No 1/2016, March

A Model of the Dynamics of the Effect of World Crude Oil Price and World Rice Price on Indonesia’s Inflation Rate

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the dynamics of the effects of world crude oil prices and world rice prices on Indonesia’s inflation rate in the period between January 2004 and September 2015. Monthly time series data spanning from January 2004 to September 2015 are analyzed using difference equation model as the econometric tool. Test result shows that there existed a dynamic effect of world oil crude prices and world rice prices on inflation rate in Indonesia. The World crude oil prices positively affected the inflation rate in that each 1% increase (decrease) in the world crude oil prices caused the inflation rate to go up (drop) by 0.33%. The world rice prices also positively affected the inflation rate, where each 1% increase (decrease) in world rice prices was followed by a 0.52% rise (fall) of the inflation rate.

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Information Security Management: ANP Based Approach for Risk Analysis and Decision Making

ABSTRACT

In information systems security, the objectives of risk analysis process are to help to identify new threats and vulnerabilities, to estimate their business impact and to provide a dynamic set of tools to control the security level of the information system. The identification of risk factors as well as the estimation of their business impact require tools for assessment of risk with multi-value scales according to different stakeholders’ point of view. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to model risk analysis decision making problem using semantic network to develop the decision network and the Analytical Network Process (ANP) that allows solving complex problems taking into consideration quantitative and qualitative data. As a decision support technique ANP also measures the dependency among risk factors related to the elicitation of individual judgement. An empirical study involving the Forestry Company is used to illustrate the relevance of ANP.

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Global Value Chain in Agro-export Production and Its Socio-economic Impact in Michoacán, Mexico

ABSTRACT

Mexican blackberry production is very geographically concentrated in the Valley Los Reyes, where most of blackberries, which the country exports, are produced. Taking into account that Mexico is the world's largest exporter of this fruit in terms of quantity; we can conclude that a relatively small area produces most of the blackberries that are traded worldwide. The paper aims to analyze the blackberry value chain and its local socio-economic impact. The main conclusion is that the global value chain of blackberries brings benefits for the small farmers and investors too, but it is necessary establish contract terms ensuring that contractors do not abuse their market power. Also it was demonstated the positive local socio-economic impact of the activity.

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Temporal Trajectories of HR/VHR Pixels and Detection of Land Take Processes

ABSTRACT

An increasing share of people and economic activities are attracted by the cities. This fact shows positive aspects and at the same time causes challenges, mainly in reference to the soil whose ecosystem services can be disrupted when the land cover is modified. Therefore, urbanization is a critical issue for the land management.Contrasting the urban sprawl (i.e. the spontaneous, unplanned process transforming vegetated land covers into artificial ones) is relevant for soil protection in terms of minimizing the land take. Remote sensing technologies have provided support (with an ex-post approach) to understand urban sprawl as a process and to assess its impacts on the sustainability of land management. The current availability of high-resolution/ very-high-resolution (HR/VHR) satellite data suggests to explore a different approach, aiming to deploy timely adequate countermeasures.The analysis of the urban sprawl processes pinpoints how the induced land cover changes show some specific patterns; moreover, distinctive trajectories in the space of multitemporal / multispectral imagery data can be elicited, relying also upon vegetation indices as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Accordingly, suitable precursors of urban sprawl processes can be detected. Such precursors can support a novel ex-ante approach in preventing the consolidation of the outcomes of the urban sprawl processes.

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African Countries’ Agricultural Trade Value Chain Assessment Case study: Tanzania (Cashew nut exports)

ABSTRACT

Sub-Saharan Africa lost its status as a net exporter of agricultural products in the early 1980s when prices for raw commodities fell and local production stagnated. Since then, agricultural imports have grown faster than agricultural exports. In order to get to the bottom of this critical issue, UNIDO in partnership with the AU, IFAD, AfDB, FAO, and UNECA, developed the African Agribusiness and Agro-Industries Development Initiative (3ADI). The major objective of the 3ADI is to increase private sector investment flows going into the agriculture sector in Africa by mobilizing resources for agribusiness and agro-industrial development from the domestic, regional or international financial systems. This formed the basis of research with the objective of assessing the value addition chain for some vital agricultural commodities in the 3ADI focus countries. UNIDO is developing several action plans in a few African countries – one of them is Tanzania. In the case of Tanzania, the findings show the potential in cashew nuts. The paper’s main goal is to propose a plan or set of steps leading to the improvement of added value generation in the area of agricultural trade in Tanzania. The paper is focused on one commodity Cashew-nuts. Tanzania boosts high volumes of local supply of this commodity, which is the key prerequisite for the value addition chain through local processing. The results from the analysis prove significant economic losses related to the current structure of Tanzanian trade in cashew nuts. The main problem of the current cashew nut trade activities is the very low added value of exported cashew nuts. The paper analyses the structure of value added activities related to the cashew nut trade and proposes a plan for increasing the share of processed cashew nuts at a much higher unit price in comparison to raw cashew nuts. The simulated development in the cashew sector in Tanzania to the year 2030 is based on two expectations a 5% increase of evaluation of particular steps and a 5% growth of processed cashew nuts export volume resulting in significant growth of export incomes and provides an important material stimulating discussion related to the importance of the transformation of the export structure from unprocessed raw products to processed – finalized products.

