Both in the United States and in Europe there is ongoing work on reversing habitat fragmentation and the attendant loss in biodiversity in river systems caused by hydropower and other developments. Fish ladders and other measures are being introduced to restore the connectivity in river systems. In this paper, we set up a theoretical model to investigate what the conditions are for such an investment to be socially profitable. We find that, even in cases where it would have been socially preferable not to build hydropower installations in the first place, connectivity-restoring measures affecting the installations are not necessarily socially beneficial. This is the case for a wide range of plausible assumptions about discount rates, investment costs and productivity losses.

Using data spanning 15 years, we study subjective and consumption poverty in urban Ethiopia. Despite rapid economic growth and declining consumption poverty, subjective poverty remains largely unchanged. We find that households with a history of poverty continue to perceive themselves as poor even if their material consumption improves. The relative economic position of households is a strong determinant of subjective poverty. Having some type of employment makes households less likely to perceive themselves as poor, even if they remain in objective poverty. We argue that any analysis to measure the impact of growth on welfare should also encompass subjective measures.

Microcredit schemes have become a popular means of improving smallholders’ access to credit and making long term investment possible. However, it remains to be explored whether the current microcredit schemes are more successful than earlier formal small scale lending in identifying successful borrowers. We studied shrimp farming in a rural region in Bangladesh where formal microlending is well established, but where more expensive informal microlending coexists with the formal schemes. Farmers – both those who exclusively use formal loans and those who also use informal loans – remain credit-constrained; both types overutilize labour in order to reduce the need for working capital. However, the credit constraint is actually milder for the informal borrowers: the implicit shadow price of working capital is substantially higher in the group that only takes formal loans than in the group that also uses informal loans. These results suggest that informal lenders – with their closer ties to the individual farmers – remain more successful in identifying those smallholder farmers that are most likely to use the borrowed funds successfully. Informal lenders have an information advantage that formal microlenders lack: the latter need to find routes to access this information in order for formal microcredit schemes to succeed.

This chapter provides a theoretical background on the issues surrounding rural microlending, and discusses experiences from earlier schemes. It explains the methodology used in the study. The chapter describes the data set used and provides some descriptive statistics. It also describes how the analysis was carried out in practice. The chapter presents the results, and discusses the policy implications of these results for rural upliftment strategies. Microfinance is not the first attempt to address this problem: many developing countries provided cheap, small-scale credit to smallholder farmers in the 1970s. Lenders face an adverse selection problem. They can discourage borrowers who have projects with low expected returns by charging high interest rates. Formal microcredit schemes are an attempt to use social pressure to encourage borrowers to repay their loans. Foreign donors have shown great interest in microfinance. In order to measure the shadow prices of working capital facing each group of farmers, a number of methods could potentially have been used.

Swedish legislation makes municipalities responsible for recycling or disposing of household waste. Municipalities therefore play an important role in achieving Sweden’s increased levels of ambition in the waste management area and in achieving the goal of a more circular economy. This paper studies how two municipal policy instruments – weight-based waste tariffs and special systems for the collection of food waste – affect the collected volumes of different types of waste. We find that a system of collecting food waste separately is more effective overall than imposing weight-based waste tariffs in respect not only of reducing the amounts of waste destined for incineration, but also of increasing materials recycling and biological recovery, despite the fact that the direct incentive effects of these two systems  should be similar. Separate food waste collection was associated with increased recycling not only of food waste but also of other waste. Introducing separate food waste collection indirectly signals to households that recycling is important and desirable, and our results suggest that this signalling effect may be as important as direct incentive effects.

Green public procurement has been criticized for its excessive reliance on detailed technology specifications, which can distort incentives in the short term and discourage innovation in the longer term. Economists therefore tend to prefer technology-neutral procurement, which rewards outcomes rather than technologies. However, technology-neutral procurement can also be problematic in practice. The present study investigated green public procurement of waste management, a rapidly growing field. In one of the most sophisticated models for technology-neutral procurement applied in Sweden in recent years, different environmental impacts were assigned weights, but no weight was given to the particular technology employed. Even here, however, potential inefficiencies were found where the scoring rule could have led to arbitrary, and presumably unwanted, outcomes. Explicitly assigning monetary surcharges to desirable and undesirable environmental effects may be a better way to reach environmental targets.

