This research was conducted within the context of smallholder livestock production and government attempts to improve this through a transfer of technology approach. Participatory action research (PAR) was used to enable action for change to emerge, while the research provided understanding and a basis for this action. Tombolo village in South Sulawesi, Indonesia was the location for this research, which first identified the problems and needs of the farmers, and then participatively developed strategies to meet these needs. Fodder security throughout the year was found to be the major constraint to cattle production. Forage technology was introduced, including fodder tree legumes and grasses, resulting in improved livestock production and many associated livelihood benefits. The introduction of these new technologies was adapted by stakeholders to local issues and needs. The extension services had previously aimed to improve livestock production through breeding and veterinary health measures, and had assumed that sufficient fodder was available for livestock. The formation of a learning group of farmers, who used group discussion to set their own agenda, was employed to identify this shortcoming, and how to sustainably overcome it. Participants were able to apply their experience and enhance their cognitive skills to find new meanings and knowledge to plan and take actions to improve their practice and situation. This thesis documents the process of change required to move from a “Transfer of Technology” approach to a “learning approach”. The research has shown that there is considerable potential for the application of PAR to rural community development in Indonesia. More specifically in Tombolo village PAR enabled farmers and extension staff to be empowered by becoming active participants in the research process and take action to improve their own practice. It helped them to analyse the situation to make the technology more appropriate, while also learning how to change the extension methods used towards one in which all stakeholders became partners in developing their situation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines the effectiveness of foreign aid in Nepal, and adds to the growing literature on the issue of aid effectiveness. Until the mid 1960s, almost all development projects in Nepal were financed by foreign aid. Since 1970, the average aid/GDP ratio remains at over 6 per cent, and in 2002 foreign aid financed over 50 per cent of Nepal’s development expenditure. Despite the constant flow of foreign aid and decades of aid-financed development efforts in Nepal, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with per capita income of about US$ 243 and almost 40 per cent of the total population living in absolute poverty. This thesis is the first rigorous study of aid effectiveness in Nepal. It examines the issue from three complementary perspectives. First, it looks at aid’s contribution to per capita GDP within the framework of the neoclassical production function. Second, it examines aid’s contribution to Nepal’s gross domestic investment within a framework of the two-gap model. Since aid is channelled through the government, the thesis lastly examines the impact of foreign aid on government expenditure and revenue efforts. Our study uses time-series data for the period 1970-2002, and employs cointegration and the error correction mechanism as the estimation procedure. The results show that aid has a positive and significant relationship between per capita real GDP, savings and investment in the long-run. In addition, we find that aid effectiveness improves in a good policy environment, that is, one characterised by a stable macroeconomy, openness to trade and a liberalised financial sector. The study also finds that bilateral and multilateral aid are equally effective in the long-run. However, grants aid has a stronger positive association with per capita real GDP in the long-run than loans aid. Finally, the relationship between aid and per capita real GDP in the short-run is found to be negative in both aggregate and disaggregated forms. This implies that Nepal, as in the case of most other developing countries, suffers from lack of absorptive capacity and high aid volatility. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis tries to build a set of theoretical and empirical premises of the important issues pertaining to a decentralized government structure. While the questions that we attempt to answer in this thesis are varied, the common theme that runs through the essays is its focus on issues from a regional perspective. Our empirical outcomes are based on the Indian federal system, more specifically, the 15 major states of India, which account for over 90 per cent of the population and 95 per cent of GDP. The period under consideration is 1985 - 2000. We consider this to be a crucial period because a lot of stress in state finances emerged during this period. The research questions we broadly seek to answer are the following: 1. What are the causes of differences in developmental levels across the major Indian states? 2. What is the role of political alignment in determining the budgetary considerations of states? 3. What accounts for differences in human developmental outcomes across the states? 4. In normative terms, can it be argued that a decentralized structure need not automatically lead to the iformation of a hard budget constraint? Further, can it be claimed that under certain circumstances, particularly when dealing with State-run natural monopolies, that a soft budget constraint may lead to better outcomes? The starting point of our analysis or the first essay (Chapter 2) deals with the question as to why have Indian states had different levels of development and growth? The existing literature argues that states, which have followed better policies in terms of macroeconomic probity and identification of developmental issues, have had better outcomes, which we feel is an inherently circular argument. The existing literature does not answer the basic issue of what prompted certain states to follow better policies? We add to the burgeoning literature on growth in Indian states, by looking at institutional quality. We argue that some states in India have better institutions than others, and these have set better policies. We suggest that the level of political accountability and the quantum of 'point resources' such as minerals would have an impact on the quality of institutions. The idea being that a region can be 'cursed' with high mineral wealth and having unaccountable politicians. This can lead the politician to try to subvert institutional quality in these regions to facilitate 'rent seizing', leading to lower developmental and growth prospects for such states. We try to prove this through a theoretical model as well as an empirical exercise. The second essay (Chapter 3) is more empirical in its construct and analyses the impact of political affiliations and the quality of fiscal institutions on regional budget constraints. While we do not make any normative judgments here regarding the welfare implications of soft budgets, we argue that the correct political alignment and poor fiscal institutions might combine to lead a state to greater fiscal profligacy. This is because of the inability to have institutional checks on expenditures and due to a higher probability of an ex post bailout by the central government, through higher ad hoc transfers. The third essay (Chapter 4) considers not merely ' budgetary output' levels such as the quantum of expenditures, in isolation, but looks at the 'outcomes' of such expenditures, viz. the impact of expenditure on health on an 'outcome' indicator like Infant Mortality Rates (IMR). across the major Indian states. We argue that analyzing the budgetary allocations on any expenditure tells us merely half the story. Since the Indian states are constitutionally required to spend more on human development expenditures such as health and education as compared to the central government, the correct way to look at 'effective' expenditure would be to analyse the determinants of variation in 'outcome' indicators. We in our essay, consider variations in IMR to be our measure of 'outcomes'. We suggest that political accountability might have a major role in determining human developmental outcome levels through better utilization of expenditures. Since we argued in the second essay that the potentially harmful impact of poor fiscal institutions and political alignment, is softening of the budget constraint, our final essay (Chapter 5) is a theoretical piece of work, which looks at the micro-foundations of a 'soft budget constraint' and tries to analyse the normative issue of the welfare considerations in this regard. We try to prove two concomitant factors in the federalism and soft budget literature. First, contrary to some of the existing literature, decentralization, need not automatically increase a commitment to the hard budget and second, in normative terms, under certain circumstances, a 'soft budget' is preferable to a 'hard budget'. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Economics, 2004.