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Income Impacts of Credit on Accessed Households in Rural Vietnam: Do Various Credit Sources Perform Differently?

ABSTRACT

This study uses the Propensity Score Matching to examine the income impact of different credit sources on accessed households in the Northern Mountains of Vietnam. Results show that overall rural credit serves an important role in improving household income with respect to total income, per capita income and non- farm income. However, different credit affects recipients heterogeneously. Whereas a significant increase in household income can be achieved through accessing commercial and informal loans, there is no significant increase of all income components associated recipients of preferential credit. These results imply that a successful credit scheme needs to consider variations in transaction costs, disbursement scheme, loan characteristics and typical socio-economic conditions of credit recipients.

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Identification and Valuation of Public Goods within the Vertical of Cattle Breeding

ABSTRACT

The paper identifies and discusses the production of public goods in the vertical of cattle breeding. The cattle breeding vertical was divided into four basic levels – producer, processor, retailer, and consumer and main public goods were determined and discussed. Moreover, it provides the methods for the valuation of public goods. The method is applied in the estimation of manure shadow price. Using the fitted multiple output distance function with two market and one non-market output and applying the Lagrange method and the Shephard’s dual lemma the shadow price of manure was calculated. The results show that the shadow prices differ significantly among the groups of farmers. This especially holds for the classification of groups according to the size and technology of production.

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Internet of Things (IoT) in Agriculture - Selected Aspects

ABSTRACT

Article analyzes chosen aspects of Internet of Things (IoT) in general and in regards to its specific uses in agriculture, which is one of the areas where IoT is commonly implemented. It serves as a primary delve into the issues of IoT as part of the grant received from Internal Grant Agency of Faculty of Economics and Management at CULS Prague called “Potential use of the Internet of Things, with emphasis on rural development and agrarian sector”. Article overviews IoT equipment categorization, platforms, standards and network solutions. It focuses on network infrastructure, which is the foundation for IoT implementation. The specific environmental conditions of Czech Republic are also taken into account. Lastly, basic development trends of IoT are defined.

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Differences of Financial Management Strategy of Central European and Russian Milk Processors

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is a detailed investigation of financial performance of milk processing companies of Central Europe and the Russian Federation before the Russian embargo. An investigated object is a data base of accounting reports of 5 countries over the period of 2009 – 2013. The number of selected companies is 370. The article also involves a short review of the dairy industry condition. In order to compare financial performance of two regions 4 types of criteria i.e. profitability ratios, turnover ratios, liquidity and capital structure were implemented. The differences between the Visegrad group and the Russian Federation were tested through Kolmogorov-Smirnov test at the significance level of 0.05. The main difference between the financial performances is the following: profitability (ROCE) of Russian companies is 3 times higher than in the Central Europe, stock turnover ratio is 2 times lower in the Russian Federation, and credit period is 4 days shorter. Generally speaking, the key difference is higher profitability of Russian companies which may be associated with reduced cost component, different technology of production of dairy products as well as with different capital structure.

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Towards Framework for Economic Value of Analytical Systems in Agriculture: Proposal of Research

ABSTRACT

An important criterion for agricultural businesses and farmers who make investment decisions is the profitability of their investments. If the profitability criterion is applied to investments in analytical systems, problems arise with determining the exact value of such criteria. Special approaches for assessing the benefits of such systems must be used to cope with this problem. This paper focuses on the economic evaluation of analytical systems, whose economic impact in agriculture is unclear. Two main types of research approaches are identified: normative approach and positive approach to the evaluation of analytical systems. These approaches can be used to identify the benefits of analytical systems for agricultural activities, and to express their economic value for the management of agricultural enterprises. A new research process and research phases for the design of a conceptual framework for analytical systems’ economic evaluation in agriculture is proposed based on this theoretical and research background.

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