African economic development strategies.


Author(s):  
Jan de Jonge ◽  
Akihito Shimazu ◽  
Maureen Dollard

This study examined whether particular recovery activities after work have a positive or negative effect on employee recovery from work (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and physical detachment) and sleep quality. We used a two-wave panel study of 230 health care employees which enabled looking at both short-term and long-term effects (i.e., two-year time interval). Gender, age, marital status, children at home, education level, management position, and working hours were used as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that work-related off-job activities were negatively associated with cognitive and emotional detachment in both the short and long run, whereas low-effort off-job activities were positively related to cognitive detachment in the short run. Moreover, household/care off-job activities were positively related to sleep quality in the long run, whereas physical off-job activities were negatively associated with sleep quality in the long run. The long-term findings existed beyond the strong effects of baseline detachment and sleep quality. This study highlights the importance of off-job recovery activities for health care employees’ detachment from work and sleep quality. Practical implications and avenues for further research are discussed.


Author(s):  
Judith G. Kelley

This chapter compares how several countries respond to recommendations by monitors in the long run, and whether the overall quality of elections improves throughout multiple monitored elections. Most monitoring efforts aim not simply to deter overt cheating in a single round of elections, but to bring changes in the long run. This is one reason many organizations invest considerable time on the ground. More than half of monitored elections have at least one pre-election visit by an organizational delegation, and in about 40 percent of elections at least one organization arrived a month or more in advance. Most importantly, international election monitors usually include many recommendations in their reports. These recommendations call attention to current problems in the legal and administrative framework for elections and often make concrete suggestions about how to address them.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1077-1097 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluwasola E Omoju ◽  
Jinkai Li ◽  
Jin Zhang ◽  
Abdul Rauf ◽  
Victor Edem Sosoo

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest energy consumption per capita in the world, and this has undermined socioeconomic development in the region. The stationarity of energy consumption in the region has important implications for energy policy, forecasting and macroeconomic developments. This paper investigates the stationarity properties of energy consumption in 48 sub-Saharan Africa countries using the Augment Dickey–Fuller, Zivot–Andrews, Clemente–Montanes–Reyes and Lee–Strazicich LM tests. Using the Lee-Strazicich LM test as a benchmark, the study shows that energy consumption is stationary in 41 countries. This implies that energy policy makers should not be concerned about shocks in energy consumption in these countries because the shocks will be temporary and not transmitted to the macroeconomy. Also, energy policies will not have long-term effects. Policies that exert one-time temporary shocks on energy consumption would be more effective in these countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertha Vallejo ◽  
Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka ◽  
Nicholas Ozor ◽  
Maurice Bolo

This study explores the innovation intermediaries’ landscape in sub-Saharan Africa, considering Science Granting Councils (SGCs) as the key intermediaries in the system. Based on extensive desk research, personal interviews, and an online survey, the study discusses the roles and functions performed by SGCs as intermediators and influences of science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy. The results of the analysis corroborate the need for institutional and systemic changes to enable SGCs to perform their role. The realities, resources, and constraints at the local level cry out for the adaptation of current and future partnerships to the local context. The study concludes that only by tailoring partnerships to the development of capacity at the local level can SGCs perform effectively as influencers of national STI policy and mediators of partnerships with foreign development actors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núria Puig ◽  
Adoración Álvaro-Moya

This article explores the long-term effects of foreign direct investment on the human capital development of host economies, based on the historical analysis of the Spanish operations of four leading American firms: ITT, J. Walter Thompson, Merck Sharp & Dohme, and John Deere. Our research shows that the training and working practices of these companies had a positive impact on the Spanish subsidiaries in terms of technological upgrading and managerial development. However, the local context was also relevant, through mandatory agreements that empowered local partners from the start and the availability of locally educated professionals eager to absorb new knowledge.


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