Governance Strategies and Welfare Effects: Vertical Integration and Contracts in the Catfish Sector in Vietnam

Abstract

Using an original dataset from the Vietnamese catfish sector, we study the impact of vertical coordination options on household welfare and the implications of different stages of vertical coordination for the success of the whole sector. The welfare gain from contract farming and employment on processor-owned estate farms is estimated using a maximum simulated likelihood estimator. Our results show positive welfare effects from participating in contract farming, but not from employment on processor-owned estate farms. The results imply that contract farming presents opportunities for economic growth, but additional effort is required to make the contracts more accessible to smallholders.     

Marginally discriminated: the role of outcome tests in European jurisdiction

For decades, racial profiling has been subject of intense debate in US jurisdiction. Recently, outcome tests based on economic models have contributed to the legal discourse. However, it is not readily obvious if and to what extent they also pertain to European jurisdiction, where racial profiling has only as of late stirred up controversy. In a comprehensive examination of their basic building blocks, this paper illustrates why the these tests are not particularly suited for the European case. The models are tailored to identify racial prejudice but are unfit to provide evidence of statistical discrimination, reflecting their adaption to the current US legal approach. A simple alternative test remedies this shortcoming and manages to inform the European jurisdiction.     

Is Nationalism Intrinsically Violent?

This article analyzes the complex and contradictory relationships between nationalism and organized violence. The author challenges the approaches that see nationalism as being inherently linked with violence and demonstrates that nationalist ideology by itself is rarely a main cause of hostile acts. The article focuses on the different forms of organized violence including wars, revolutions, terrorism, and genocide. It aims to show that the relationship between violence and nationalism cannot be properly captured by the dominant intentionalist, naturalist, and formativist perspectives. Instead the case is made that the emphasis should be given to the long-term historical processes and the relative modernity of both nationalism and organized violence. The author argues that it is very difficult to generate sustained and organized violent nationalist action. The mutation of nationalist doctrines into violent acts is generally a product of unintended structural circumstances and is characterized by its temporary nature and volatility. More specifically, this process is usually generated by the coercive bureaucratization, centrifugal ideologization, and their capacity to be embedded in the networks of microsolidarity.     

An Uncommon Accident and Unusual Cause of Death—A Fatal Domestic Ram Attack

Domestic animal attacks are not common; their fatal attacks are even rarer. Herein, a case of a 78‐year‐old woman attacked by a ram is presented. She sustained multiple head and chest injuries. The autopsy findings and the inspection of the scene revealed that the fatal aortic injury had been caused by direct force from the front, which subsequently caused a powerful anteroposterior chest compression, resulting in an incomplete tear by flexion and compression of the aortic arch. The aortic dissection propagated in both an ante‐ and retrograde direction, with intact adventitia. However, due to a rise in pressure in the formed false lumen, dissection propagated downward to the base of the heart, and further into the subepicardial adipose tissue, forming a subepicardial hematoma. This hematoma gradually compressed the proximal sections of the coronary arteries, impairing their filling, and producing a myocardial ischemia. In addition, circulation had probably been already disturbed by the right‐sided pneumothorax, as well as a possible pneumomediastinum.