<p>Development should not be viewed as just a project but must be understood as an overarching strategy with a thorough implementation plan and specific targets as well as review mechanisms. All different spheres of government, organs of civil society and business have a tremendous role to play in pursuit of sustainable economic growth and development. In Khayelitsha there are emerging trends of bulk infrastructure spending and community led partnership that seek to unlock the economic potential however this progress has thus far been limited to retail development with no productive industrial development.</p>

No description available.

Block 1 of the Averill Addition played an important role in the early commercial development of Bandon, Oregon, a town located on Oregon's south coast. Retail establishments located on the block supplied the local residents with a variety of merchandise for the period of 1886-1914. During this period Bandon served as the export-import center for the Coquille River area. Ships maintained a regular schedule between Bandon and San Francisco, California, Bandon's primary trading partner. A fire in 1914 destroyed all but one major structure on Block 1 of the Averill Addition. Partially rebuilt, structures on the block were once again destroyed in a second fire in 1936, which ravaged the entire downtown district. Microfilmed copies of the Bandon Recorder, Bandon's first newspaper, provided first-hand accounts of events during the early years of Bandon's growth, and were supplemented by regional histories. Primary sources for this project included census reports, Coos County deed records, oral interviews, maps, and historic photographs. The purpose of this report is to explain Euro-American occupancy of Block 1 of the Averill Addition as a supplement to an archaeological investigation conducted on the block in 1988. A description of the historic artifacts recovered from Site 35CS43 (Block 1 of the Averill Addition) concludes the report and indicates the types of items that remained on the site after 100 years of Euro-American occupancy. / Graduation date: 1993

Diss. Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

The thesis develops a new model of the small open economy emphasizing financial constraints, based on the notion of liquidity preference as a constraining tendency on the income adjustment process. Preference for liquid assets results in a number of financial states of constraint, such as financial vulnerability, financial exclusion and financial fragility. These are explored in a regional and international context. Openness brings with it new opportunity as well as potential constraints. Models of small open economies have in general assumed away the latter and have neglected the consequences of financial openness. This is reflected in the absence of a means to identify economies as small and open on the basis of their financial exposure. The financial vulnerability index is developed to address this deficit. Applied to twenty-one countries, the index reveals that emerging countries can be classified as small open economies constrained by preference for liquid assets. Policies designed with the conventional approach to constraints in mind appear to be inappropriate for these countries. The concept of constraints has rarely been dealt with explicitly and a possible categorisation of constraints for mainstream and Post Keynesian schools is developed. It proves to be a useful point of entry for grasping ontological differences between schools. It also provides insights into the constraining tendencies facing the small open economy, and how they can be managed. When these insights are applied to the South African economy, the current macroeconomic policy, and critiques thereof, are found to be wanting.

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Although historians have usually acknowledged the importance of the railways for economic growth in England and Wales in the mid-nineteenth century, little research has been specifically devoted to this subject. Historians have investigated other aspects of railways, and writers whose interests centred on railways rather than on economic or historical development, have provided a large literature on technical matters and on inter-company rivalries. The economic impact of the railways has been relatively neglected. Until recently, the position was similar in the U.S.A. although historians or the economic development of that country had given the railways a more central role in the process of growth and generalised judgements about their impact were more common. Professors Fogel and Fishlow have however re-examined the role of the railways with a more modern economic approach and have advanced substantial revisions of the orthodox interpretation. Fogel, for example, has suggested that the U.S. economy in 1890 depended on the existence of railways to a much smaller extent than is generally supposed. This American work has important implications for the historical problem of to what extent economic growth in England and Wales in the nineteenth century depended on railways, and on the related and more general problem of to what extent economic growth depends on specific innovations.