In this paper, we study how the Swedish online gambling market has developed and how the availability of foreign-based online gambling has affected the domestic state-owned gambling monopoly, AB Svenska Spel. We find that online gambling and the traditional state-managed gambling are relatively weak substitutes. Thus, concerns about the availability of online gambling being able to undercut domestic gambling policies may be overstated.

In this paper, we study whether migration affects taxes on labor and capital income. The analysis is based on panel data for 14 European countries. The results indicate that migration does affect subsequent tax rates, and taxes on labor income increase with increased migration, especially in countries with large public sectors. However, this effect is reduced for countries with large foreign trade and/or large shares of elderly in the population.

Purpose - Empirical studies have found an inverted-U curve relationship between emigration and per capita income. In this paper, a theoretical underpinning for this phenomenon is presented based on credit restrictions. The implications for tax policy are also analyzed.

Design/methodology/approach - Using an intertemporal general equilibrium model, the authors characterize how the presence of an 'inverted U-curve'relationship between emigration and per capita income will influence the optimal tax and expenditure policy in a country where agents have the option to move abroad.

Findings - Among the results it is shown that if age dependent taxes are available, the presence of an inverted-U curve provides an incentive to tax young labor harder, but old labor less hard, than otherwise.

Originality/value - Our migration model fits the empirical facts of migration better than most of the migration models previously used in the optimal taxation literature.

