Output Diversification Research Articles

The effect of farm size and farmland use on agricultural diversification: a spatial analysis of Brazilian municipalities

Brazilian agriculture is characterized by the prevalence of small farms and regions with a high degree of rurality and dominance of the agricultural sector in the economy. These two characteristics affect the diversity of agricultural production in the country. Specifically, the article aims to analyze the effects of size farm and farmland use on agricultural diversification and the effects of demand and technology adopted by farmers. The database encompasses 4298 Brazilian municipalities from 1996 to 2017 (the last three agricultural censuses). Empirically, we consider spillover effects by estimating spatial models at the municipal level using panel data, highlighting the importance of location and neighborhood. The study’s findings indicate a tendency toward local concentration of agricultural production in the country, despite the balance between municipalities with diversified and concentrated production. The results showed a significant effect of small farms and the municipalities’ rurality degree on the agricultural output diversification. The study provides insights into the discussion on measures to strengthen support for small properties and regions that diversify crops to ensure economic efficiency and food security.

A CycleGAN Adversarial Attack Method Based on Output Diversification Initialization

The powerful image generation capabilities of generative adversarial networks (GAN) bring great threats to applications related to images. Style transfer networks realize the style transform between image domains through which we can easily modify images like portraits and calligraphy. To eliminate the negative impact caused by the forged images, there emerged technical methods to detect forged images, which might trigger remedial actions afterwards but cannot prevent maliciously tampered content from spreading over network media. Therefore, some scholars put forward the idea of protecting images from hostile generative networks with adversarial attack. However, the initial random noise of adversarial perturbation cannot be effectively mapped to the output space. In order to improve the visual effect of adversarial attacks, this paper proposes an adversarial attack algorithm based on output diversification initialization (ODI) for CycleGAN. We firstly utilize output diversification initialization to find an effective starting point for the adversarial attack, and then we use Project Gradient Descent (PGD) to iteratively attack the style transfer network by modifying the adversarial loss function. Experimental results demonstrate that the introduction of ODI can effectively enlarge the distance between the adversarial output and the original output. It achieves better results in identifying the forged images generated by the targeted model, and does not significantly increase the disturbance, which can guarantee the normal use of original images.

Farming systems and productivity gaps: Opportunities for improving smallholder performance in the Forest-Savannah transition zone of Ghana

This paper examines the productivity of diversified farming systems in the Forest-Savannah Transition zone of Ghana. Cross sectional data from 568 smallholder farmers and a metafrontier framework are used to investigate the opportunities for improving the performance of three types of farming systems: crop; livestock; and integrated crop-livestock. The results show that increasing farmers’ access to labour and capital improves the productivity of each of the three farming systems, whereas access to land increases the productivity of the livestock and integrated crop-livestock farming systems. The latter system is more productive because of its greater diversification. There are opportunities for improving productivity through enhancing farmers’ access to market information and promoting output diversification. Furthermore, policies designed to encourage the adoption of integrated crop-livestock farming systems as a way to enhance productivity, to spread production and market risk, and to promote more stable farm incomes are warranted.

Economic Concentration and Finance: Evidence from Russian Regions

​The paper investigates the relationship between economic concentration and level of financial development to illuminate the linkage of real economy structure and financial markets. Using data from 81 Russian regions for the period 2005–2011, empirical evidence is offered to show that poor diversification weakens credit. Geographical variables are used as instruments of concentration in accounting for endogeneity. This work supports previous findings at the national level that policymakers seeking to promote economic development should place stronger emphasis on output diversification.

Assessing the impact of China’s sloping land conversion program on household production efficiency under spatial heterogeneity and output diversification

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess how spatial heterogeneity and production diversification have affected the efficiency of households participating in the SLCP. Design/methodology/approach – Based on household survey data collected from three sample counties in the Loess Plateau region, the paper analyzes how spatial heterogeneity and business diversification have affected the production efficiency of households participating in the SLCP. Using four-step bootstrap, input stochastic distance frontiers of multi-inputs and multi-outputs are developed simultaneously with a technical efficiency effects model in which participating in the SLCP is treated as an exogenous variable. Findings – The household production in the three counties is constrained by land, labor, capital, and fixed inputs; thus, it is germane to using a multi-input and multi-output household production technology to evaluate the SLCP. However, the relative importance of each input and output, the productive diversification, and the technological structure are differentiated in the three counties; estimating the regression with pooled data appears to conceal the influences of local factors and blur the specific divergence, compared to running county-based, separate regressions. Research limitations/implications – The effects of the SLCP on farm household production are location dependent. It is necessary to include spatial heterogeneity within public policy evaluation. In addition to suggesting localized and differentiated schemes of subsidy, this implies that the government may provide means to facilitate different regions to make the economic transition. Originality/value – This paper intends to make two contributions. First, the analysis will capture and explain the adjustments induced by the SLCP in off-farm and other activities for entire household production, and special attention is given to the diversification of household production outputs. Second, this analysis sheds new light to the significance of spatial differentiation in mediating the effectiveness of a public policy or program.

