Transaction Costs,Information Technologies,and the Choice of Marketplace among Farmers in Northern Ghana

Abstract

Using a transactions costs framework, we examine the impact of information and communication technologies (mobile phones and radios) use on market participation in developing country agricultural markets using a novel transaction-level data set of Ghanaian farmers. Our analysis of the choice of markets by farmers suggests that market information from a broader range of markets may not always induce farmers to sell in more distant markets; instead farmers may use broader market information to enhance their bargaining power in closer markets. Finally, we find weak evidence on the impact of using mobile phones in attracting farm gate buyers.     

Performing Counter-Hegemonic Common(s) Senses: Rearticulating Democracy,Community and Forests in Puerto Rico

Political ecologists have developed scathing analyses of capitalism’s tendency for enclosure and dispossession of the commons. In this context commons are analyzed as a force to resist neo-liberalism, a main site of conflict over dispossession, and a source of alternatives to capitalism. In this paper we elaborate a view of the commons as the material and symbolic terrain where performative re-articulation of common(s) senses can potentially enact counter-hegemonic socio-ecological configurations. Expressly drawing on the concepts of hegemony, “common-senses” (inspired by Antonio Gramsci) and “performativity” (developed by Judith Butler), we argue that counter-hegemony is performed through everyday practices that rearticulate existing common senses about commons. Commoning is a set of processes/relations enacted to challenge capitalist hegemony and build more just/sustainable societies insofar as it transforms and rearranges common senses in/through praxis. The paper draws on the experience of an anti-mining movement of Casa Pueblo in Puerto Rico, which for the last 35+ years has been developing a project self-described as autogestion. The discussion pays special attention to Casa Pueblo’s praxis and discourses to investigate how they rearticulate common senses with regard to nature, community and democracy, as well as their implications for counter-hegemonic politics.     

The shadow price of pluralism: the use of tax expenditures to subsidize hospital care in the United States

During the 1980s, and particularly during the past year, controversy has arisen over the propriety of the not-for-profit hospital's tax-exempt status. In addressing the issue, policy analysts and activists have focused attention on the comparative efficiency and effectiveness of not-for-profit and for-profit hospitals' provision of social benefit, variously conceived and quantified. We review the results of current research carried out within that focus and suggest that the findings are inconclusive and the focus misplaced. A more profitable avenue of inquiry would be to explore the extent to which the dominance of tax-subsidized not-for-profit hospitals is a societally preferred means of achieving the provision of a level of access to quality care that otherwise would require a large direct government subsidy.     

The Performance of Nursery Schools in Italian Municipalities

In a neo-liberal approach, the need to increase levels of cost saving, effectiveness, and quality in producing local public services is correlated to awareness of the limited resources available and is an economic issue that has been much debated in recent decades. Ways of measuring and evaluating public services have stimulated academic interest for several years now. In this context, evaluating the levels of performance of public services provided by non-profit organizations (NPOs) as a consequence of contracting-out by public administration is an essential variable in rationalizing—both in terms of quantity and quality—public expenditure.

The aim of this article is to measure multi-dimensional aspects of nursery school services offered by Italian municipalities and to verify whether using different management models makes a difference in the results obtained. We examine data contained in final accounts of main Italian municipalities in order to evaluate effectiveness, cost saving, and quality aspects of the nursery school service supplied.

Regarding overall performance, the distinction between direct management and contracting-out has not brought out significant differences in terms of effectiveness and cost saving, even if the direct management solution is better than the externalized one. By contrast, as previous research showed, quality levels for externalized services are on average lower than for directly managed services.     

Italy and the new international economic order

In order to make it more effective as an actor on the international scene, the European Union is being urged to reverse its foreign policy priorities. EU enlargement policy has fallen out of grace and many want to see Europe acquire a “normal” foreign policy with a global rather than merely regional reach, significant military means and centralised governance. Management of various conflicts in Africa and Asia is also in vogue. Such a policy shift will define the nature of Europe's actorness. It is argued that, with all its defects, the EU performs quite well as a civilian regional power and efforts to transform it into a traditional military power with a global reach could make things worse rather than better.     

