Economics

Improving productivity among farm microenterprises is important, especially in low-income countries where market imperfections are pervasive and resources are scarce. Relaxing credit constraints can increase the productivity of farmers. Using a field experiment involving microenterprises in Bangladesh, we estimate the impact of access to credit on the overall productivity of rice farmers, and disentangle the total effect into technological change (frontier shift) and technical efficiency changes. We find that relative to the baseline rice output per decimal, access to credit results in, on average, approximately a 14 percent increase in yield, holding all other inputs constant. After decomposing the total effect into the frontier shift and efficiency improvement, we find that, on average, around 11 percent of the increase in output comes from changes in technology, or frontier shift, while the remaining 3 percent is attributed to improvements in technical efficiency. The efficiency ...

Recent empirical evidence shows that expanding credit access for firms in developing countries results in output improvements. However, relaxing credit constraints could also influence how firms use production inputs and how efficiently they transform them into output. Using a field experiment in Bangladesh, we estimate the causal impact of expanding credit access on microenterprise productivity and farmer technical efficiency for rice farmers in Bangladesh. We find that expanding access to credit results, on average, in 12.25 percent increase in farm efficiency. We also find that within the treatment group, households with more diversified production systeminvolvement in poultry and livestock activitygain more (4.86 percent) from credit access whereas small farm size has negative effect on efficiency.

Abstract: Poor financial environment of rural developing economy leads to underinvestment and inefficiency of marginal and small-scale farm households. Development interventions for providing improved market access and credit at subsidized interest rate to small farm households are therefore considered as the preconditions in the transformation process of rural agrarian economy. Hence, the question of whether access to resources influences farm households' production decisions, performance and efficiency is very important. In this paper, we attempt to estimate the impact of a subsidized credit on farm output and efficiency of small and marginal rice farmers of Bangladesh. Using survey data of a field experimental study, we show that relaxing the credit constraint has significant positive impact on farm output and efficiency. On an average, small-scale rice farms with access to subsidized credit are found to be 13% more efficient than farms with no credit access. The increase is ...

Turkey and Iran has had a long history of rivalry and cooperation. However, the advent of the Arab Spring and the Syrian conflict escorted unprecedented tensions between these two non-Arab states. Syria epitomizes the geopolitical tensions between Turkey and Iran amongst a host of regional issues, in which they are at loggerheads over regional influence at the expense of each other. At pernicious odds over Syria, Turco-Iranian relations seemed inexorably precarious going forth. That is until Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's January 29 th , 2014 visit to Iran signaled a thawing and growing alignment toward Iran. The alignment behavior of Turkey and Iran presents something of a puzzle. This paper investigates the nature of the current Turco-Iranian alignment by adopting structural realist theory of alliance. The choice of grand strategy that the U.S. adopted and its actions in the Middle East resulted in Turkey and Iran bandwagoning with the U.S. instead of balancing against it, which in turn made Turkey and Iran cooperate. Even though Turkey is a NATO ally of the U.S., both Turkey and Iran had limited options due to the actions of the U.S.

The concepts of balancing and bandwagoning theoretically have been the known strategies that states often utilize when they are exposed to pressing external threats. Scholars debated about the absence of balancing by states in the post-Cold War era against the United States, such that concepts like soft balancing and underbalancing have been introduced as the alternatives. States' balancing strategies become more complicated under fragmented, multi-polar system such as the Middle East. Due to power diffusion, the Middle East has many weakened states and various types of actors are trying to take advantage of it; Iran has gained the most geopolitically. The puzzle is why Turkey is not employing either a balancing or bandwagoning strategy towards Iran, even though Iran's regional geopolitical gains are a threat. This paper argues that Turkey has adopted 'compartmentalized hedging' towards Iran during the outbreak of civil wars and conflicts that are internationalized. Compartmentalized hedging allows Turkey to transcend the traditional relationship boundaries of ally or foe by straddling the grey area by simultaneously combining negative balancing and economic engagement as a hybrid policy towards the regional threat.

This research seeks to investigate key variables affecting low female political representation in the US. Although playing a leading role in promoting democracy and human rights in other countries, the US ranks low in female political participation than expected. For instance, New Zealand is similar to the US in political history and culture, demographic structure and gender ratio, and democracy level; however, it ranks higher in political representation of women than does the US. Arguably, existing literature on female political representation relies on three strands of explanations: socio-structural, culture-based, and institution-based. The findings in this research confirm the validity of the institution-based explanation. They suggest that political institution such as the electoral system is a crucial variable that can explain why the US ranks lower in female political representation than does New Zealand. The electoral system is also a key variable that can explain why female representation ratio in state legislatures in six particular states in the US-Vermont, Washington, Arizona, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Maryland-is higher than the rest. The research confirms that the mixed-member proportional system elects more women than the single-member district plurality system in the US.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the firing debate of protectionism vs environmentalism and its serious effect on the developing countries.The research objective of this research paper is to understand the relationship between trade and environment in general and then closely analyzing the current scenario of using the environmental concerns for trade distortion and discrimination to the various emerging, developing and least developed nations in the form of non-tariff barriers. The objective of this paper is also to understand whether the unilateral agreements of various developed countries are acting as a nuisance or catalyst for the cross border trades which are supported by case studies. The research is completely based on authenticated secondary data and case study method and the conclusion is completely based on the interpretations of the literature review of the authors.