Tracking composition of agricultural output: trends in diversification

Monitoring the extent and pattern of diversification and assessing the determinants and implications of the same would provide valuable inputs to policies that aim to reduce variability of output or influence particular characteristics of output while retaining a balanced output mix. Analysis of diversification of agricultural output can be carried out at two levels. In the first instance, we may consider an indicator of diversification of output of the agricultural sector which is neutral to the nature of composition of the output. Further analysis in terms of the actual composition of the output will require measuring the significance of specific characteristics of output, such as nutrition content of the output. Analysis of composition of output of agricultural sector using a diversification index, which in turn is based on Herfindahl Index of concentration for the period from 1980–1981 to 2010–2011, shows that the livestock sub-sector and crop sub-sector have shown quite opposite patterns. Supplementary analysis points to the changing basket of farm output in favour of higher value commodities. The analysis has provided an assessment of diversification of agricultural output that may be useful in understanding whether the output basket is changing. In the context of achieving greater balance or diversification of output to meet specific goals such as conservation of water resources or maintaining soil health, these features would have to be specifically incorporated in the analysis to supplement the tracking of trends in diversification.

The impact of inefficiency on diversification

Diversification is often seen as a risk management tool, but specialization allows operators to exploit scale economies in single outputs and offers specialized operators more opportunities to fine-tune their skills which can promote a greater degree of technical proficiency. Measuring economies of scope facilitates the assessment of the benefits from output diversification versus specialization for operators and provides a metric for explaining and predicting trends towards specialization or diversification. However, the current literature on economies of scope provides little insight into the potential trade-off between the benefits of diversification and the presence of inefficiency in production and decision making. To remedy this shortcoming, this paper develops a measure of an effective (or behavioral) measure of scope economies which measures the benefits of diversification accounting for the contributions of allocative, congestion and technical efficiency in scaling the perfectly efficient version of scope economies. The application focuses on measuring and explaining economies of scope on Dutch crop farms.

The Importance (Impacts) of Knowledge at the Macro–Micro Levels in the Arab Gulf Countries

In this paper, we use the data from the firm survey (2002) at the micro level and some recent secondary data at the macro level to examine the importance (impacts) of tacit and codified sources of knowledge at firm and aggregate levels, respectively. Our results at the macro level are consistent with the notion that tacit knowledge is complementary with schooling, while tacit knowledge and codified knowledge are positively correlated with GDP. Moreover, at the macro/aggregate level, our results show a significant complementary relationship between codified knowledge and the number of full-time equivalent researchers (FTER) and between them and publications, cooperation and technology (patents). Our findings at the micro level indicate positive correlations between tacit knowledge, ICT, training, profit, output and output diversification. In addition, our findings illustrate that tacit skill/knowledge inside the firm increases with market size: total investment, capital, firm size and age. Our results are consistent with the findings in the knowledge literature and are also useful to indicate the importance of good education at both the micro and macro levels.

CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPMENT AND EMPLOYMENT GENERATION IN UP: THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