Föreliggande rapports syfte är att sammanställa resultaten från en utredning av förutsättningar för miljöförbättrande åtgärder i de utbyggda vattendragen Ångermanälven och Mörrumsån. Förutsättningar för de geografiska områdena är sammanställda och effekter av möjliga åtgärder har analyserats; dels hydrauliska flödessimuleringar, dels en populationsmodell för laxfisk. Fokus har lagts på åtgärder för havsvandrande fisk.ÅngermanälvenÅngermanälven är Sveriges tredje största älv i fråga om vattenföring, med en medelvattenföring på knappt 500 m3/s. Det finns ett fyrtiotal större vattenkraftverk, samt ett antal mindre, fördelade i de tre huvudgrenarna Åsele-, Fax- och Fjällsjöälven. Studien omfattar nedre delarna av Åseleälven (upp till Nämforsen) och Faxälven (upp till Storfinnforsen). Bland de inom uppdraget aktuella kraftverken finns gamla åfåror i anslutning till de fyra stationerna i Faxälven, Hjälta, Forsse, Edsele och Ramsele.Idag når havsvandrande arter upp till Sollefteå kraftverk, ca 3 mil uppströms mynningen. Lax och havsöring fiskas enbart nedströms Sollefteå kraftverk, och utsättningar görs från två kompensationsodlingar, vid Forsmo och strax nedströms Hjälta.Resultaten för Ångermanälven visar på en potential för att etablera ett svagt men livskraftigt laxbestånd uppströms Sollefteå kraftverk. Förutsättningarna utgörs av en kombination av åtgärder, fiskväg vid Sollefteå samt minimitappning av ca 8 m3/s vid Hjälta kraftstation. Detta skulle enligt modellförsök resultera i ett bestånd av i medeltal ca 150 återvändande laxar per år, med en uppskattad kostnad på ca 26 MSEK/år (exklusive kostnad för fiskvandringsväg vid Sollefteå), p.g.a. produktionsbortfall.Möjligheterna för åtgärder riktade mot havsvandrande fisk längre upp i Faxälven är mycket små. Mindre arealer potentiella reproduktionsområden, i kombination med dödlighet vid passage av kraftverk, gör att bara några 10-tal honor tar sig upp per år. Ramsele gamla fåra skulle kunna erbjuda förhållandevis stora reproduktionsområden, men en nödvändig passage av fyra kraftverk gör det mycket svårt att tillgängliggöra sträckan, även om fiskvägar installeras.MörrumsånMörrumsån mynnar i Pukavikbukten vid Mörrum, och har en medelvattenföring på knappt 30 m3/s. Inom hela systemet Mörrumsån finns 24 vattenkraftverk, varav de sju som omfattas av denna utredning ligger belägna i den nedre delen av ån, nedströms sjön Åsnen. Genom denna avgränsning omfattar studien samtliga E.ONs anläggningar i Mörrumsån. Av de aktuella kraftverken finns gamla åfåror i anslutning till Granö, Hemsjö övre, Hemsjö nedre samt Fridafors nedre.Mörrumsån anses utgöra södra Sveriges viktigaste laxälv och idag når havsvandrande fisk upp till Fridafors nedre, ca 3 mil från mynningen. Fiskvägar finns installerade vid de tre nedströms kraftstationerna, Marieberg och Hemsjö nedre och övre. Utsättningar av smolt och yngel från havsöring sker årligen i de nedre delarna av ån, smolt i Kungsforsen vid Mörrum, och yngel i flera av de tillrinnande bäckarna.Med utgångspunkt i potentiella reproduktionsområden i Granö gamla fåra har möjligheten att etablera lax- och öringbestånd uppströms Fridafors studerats. Åtgärderna utgörs av fiskvägar i Fridafors samt minimitappning i Granö, ev. i kombination med biotopvårdsåtgärder. Resultaten visar att för att uppnå ett livskraftigt bestånd uppströms Fridafors ställs höga krav på funktion av de fem fiskvägarna. Om ett antagande görs att 95% av smolten passerar varje station tack vare spill under utvandringsperioden, måste uppströmspassage ske med en genomsnittlig effektivitet av 90% per station. Vid 80% klarar bara ett par tiotal honor sig upp till fåran för lek, medan populationen balanserar på gränsen till livskraftighet vid 90%. Eftersom det är så många fiskvägar får passagerna stort utslag på överlevnaden, och det ger t.ex. större effekt att öka fiskvägarnas effektivitet från 80 till 90% jämfört med att dubblera mängden reproduktionsområdena från 3,5 till 7 ha . Att maximera den gamla fårans potential genom biotopvårdsåtgärder är relevant, men bör därför ha lägre prioritet jämfört med att säkerställa fiskvägarnas funktion.Den föreslagna minimitappningen i Granö på 2,3 m3/s baseras på resultaten från flödessimuleringarna för att på ett kostnadseffektivt sätt nå goda förhållanden för reproduktion i fåran. Den totala årliga kostnaden uppskattas till ca 2 MSEK, om flödet ökas till 9,5 m3/s ger det ett ca 4 gånger så stort produktionsbortfall, medan den ekologiska effekten endast ökar med ca 10 %.En tänkbar åtgärd för att uppnå en positiv effekt på laxfisk i Mörrumsån vore en utrivning av Mariebergs kraftstation, en åtgärd som enligt modellen har potential att fördubbla laxbeståndet uppströms Marieberg. En utrivning av Marieberg skulle, utöver kostnader för återställning och utrivning, innebära ett produktionsbortfall bestående av hela kraftstationens kapacitet (3,2 GWh), motsvarande ca 1 MSEK per år (inräknad nuvarande kostnader för drift och underhåll, men exklusive utrivningskostnader).Frånsett utrivning är potentialen ur ett ekologiskt perspektiv, räknat i antal återvändande laxfisk, likvärdig i Ångermanälven, med en fiskväg i Sollefteå kombinerat med minimitappning i Hjälta, jämfört med Granö i Mörrumsån. Ur ett kostnadsperspektiv vore det ca 4 gånger så dyrt (ca 26 MSEK/år exklusive fiskväg i Sollefteå) som att genomföra åtgärderna vid Fridafors/Granö. Skillnaden ligger bland annat i att i Mörrumsån innebär studerade åtgärder ett tillskott till en befintlig population i vattendraget, medan det i Ångermanälven idag inte finns ett bestånd med naturlig reproduktion.Utifrån den samhällsekonomiska analysen ger ingen åtgärd med minimitappningar och/eller fiskvägar ett positivt resultat. Beroende på vilka scenarier som används blir den samhällsekonomiska förlusten av åtgärder i Granö från 10 MSEK och uppåt (nuvärde), medan förlusten i Ångermanälven blir drygt 200 MSEK och uppåt.

