Search

This paper assesses the effect of extreme weather variability in predicting the impact on two agricultural crop-related variables: yield and production. We use a Markov-Switching time-varying copula to describe the joint dependence structure between extreme weather variability and crops in East Africa during the period 1961-2018. Understanding the risk associated with weather variability on agricultural production is crucial, as mitigation, and even adaptation, can then be made more effective. Climate data are divided into regimes: higher and lower regimes. The abnormal or higher regime is the period during which the temperature exceeds a certain threshold, while the lower regime is the period during which the rainfall is below a certain threshold. The findings show that there is strong dependence between weather variability and crops, meaning an increase in temperature or a decrease in rainfall is associated with a decrease in crop yield or production. The dependence is more significant when weather variability moves into either regime compared to the normal condition. The dependency in the higher regime tends to be more significant. This highlights the need to formulate policies that consider crop improvement strategies such as genetic crops, irrigation, and adaption under carbon dioxide (CO2) fertiliser to mitigate the impact on food supply in the region.

This study used the by-production model specification to separate emission-generating technologies from ‘desirable outputs’ technology. It then employed the dynamic efficiency model, following the Dynamic Directional Input Distance Function specifications to compute the deterministic, dynamic environmental and technical efficiencies of large gold mines in developing countries. Using firm-level data from 2009 to 2018, the study found that on average, dynamic technical efficiency in these mines was 73%; the average dynamic technical efficiency was observed to have a decreasing trend, of 0.3% annually. The study also found that on average, dynamic environmental efficiency was 56%. However, the average dynamic environmental efficiency trend had a decrease of 0.6% annually. The poor performance and downward trends could be attributed partly to downward investment trends over time, and the increasing complexity of extracting gold deposits from low-grade ore, as well as to prices. They could also be the result either of poor institutional capacity, as far as environmental policies, regulations, and enforcement are concerned; or of supply-side structural rigidity – in particular, low-capacity, and unreliable energy supply, mostly from bad inputs such as coal and heavy fuels or both, which calls for the use of alternative energy sources.

An increasing number of countries around the world have linked taxes with passenger vehicle carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rates. Policymakers use vehicle and fuel taxes to target and reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions. In 2010, the South African government joined this group, linking taxes to passenger-vehicle CO2-emission rates by introducing the vehicle CO2 tax, to reduce the carbon output of the new vehicle fleet by incentivising the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles. However, there is little evidence of the relative efficacy of this measure in South Africa. Based on new-vehicle sales data from 2010 to 2012, single-group interrupted time-series analysis (ITSA) reveals that CO2 taxes reduced average carbon emissions only marginally. This prompted the vehicle-CO2 tax reforms of 2013. Based on subsequent new-vehicle sales data, from 2013 to 2018, we find that the reforms have led to significant CO2 reductions. Overall, CO2 taxes moved consumer preference to low-emission vehicles (i.e., vehicles in the band producing less than 120g/km), and discouraged the purchase of bigger, heavier and more powerful vehicles. They also had a great effect on average emissions; by 2018, average carbon emissions had declined by 21% compared to 2010, to 151g/km. Moreover, there is some evidence that the tax has affected the mix of new vehicles that vehicle manufacturers sell in the South African market, as the volume of low carbon intensity new vehicles increased significantly, to 31% of total sales in 2018 compared to 13% in 2010.

Despite continuous reforms and increased spending in the agricultural sector, Africa remains a net food importer. Previous research has argued that agricultural productivity is lower in Africa than in all other parts of the world due to challenging ecological conditions – soil fertility challenges and extreme climate. Increasing the region’s food supply requires significant increases in agricultural productivity, which in turn depends on investment in research and development (R&D). This study examines how climate variability (proxied by rainfall variability) affects agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) of maize in 14 sub-Saharan African countries (SSA). Maize farming in Africa – due to its significance in regional food production, evident climate variability, and the need to significantly increase efficiency – is an ideal region of investigation for climate impacts on maize production. We apply a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) on the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) to decompose productivity growth into technical efficiency and technological progress. In addition, a single-stage maximum-likelihood estimation of a true fixed effect was used to investigate how climate variability affects maize productivity through technical efficiency. The results show that climate variability has a negative effect on technical efficiency in the agricultural production of maize. Furthermore, increased spending on R&D is required to enhance technical efficiency and productivity.