The distinguishing feature of UP’s economy is its regional imbalance. The state is divided into four economic regions – eastern, western, central and southern. All these regions have different climatic conditions, soil types and infra-structural development. The western region is the most prosperous region, despite some catching up by other regions in the 1970s and 1980s.The food grain yield per acre in the eastern and central regions is only 80% of the yield in the western region. And the west-to-east gap widens when one considers all crops: the west has witnessed greater diversification of output and has more area under high-value commercial crops. The southern region has made little progress. By the mid-1990s, crop value per acre in this region was on average less than half that for the western region. Consequently, the gap between the southern region and the rest of the state has continued to widen. Thus, to interpret the state as one economic unit in undifferentiated terms would be misleading. Given the wide variations in the level of development in the state, we can expect that factors driving employment growth would also vary. It is likely that in the more developed western region, diversification of employment away from agriculture would reflect the role of demand-pull factors generated by agricultural dynamism, while in the eastern, central and southern regions distress-push can play a role in increasing the volume of non-farm employment. After 1991, banks have become the spine for the development of the economy on all parameters in any state. The banking sector of Uttar Pradesh is predominated by nationalized banks like SBI, Regional Rural Banks, Foreign Banks and also Private Banks. But the state’s credit deposit ratio stands at 43.6% (March 2011), which is lower than the national level of 75.1% during the same period. High credit ratio represents effective functioning of banking sector. Again, there is diversification of credit ratio from one region to other.

Sources of Economic Growth and Sustainable Development

National economies are considered stable if They are Able to Utilize the sources, the human, financial establishment and capital to Generate Growth and Sustainable Economic development and ensuring the welfare of the inhabitants. Resources are a source of Dispute, Their use provides Economic Growth and social welfare. Increase of Sustainable development is essential to achieving socio-Economic Stability and Political development of the country. Ensures Sustainable Economy Growth, Sustainable Economic development represents real Growth of Gross Domestic Product of a country and change in Manufacturing Capacity.Globalization in the Early XXI century is called for Nations, Companies, jobs and lives. Transnational flow free and fast ideas, information, Knowledge, People, Goods, Capital Creates new direction and Sustainable Economic Development. It is particularly special issue for Societies and economies in Transition Such as Kosovo Was in harmony with the country's Economic circumstances Promote Sustainable development, Which represents the link with the development of Contemporary Global Economic Trend.Governments influence the long-term Growth through institutions, structural police, Stabilisation police, education, human capital, technology Adoption, market development, technological innovation, degree of Competition, international trade, the quality of services, public infrastructure, governance Capacity, quality of institutions, limiting corruption, crime, etc. ..Corporations are global actors to Promote research and development of new technologies, the Manufacturing and service activities. They are Carriers of Organizational behavioral rules. The poor investments in the Kosovo Economy, speed and volume of Production Growth, strengthen Competitiveness, Facilitate Greater access to International Financial resources, and bring wider diversification of output and Exports in general.

Assessing the Macroeconomic Conditions in Serbia for Integrating the European Union

Serbia is a candidate to integration in the European Union. In this perspective, important transformations have been observed in recent years in the economy. The paper assesses three important aspects that may ease the accession, namely the diversity of economic activities, the diversification of output produced, respectively the economic structure. The analysis concludes that diversity has improved significantly in the last few years, but the diversity remains low. At the same time, the economic structure of activities and industries is changing rapidly, showing a tendency of convergence towards the EU economic configuration.

Finance and Diversification

We study how financial market efficiency affects a measure of diversification of output across industrial sectors borrowed from the portfolio allocation literature. Using data on sector-level value added for a wide cross section of countries and for various levels of disaggregation, we construct a benchmark measure of diversification as the set of allocations of aggregate output across industrial sectors which minimize the economy’s long-term volatility for a given level of long-term growth. We find that financial markets increase substantially the speed with which the observed sectoral allocation of output converges towards the optimally diversified benchmark. Convergence to the optimal shares of aggregate output is relatively faster for sectors that have a higher natural long-term risk-adjusted growth and which exhibit higher information frictions. Our results are robust to using various proxies for financial development, to accounting for the endogeneity of finance, and to controlling for investor’s protection, contract enforcement, and barriers to entry. Crucially, the observed patterns disappear when we employ naive measures of diversification based on the equal spreading of output across sectors. JEL Classification: E32, E44, G11, O16

Technical Efficiency among Peasant Farmers Participating in Natural Resource Management Programmes in Central America

AbstractThis study examines the extent to which technical efficiency (TE) is related to activities promoted by two natural resource management programmes recently completed in Central America. Data for a total of 639 farms operating in the hillsides of El Salvador and Honduras are used to estimate a household‐level input‐oriented stochastic distance frontier simultaneously with a TE effects model. The main finding of this study is that improvements in TE are financially beneficial to farm households while also contributing to environmental sustainability. The results also reveal a positive association between productivity and output diversification, and a positive relationship between TE and off‐farm income, human capital and agricultural extension.