The individual farmer has little incentive to care about the public good properties of on-farm biodiversity in the formof different crop varieties. There is a common assumption that, because of this, farmers will tend to maintain too littlebiodiversity on their farms compared with the social optimum. However, in developing countries, this assumption doesnot fit with the empirical data: because of poorly functioning insurance markets, farmers tend to maintain a wide rangeof different crop varieties to hedge against weather shocks and other uncertainties. In this paper we develop atheoretical model to account for this apparent contradiction, and show that farmers may in fact even maintain toomuch biodiversity on their farms, compared with the social optimum.

The economic impacts of climate-change-induced adjustments on the performance of the Tanzanian economy are analysed, using a countrywide computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The effect of overall climate change on agricultural productivity (modelled as reduced land productivity) is projected to be relatively limited until about 2030, thereafter becoming worse. The simulation results indicate that despite the projected reduction in agricultural productivity, the negative impacts can potentially be quite limited. This is because the timescales involved, as well as the low starting point of the economy, leave ample room for factor substitutability and increased overall productivity. This indicates that policies that give farmers the opportunity to invest in autonomous climate adaptation, as well as those that improve the overall performance of the economy, can be as important in reducing the impacts of climate change in the economy as direct government policies for adaptation.

Denna rapport är ett underlag till miljökonsekvensbeskrivningen för Eystrasaltprojektet och studerar vindkraftparkens inverkan på det svenska och finska yrkesfisket. Detta görs dels i termer av effekter på nationell ekonomisk aktivitet (förädlingsvärde och sysselsättning), och dels i termer av påverkan på enskilda fiskares situation (tillgång till fångstområden och påverkan på lönsamhet). 

In this paper we study how foreign ownership of Swedish companies affects employment and wages. To study these effects we specify a model based on the assumption that the Swedish labour market can be described as one where trade unions and employers bargain over employment and wages. Our hypothesis is that bargaining power is affected by institutional settings and the ownership of the firm. To test our hypothesis we used a panel data set of 242 large Swedish manufacturing firms over the period 1980–2005. The results indicate no significant impact of foreign ownership on employment or wages in Sweden.

Household agricultural production for self-consumption is often highlighted by nutritionists as the main route to increasing household food security and nutritional status, especially for the poor in developing countries. At the same time, the income gains from specializing in fewer crops and selling the surplus product could be an alternate route to improved nutritional status. We use Tanzanian data to study linkages between the diversity and market orientation of a household's agricultural production, the quality and diversity of their diets, and the nutritional status of their children. We find that diversifying a household's agricultural production significantly increases diversity in that household's diet, but the positive nutritional effects are small. We also find that market orientation has no clear effect on dietary diversity. At the same time, however, the nutritional status of children is not found to be linked clearly to general dietary diversity. On the other hand, factors such as education and overall income have strong and significant effects on both household dietary diversity and child nutrition. Thus, policies for increasing the quality of children's diets, improving children's nutritional status and enhancing the overall dietary diversity of farm households should incorporate those factors.

In this paper, we study the determinants of rental values in urban housing markets in Kigali, Rwanda. In particular, we study the value of access to piped water; due to the high costs associated with installing new piped connections, renting a property with an existing connection is often the only way for low income households to access piped water. Our results indicate that extending the piped network to a new house will in many cases raise the rental value of the house enough to pay for the cost of installing the new connection in less than two years.

In this paper, the effects of capital income taxation on wage formation are studied using OECD data. The results indicate that a rise in the tax rate on capital income will reduce real wages and increase employment.

