Improving smallholder livestock farmers’ incomes through value chain financing in South Africa

Separating the commercialisation of agriculture from other programmes to improve access to formal credit for smallholder farmers is a source of dramatic failures of most programmes. Despite the popularity of value chain financing, livestock agriculture remains marginalised. This paper analyses the MAFISA-NERPO Livestock Credit Scheme, a scheme which provides value chain financial products in order to improve the cash incomes of smallholder farmers in South Africa. Evidence shows that more than 80% of participating farmers receive average annual incomes of US$30,000. This implies that this scheme has addressed those factors hindering effectiveness and efficiency of smallholder credit institutions, using value chain finance.     

R&D spillovers in a supply chain and productivity performance in British firms

The Journal of Technology Transfer - It is well known that there are incentives for cooperation and collaboration along the supply chain, as the performance of any one firm is dependent on that of...     

Comparing the Life-Cycle Costs of New Construction and Acquisition-Rehab of Affordable Multifamily Rental Housing

The cost of producing multifamily affordable housing may differ based on development type. Past attempts to compare the costs of producing multifamily housing through new construction or acquisition-rehab have been limited by an inability to adjust for variations in unit quality among different projects. The authors overcome this challenge by estimating the costs of developing and maintaining a property over a 50-year life cycle. Applying this approach to a convenience sample of 269 properties, the authors find new construction associated with life-cycle costs that are 25% to 45% higher than those of acquisition-rehab.     

Direct Government Investment: Perverse Privatization or New Tool of Government?

In recent years, public administration scholars have called attention to a blurring of the boundaries between the public and private sectors. However, little attention has been focused on the administration of public programs that seek to impact private markets through direct government investment in private firms. The direct government investment approach is a new tool of government that has been applied in several countries and at multiple levels of government. Through an analytic mix of theory and attention to practice, this article leverages a deep case analysis of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program to propose and utilize criteria for examining justifiable rationales for direct government investment, areas of administrative capacity necessary to manage such investments, and potential pitfalls of this new tool of government.     

Postmortem genetic testing in sudden unexplained death: A public health laboratory experience

Sudden unexplained death in the young poses a diagnostically challenging situation for practicing autopsy pathologists, especially in the absence of anatomic and toxicological findings. Postmortem genetic testing may identify pathogenic variants in the deceased of such cases, including those associated with arrhythmogenic channelopathies and cardiomyopathies. The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) is a state-run public health laboratory which performs postmortem genetic testing at no cost to Wisconsin medical examiners and coroners. The current study examines sequencing data from 18 deceased patients (ages 2 months to 49 years, 5 females) submitted to WSLH, from 2016 to 2021. Panel-based analysis was performed on 10 cases, and whole exome sequencing was performed on the most recent 8 cases. Genetic variants were identified in 14 of 18 decedents (77.8%), including 7 with pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants (38.9%). Whole exome sequencing was more likely to yield a positive result, more variants per decedent, and a larger number of variants of uncertain significance. While panel-based testing may offer definitive pathogenic variants in some cases, less frequent variants may be excluded. Whole exome testing may identify rare variants missed by panels, but increased yield of variants of uncertain significance may be difficult to interpret. Postmortem genetic testing in young decedents of sudden unexplained death can provide invaluable information to autopsy pathologists to establish accurate cause and manner of death and to decedent's relatives to allow appropriate management. A public health laboratory model may be a financially advisable alternative to commercial laboratories for medical examiner's/coroner's offices.     

L’année 1998 en République démocratique du Congo: Survie et pratique du politique dans le miroir du quotidien

The four texts comprising this research note were written at the end of 1998 by Congolese scholars asked by B. Jewsiewicki to present people’s actions and local perception of the each region’s situation. Charles Djungu-Simba, a scholar and a writer, presents a fictionalized report of the August 1998 rebels’ intrusion into the city of Kinshasa. The second contributor (writing under a pseudonym) brings in interviews with two officers of the former Zairian army who were incorporated into Kabila’s armed forces. Justin Bisanswa analyses briefly the situation in Kivu with special attention to the local people’s attitudes toward the main militia groups. Jean-Pierre Nzunguba brings in a life story of a Bunia popular painter, an opportunity to present local perception of the life during the past forty years.     

Evidence on substitutability of adult and child labour

Whether child labour displaces adult labour, giving rise to unemployment, is a matter of their substitutability in production. Using a flexible form production function fitted to data on Egypt's economy, we generate Hicks elasticities of complementarity, own and cross‐price elasticities, as well as simulate employment effects on adult labour as a result of changing the fixed quantity of labour in compliance with the international call to end child labour. Adult males appear to be complementary with, and adult females substitutes for child labour, although the employment effects of banning child labour are inconclusive.     

In search of budgetary excellence: the government finance officers association award for distinguished budget presentation

During the twentieth century, American governments progressed from essentially no use of government budgeting to experimentation with a host of budgeting strategies designed to improve the control, efficiency, and decision making capacity of governing agencies. In 1984, the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada sought to synthesize many of these approaches into a broad definition of budgetary excellence by the establishment of an Award for Distinguished Budget Presentation. This article reviews the effort to define budgetary excellence, then offers a discussion of the lessons learned during the first years of the program's operation. he of the products of the program's operation.