The impact of soil conservation and output diversification on farm income in Central American hillside farming

AbstractThis article analyzes the determinants of farm income among hillside farmers participating in natural resource management projects in El Salvador and Honduras. The farm income function was evaluated using a system of equations in which income is determined simultaneously by the farmer's decision to adopt soil conservation technologies and by the level of diversification (number of agricultural activities) on the farm. The database used comes from surveys administered to 678 beneficiaries of these projects during 2002. The econometric results suggest that all the variables related directly to land use (i.e., output diversification, soil conservation practices and structures, and the adoption of forestry systems) have a positive and statistically significant association with farm income. Also, farmers who own land enjoy higher farm incomes than those who do not. The results indicate that when investing in natural resource management projects, governments and multilateral development agencies should pay close attention to output diversification, land tenure, and human capital formation as effective instruments in increasing farm income.

Plus c’est la même chose? Questioning crop diversification as a response to agricultural deregulation in Saskatchewan, Canada

In the context of declining government subsidization of agriculture, many analysts have predicted reversals in certain characteristic trends of post-1945 Western agriculture with positive implications for agroecosystem well-being. One example, investigated herein, is the suggestion that, in the absence of government safety nets, farmers will seek to diversify their operations in order to buffer against production failures or market downturns in any one output. Such a shift is not only consistent with agricultural risk-management theory, but also, at first glance, early ‘mirror image’ conceptualizations of post-productivist agriculture; if (output) specialization has been an observed trend of productivism, then (output) diversification should be the trend of post-productivism. In fairness, however, where diversification has been identified as a manifestation of post-productivism, it has usually implied the development of largely non-agricultural activities that supplement household income. Clearly, a clarification of meaning is needed, and this paper offer some suggestions for doing so. Additionally, crop data from Saskatchewan, Canada are analysed for the years 1994–2000 to determine the degree to which arable producers there have sought to diversify their operations following the loss of an historically and financially significant export subsidy. Given limited evidence of diversification at the level of individual farms, the maximum scale at which crop diversity has any significance in ecological terms, a discussion follows of the various limitations to adopting an output diversification strategy to manage market and other risks, and the likelihood of farmers further pursuing output specialization in an era of reduced government support and increasingly chaotic commodity markets.

Sprouty Fine-Tunes EGF Signaling through Interlinked Positive and Negative Feedback Loops

Background: Growth factors and their receptor tyrosine kinases play pivotal roles in development, normal physiology, and pathology. Signal transduction is regulated primarily by receptor endocytosis and degradation in lysosomes (“receptor downregulation”). c-Cbl is an adaptor that modulates this process by recruiting binding partners, such as ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes. The role of another group of adaptors, Sprouty proteins, is less understood; although, studies in insects implicated the founder protein in the negative regulation of several receptor tyrosine kinases.Results: By utilizing transfection of living cells, as well as reconstituted in vitro systems, we identified a dual regulatory mechanism that combines human Sprouty2 and c-Cbl. Upon activation of the receptor for the epidermal growth factor (EGFR), Sprouty2 undergoes phosphorylation at a conserved tyrosine that recruits the Src homology 2 domain of c-Cbl. Subsequently, the flanking RING finger of c-Cbl mediates poly-ubiquitination of Sprouty2, which is followed by proteasomal degradation. Because phosphorylated Sprouty2 sequesters active c-Cbl molecules, it impedes receptor ubiquitination, downregulation, and degradation in lysosomes. This competitive interplay occurs in endosomes, and it regulates the amplitude and longevity of intracellular signals.Conclusions: Sprouty2 emerges as an inducible antagonist of c-Cbl, and together they set a time window for receptor activation. When incorporated in signaling networks, the coupling of positive (Sprouty) to negative (Cbl) feedback loops can greatly enhance output diversification.

Economies of scale and scope as an explanation of merger and output diversification activities in the health maintenance organization industry

This paper tests for the existence and magnitude of economies of scale and scope as possible explanations for the recent observed trends in increasing health maintenance organization (HMO) scale (through merger and acquisition) and scope (through greater participation in public enrollee markets) using firm level data from a sample of California HMOs for the time period 1986–1992. The results suggest that economies of scale provide a strong justification for mergers only in the case of relatively small HMOs (i.e. those with fewer than 115,000 enrollees), and economies of scope do not explain the increasing HMO enrollment of public enrollees.

The commercial health insurance industry in transition.