This article estimates the visitation demand function for Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) in order to determine the scope for raising fees charged to international tourists in order to fund revenue-sharing schemes for local communities. International and Southern African Development Community tourists account for approximately 25% and 2% of the total number of visitors to South African national parks, with domestic visitors making up the remaining portion. Although small, the South African international tourism market is mature and accounts for a disproportionately large share (around 42%) of net revenue. To estimate visitation demand at the KTP and three other national parks, random effects Tobit Model was used. Using the estimated elasticities, the revenue-maximizing daily conservation fee was computed to be R1 131.94 (US$144.20) for KTP, which can be compared with the R180 (US$22.93) currently charged. Furthermore, the study also demonstrated that there is a possibility of raising fees at the other three parks. Sharing conservation revenue with communities surrounding parks could demonstrate the link between ecotourism and local communities’ economic development and promote a positive view of land restitution involving national parks.

In 1998, the Chinese Government implemented the NFPP (Natural Forest Protection Program), which included logging restrictions, protected areas, replanting, and a range of other policies aimed at safeguarding the state of the country’s forests and reducing the risk of erosion and flooding. A second phase of this program is currently being discussed. In this paper, contingent valuation is used to estimate the WTP (willingness to pay) for maintaining the program among the inhabitants in Heilongjiang Province in northern China. The results show that, even with fairly conservative assumptions, the aggregated WTP for maintaining the program for another five years is some 3.24 billion yuan per year. This can be compared with the current cost of the Program in the province, which is some 1.57 billion yuan per year.

Two systems working in parallel have contributed to implementation difficulties in Swedish water governance. While the old system is designed to be predictable and stable over time, the new system is intended to be transparent and holistic, guided by the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management. The paper disentangles the challenges in Swedish water governance and proposes a blueprint for future research. The proposed research project is unique in the sense that it explores the imbalances between the new and the old water governance systems from a multi-disciplinary perspective, elaborating upon the clashes between the traditional, nationally based regulatory system and the new holistic water governance system from legal, political and economic perspectives.

Stricter environmental regulations (e.g. the EU’s Water Framework Directive) will entail many environmental improvement measures in waters that have been affected by hydropower, and dam removals are becoming a more common measure. This paper reviews economic evaluations of dam removals, primarily drawing on studies in the USA, and identifies key, frequently recurring, issues that future evaluations will likely need to consider. The paper also reports on an ex-ante evaluation of the recent removal of the Marieberg Hydropower Plant in the Mörrum River in Sweden. An environmental valuation survey carried out as a key part of this evaluation was conducted as a replication of a previous study, where the policy context was different but the expected ecological outcome similar. The replication study produced comparable results to those of the previous study.

This paper estimates resource rents for Mozambican coal mining using company-level data employing the residual value method devised by SEEA-Energy (the multi-purpose conceptual framework for organising energy-related statistics) and compares the findings with the World Bank's estimates of coal rents. The latter estimates are often used in the resource curse literature and also guide the World Bank's policy notes, forming the baseline of their policy advice on resource exploitation. On average, the results show unit coal rents for the 2011–2020 period that are less than half of the World Bank estimates, suggesting that the World Bank overstates coal rents for Mozambique considerably. The main driver of this discrepancy is the World Bank's underestimation of extraction costs. The results suggest that studies employing resource rent estimates should consider sensitivity analyses and greater use of local data, and that the World Bank's policy advice should be interpreted cautiously to avoid unreasonably high expectations.

Economic theory on sustainable development suggests that resource-rich countries should reinvest the rents from natural resource extraction in other forms of capital to ensure that future consumption level of the economy can be greater than or at least equal to the level of their current consumption. Several seminal papers in the early 2000s indicated that the correlation between genuine savings and future consumption was weaker than theory predicted, at least when genuine savings were measured using the World Bank estimates. This paper revisits the issue and replicates two of these earlier studies to see whether the correlation has become stronger over time, on the back of policy changes in resource-rich countries and of revisions to the World Bank estimates. The results indicate that the correlation between genuine savings and future consumption growth may be stronger for poorer countries than for richer, and for sub-Saharan Africa, the theoretical predictions appear to hold.