Suburbia’s “Crime Experts”: The Neo-Conservatism of Control Theory and the Ethos of Crime

This essay tackles the relationship between morality and crime by way of the debate surrounding Travis Hirschi’s double contribution to so-called “control theory,” first as “social bonding theory,” and subsequently as a “general theory” of crime. The assessment conducted herein construes the first version of “control” as an expression of patriotism, and its late formulation, on account of its emphasis on varying individual levels of self-mastery, as an implicit reaffirmation of the inevitability of class division. Over the years, the fixation with “self-control” has become a rubric for the suburban anxieties of an upper-middle class surrounded by expanding (ghetto) poverty and plagued by familial dysfunction and the alienation of its own offspring. In the final analysis, these reflections form the basis for a general reformulation, inspired by the sociology of Thorstein Veblen, of the relationship between class and crime and condign punishment by leveraging the notion of ethos (a common mindset peculiar to each class), and proving thereby that crime is systematically determined by this very mindset, which is the spiritual complement to class formation, rather than by the conventionally classless categories of rational self-interest or idiosyncratic proneness to violence.     

IAI annual report, 1972

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays a substantial regulatory role in the international monetary and financial system. It has been assigned a formal regulatory role in a limited number of areas, such as obligations covering exchange rate policies. Yet the Fund has a broader informal regulatory role derived from the voluntary consent of its members, such as in surveillance over members’ financial sector policies and international payments imbalances. This regulatory role is unlike that of its member governments within their own jurisdictions. In order to guide the global economy in the wake of the 2007–09 crisis, the Fund's formal and informal regulation will have to be constantly nurtured and renewed via peer-review processes.     

Highly efficient and automated extraction of DNA from human remains using a modified EZ1 protocol

Bones and teeth often represent the only sources of DNA available for identifying human remains. DNA in bones and teeth is generally better preserved than that in soft tissues because of the presence of hard connective tissue with a high level of calcium. Because of the extensive mineralisation, the choice of an efficient DNA extraction procedure is important to minimise the sampling of a high level of minerals and to remove polymerase chain reaction (PCR) inhibitors. Some protocols are available for DNA extraction from bones and teeth as part of the Qiagen EZ1 DNA Investigator Kit using the EZ1 Advanced XL automated purification platform. To improve the efficiency of DNA extraction from skeletal remains, the present study focuses on a modification to these already available protocols. In this study, different bones and teeth collected between 1 and 50 years after death were subjected to DNA extraction using the standard EZ1 protocol, a supplementary protocol, and a modified protocol. The modified approach included a decalcification step, whereas the Qiagen protocols worked directly on non-decalcified powder. In all three procedures, 150 mg samples were used for DNA extraction. We evaluated the quantity of DNA recovered from samples, the presence of any PCR inhibitors co-extracted, the level of DNA degradation, the quality of short tandem repeat (STR) profiles, and the reproducibility of the modified procedure. When compared with the other protocols, the modified protocol resulted in the best recovery of DNA that was free of PCR inhibitors. Additionally, the STR profiles were reliable and of high quality. In our opinion, the decalcification step increases DNA recovery by softening tissues, which allows lysis solutions to act more effectively. Furthermore, the use of two lysis solutions and the variation added to the EZ1 purification step allow for DNA recovery with quality and quantity superior to those of the previously available Qiagen-based protocols. These findings may be helpful solutions to the problems commonly encountered when dealing with difficult samples, such as bones and teeth.

Key points

• Bones and teeth often represent the only sources of DNA for identifying human remains.
• The choice of an efficient DNA extraction procedure is important for maximizing DNA recovery and removing PCR inhibitors.
• This study focuses on modifications to the previously available Qiagen-based protocols.
• The modified protocol enabled the best recovery of DNA, and both quality and quantity were superior to those of the previously available Qiagen-based protocols.
• The STR profiles obtained from samples extracted using the modified protocol were reliable and of high quality.

     

Explaining the European Parliament’s gains in the EU Constitution

The Constitutional Treaty, like each set of reforms since the Single European Act, would constitute another incremental increase in the European Parliament’s powers. But the Parliament did not get everything it wanted. What we do in this paper is investigate why the European Parliament tends to ‘win’ in some areas but not in others. We consider five possible explanations and test these theories by looking at the issues the Parliament promoted in the constitutional negotiations and the factors that determined whether the Parliament was successful or not in a particular area. We find that the Parliament gains power in areas where the governments delegate new powers to the EU and are uncertain about the consequences of this delegation. We also find that public support for the Parliament played a role in the extension of the Parliament’s powers in the Constitution.