Research Article Health AffairsVol. 6, No. 3 The Commercial Health Insurance Industry in TransitionJon Gabel, Cindy Jajic-Toth, Karen Williams, Sarah Loughran, and Kevin HaughPUBLISHED:Fall 1987No Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.6.3.46AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions View articleAbstractPrologue:The commercial health insurance industry is a vast enterprise of which health insurance is an important part. The health insurance business, which suffered substantial underwriting losses in the early 1980s because of inflation and its inability to control health costs, was in trouble. More recently, with inflation under firmer control and with some progress on the health cost front, commercial insurers have been struggling with a new challenge: more intense competition among delivery organizations for providing medical care to patients. In this survey of the recent activities of commercial health insurers, Jon Gabel and his research colleagues at the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) depict the changing nature of the industry. No longer is Blue Cross and Blue Shield the major competitor. Rather, the nations employers are assuming more of the financial risk of insuring their employees against the economic consequences of illness and are demanding that insurers provide information on medical care utilization. At the same time, commercial insurers are acquiring health maintenance organizations (HMOs), developing preferred provider organizations (PPOs), and subjecting fee-for-service medicine to more stringent forms of utilization review. While insurers are plunging into the business of direct service medical care, to which most of the large carriers are heavily committed, some of the large hospital management companies have entered the insurance business. The track record of insurers and hospital management companies in these new ventures has been less than an unqualified success, according to recent press accounts. Gabel, formerly a senior economist at the National Center for Health Services Research and Health Care Technology Assessment, is associate director of research and policy development at HIAA. Karen Williams is director of this activity at HIAA. Cindyjajich-Toth, Sarah Loughran, and Kevin Haugh are researchers at the association.TOPICSPreferred provider organizationsHealth maintenance organizationsUtilization reviewHealth care providersManaged careMarketsPhysician paymentPrivate health insuranceFee-for-servicePhysicians Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article MetricsCitations: Crossref 11 History Published online 1 January 1987 InformationCopyright © by Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe authors thank Dianne Washington and Margaret Walkover for their research assistance and Alfreda Russell for her excellent secretarial support. We also thank Gregory de Lissovoy, Donna DeSanctis, Dave Llewellyn, Tom Musco, and Thomas Rice for their insights and comments.PDF downloadCited ByThe politics of health and social welfare in the United StatesAgeing International, Vol. 31, No. 2Economies of scale and scope as an explanation of merger and output diversification activities in the health maintenance organization industryJournal of Health Economics, Vol. 15, No. 6Interrogating an accounting-based intervention on three axes: Instrumental, moral and aestheticAccounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 18, No. 4The Effect of Utilization Review on Hospital Use and Expenditures: A Review of the Literature and an Update on Recent Findings18 August 2016 | Medical Care Review, Vol. 47, No. 3The “Corporatization” of U.S. Hospitals: What Can We Learn from the Nineteenth Century Industrial Experience?1 January 1995 | International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 20, No. 1Market-Based Hospital Pricing DecisionsHospital Topics, Vol. 67, No. 6Hospital Utilization Review: Past Experience, Future DirectionsJournal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 13, No. 4The Changing World of Group Health InsuranceJon Gabel, Cindy Jajich-Toth, Gregory de Lissovoy, Thomas Rice, and Howard Cohen24 July 2017 | Health Affairs, Vol. 7, No. 3HMOs in the U.S.A. and Britain: A new prospect for health care?Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 27, No. 4The Regulation of Preferred Provider ArrangementsElizabeth S. Rolph, Paul B. Ginsburg, and Susan D. Hosek24 July 2017 | Health Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3A Physician's View Of Managed CareLawrence Kahn24 July 2017 | Health Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3

Explanatory Frameworks for Growth and Change in Multiregional Firms

In this paper a number of conceptual frameworks derived from the behavioral-managerial literature are examined and evaluated in terms of their utility in explaining growth and change in large oligopolistic, uninational and multinational firms. Notions related to the technical supremacy of these firms and their apparent desire to maintain this supremacy proved to be very important and useful. Ambiguities found with respect to the concept of domestic market saturation as an explanatory mechanism for the internationalization of firms led to a scrutiny of the product life cycle. If was concluded that the spatial dimensions of this seminal conceptual framework needed strengthening. An examination of explanatory concepts related to the processes of growth and output diversification processes underscored the important role of R&D activities of these high technology, multiregional firms. In this paper I shall discuss and evalu