The paper analyzes the economic impacts of climate change-induced fluctuations on the performance of Ethiopia’s agriculture, using a countrywide computable general equilibrium (CGE) model.We model the impacts on agriculture using a Ricardian model, where current agricultural production is modelled as a function of temperature and precipitation, among other things, and where future agriculture is assumed to follow the same climate function. The effect of overall climate change is projected to be relatively benign until approximately 2030, but will become considerably worse thereafter. Our simulation results indicate that, over a 50-year period, the projected reduction in agricultural productivity may lead to reductions in average income of some 20 per cent compared with the outcome that would have prevailed in the absence of climate change. This indicates that adaptation policies – both government planned and those that ease autonomous adaptation by farmers – will be crucial for Ethiopia’s future development.

I denna studie används betingad värdering för att undersöka den åländska befolkningens betalningsvilja för renare havsvatten; mer specifiktundersöks betalningsviljan för ett åtgärdsprogram som skulle halvera de åländska näringsutsläppen i havet. Med mycket restriktiva antaganden om betalningsviljan hos bortfallsgruppen pekar analysen på en medianbetalningsviljapå cirka 8,6 euro per invånare och månad, medan mindre restriktiva antagandenpekar på en medianbetalningsvilja på cirka 28,4 euro per invånare och månad. Med de mer restriktiva antagandena skulle det totala belopp som skulle kunna samlas in årligen bli cirka 1,8 miljoner euro.

Waste of food is a topic of considerable policy interest. However, few studies have been done on food waste at the retail level. The aim of this study was to examine how large retail waste is for 16 different horticultural products, selected among typical fruit and vegetables. The levels of retail waste were examined in cooperation with one of the leading Swedish retail companies. The results showed that retail waste of horticultural products amounted between 0.4% and 6.3% of store supplies for different horticultural products. The results did not show that packaging reduced waste of horticultural products.

Förlorade fiskeredskap utgör en viktig del av det marina skräpet och det finns en oro för att ackumuleringen av förlorade fiskeredskap kan få, eller redan har, en påtaglig påverkan på fisk- och skaldjursbestånd. Orsaken är att dessa fiskeredskap potentiellt kan fortsätta att fiska under lång tid efter det att de förlorats och att fångsten då inte kan tas tillvara, vilket brukar kallas för att redskapen ”spökfiskar”.

Andelen fiskenät som förloras årligen har, globalt, skattats till att i genomsnitt vara 5,7 % av de använda näten (mellan 0 och 79,8 % beroende på studie och område) och andelen förlorade burar har skattats till att i genomsnitt vara 8,6 % (mellan 0 och 88 %, beroende på studie och område). Även om variationen i förluster med andra ord är stor för bägge typer av redskap finns det, i de fiskeområden där det förloras redskap, en betydande risk för att spökfiskande redskap kan bidra till ett ”dolt” uttag från fisk- och skaldjursbestånden. Det skulle i sin tur kunna leda till att man underskattar fiskets totala uttag, och därmed riskerar uttaget att överskrida gällande fångstkvoter samt gränserna för ett hållbart uttag.

Det är således viktigt, utifrån målen om hållbart fiske och livskraftiga bestånd, att få en uppfattning av storleken på spökfiskets uttag inom de olika bestånden för att på så sätt få en korrekt bild av artens beståndsutveckling, samt vilka fångstuttag som kan rekommenderas när man tar spökfiskets uttag i beaktande. De olika redskapens kapacitet till spökfiske (fiskelivstid och fångstmängd) och deras miljöpåverkan skulle också kunna påverka vilka redskap som rekommenderas inom ett visst fiske (ex. trålning eller garnfiske), samt vilken design på redskapen som bör användas (till exempel biologiskt nedbrytbara nät, och biologiskt nedbrytbar garntråd (”spöktråd”) vid burfiske.