This paper evaluates the impact of the Purchase 4 Progress (P4P) intervention implemented by World Food Program in Ethiopia on per capita income as well as across sub-social groups. The intervention is intended to improve the market power of smallholder farmers through cooperatives that has the potential to increase the relative farm gate price of agricultural produce, particularly staple crops. Using a semi-parametric difference-in-difference (DID) model, which relaxes the parallel trend assumption, we show that the P4P intervention has raised per capita consumption of smallholders. Estimates of the treatment effect from alternative specifications of our preferred models ranged between Ethiopian Birr (ETB) 188.3 and ETB 248.6 (15.10% and 19.93%). Moreover, our analysis suggests heterogeneous treatment effects related to elite capture within Farmer Organizations. Policy implications are discussed.

This paper estimates the visitation demand function for Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) in order to determine the conservation fee to charge South African residents to maximise park revenue. We conducted contingent behaviour experiments at KTP and three other national parks, which we assume are either substitutes or complements for visitors to KTP. Our random effects Tobit model shows that there is a wide variation in the own-price elasticities of demand between the parks, but they are generally not elastic. The cross-price estimates indicate that there is limited substitutability in visitation demand among the four parks. The study uses the unitary elasticity rule to demonstrate that there is a possibility of raising conservation fees to revenue-maximising levels at KTP, as well as the other parks, using methods such as a mandatory conservation fee increment or a community-bound voluntary donation above the regular conservation fee. Sharing conservation revenue with communities surrounding parks could demonstrate the link between ecotourism and local communities’ economic development, promote a positive view of land restitution involving national parks, help address South Africa’s heavily skewed distribution of income, and act as an incentive for the local communities to participate in conservation even more.

Includes abstract., Includes bibliographical references., The term ‘bushmen’ is used generically to refer to the Khoisan. Although the term is still used in several countries in the Southern African region (SADC), it is considered derogatory by some. Culturally the Khoisan are divided into the hunter-gatherer San (originally a derogatory term used by the Khoi), and the pastoral Khoi (Barnard, 1992). Anthropologists from the West adopted the term ‘San’ extensively in the 1970’s, and this is now the preferred term in academic circles. This is a study in economic anthropology which seeks to fully understand the complexity of the economics of a hunter gatherer people in the Kgalagadi area. Despite the change in the lifestyle and values of the San people, they have and continue to provide valuable information in the fields of anthropology and genetics (see Thomas, 1958, 1989, 2006; Lee, 1976, 1979; Barnard, 1992; Hogan, 2008).

This paper investigates the use of charges and standards in dealing with a common externality, plastic litter from shopping bags in Botswana. The country passed a plastic bag tax (effective 2007) to curb the plastic bag demand. Interestingly, the legislation did not force retailers to charge for plastic bags, which they did voluntarily at different prices. We assessed the environmental effectiveness and efficiency of the plastic bag legislation by analyzing consumers’ sensitivity to the improvement of the plastic bag and related price charges. The introduction of the plastic bag levy led to a significant decline in the consumption of plastic bags per 1,000 Botswana pulas of shopping. The partial success of the Botswana levy was due to the constantly high prices of the bags.

This study seeks to value ecosystem services in the Kgalagadi area in South Africa by applying the choice experiment technique. The values placed on dryland ecosystem services by indigenous communities are estimated using a conditional logit model, a random parameter logit model and a random parameter logit model with interactions. The results show that local communities would prefer increased grazing, firewood collection, hunting opportunities, and harvesting of medicinal plants. Classification-JEL: separated by commas