Förutom kunskap och förståelse kring spökfiskets omfattning är det för förvaltningen också ytterst betydelsefullt med kunskap kring hur kostnadseffektiva eventuella åtgärder mot spökfisket är. I både Sverige och många andra länder är den viktigaste åtgärden mot spökfiske, när redskapen väl tappats, att dragga efter dem. Det är därför viktigt ur ett förvaltningsperspektiv att få en bättre förståelse av huruvida draggning är ett kostnadseffektivt sätt att motverka spökfiskets effekter.

We estimate monetary values for switching costs in the Swedish market for electricity for private householdconsumers, using two different numerical methods. The electricity providers in Sweden with over 1 per cent marketshare were studied. Switching costs were estimated to be between 50 per cent and 95 per cent of yearly costs forelectricity. Considering that the electricity retail market was deregulated more than 20 years ago, and that the Swedishgovernment continues to facilitate switching for consumers, it is noteworthy that switching costs are still this high.Given that electricity is a homogeneous product where switching costs are mainly due to transaction costs andpsychological barriers to switching, it seems likely that switching costs may be even higher in other markets wherethere are additional barriers to switching. 

Given the considerable popularity of community-based wildlife management as a conservation tool, it is of interest to assess the long-run sustainability of this policy not only in conservation terms, but also in financial terms. In this paper, we use cost–benefit analysis to study the social and financial sustainability of a large set of community conservancies in Namibia, one of the few countries where community-based wildlife management policies have been in place long enough to assess their long-term viability. We find that, although the social sustainability is generally good, the financial sustainability is problematic – especially for the younger conservancies: there is no real link between conservation achievements and financial success. This calls into question the long-term sustainability of many of these conservancies: if they are unable to generate enough revenue to pay for their running expenditure, they will eventually fail – even if they are successful from a conservation point of view. Similar problems, linked to the way in which external funders have pushed for additional conservancies to be established regardless of financial considerations, are likely to be present in other countries that have implemented such programmes.

Read the Feature Paper: Community-based wildlife management failing to link conservation and financial viability and the Commentaries on this Feature Paper: Wildlife conservation without financial viability? The potential for payments for dispersal areas' services in Namibia; Achieving ecological conservation impact is not enough: setting priorities based on multiple criteria Animal Conservation.

The present paper presents key sector research for the Namibian economy, based on input–output and Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) analyzes. The analyses were derived from a Namibian SAM for the 2004 period, using 28 economic sectors. We find that mining and government services are currently key sectors. Some manufacturing and services sectors have important linkages in terms of output effects, whilst for employment and income effects, the agriculture sector is paramount. The results obtained are useful for policy purposes in terms of identifying those sectors where interventions are likely to have the greatest impact on the Namibian economy.

This paper explores the link between the gender of a household head and food security in rural Kenya. The results show that the food security gap between male-headed households (MHHs) and female-headed households (FHHs) is explained by their differences in observable and unobservable characteristics. FHHs’ food security status would have been higher than it is now if the returns (coefficients) on their observed characteristics had been the same as the returns on the MHHs’ characteristics. Even if that had been the case, however, results indicate that FHHs would still have been less food-secure than the MHHs due to unobservable characteristics.

This study examines the farm-level economic benefits and aggregate welfare impacts of adopting push–pull technology (PPT)—an innovative, integrated pest and soil-fertility management strategy—with a set of household- and plot-level data collected in western Kenya. The evaluation is based on a combination of econometric and economic surplus analysis. Treatment effect estimates are used to assess the technology-induced shift in the maize supply curve, which is then used as an input to the economic surplus analysis. Finally, the aggregate poverty impact is computed using the economic surplus estimates. We observe that the adoption of PPT led to significant increases in maize yield and net maize income. The technology has significant potential benefit in terms of increasing economic surplus and reducing the number of people considered poor in western Kenya. Important factors influencing the decision to adopt PPT included access to information, household education, social capital, and social networks. We conclude that effective policies and development programmes for promoting PPT in Kenya should include information delivery and education mechanisms that are more effective.