- Casper Boongaling Agaton (2019):
A Real Options Approach to Renewable and Nuclear Energy Investments in the Philippines. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 124 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-4938-1 (€ 40,50)
[Abstract] [more info]
This book presents the application of real options approach (ROA) to analyze investment decisions for switching energy sources from fossil fuels to alternative energy. Using the Philippines as a case, the ROA models presented here explore how uncertainties including fossil fuel prices, electricity prices, discount rates, externality, renewable energy (RE) costs, and RE investment growth affect investment decisions that focus on developing countries, particularly to fossil-importing countries.
The book is a collection of academic papers published in peer-reviewed journals. The first paper analyzes investments in various RE sources including wind, solar, hydropower, and geothermal over using coal. The second paper compares investments between RE and nuclear energy considering the risk of nuclear accident. The third paper applies the proposed ROA model with the case of Palawan island and analyzes investment in RE over diesel fuel for electricity generation. The fourth paper focuses on investment drivers that make RE sources as a better option than using fossil fuels.
- Elkhan Richard Sadik-Zada (2016):
Oil Abundance and Economic Growth. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 174 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-4342-6 (€ 40,50)
[Abstract] [more info]
This book deals with the role of oil abundance in economic growth. The major theoretical contribution of the analysis is the transformation of the rentier state theory into the language of mathematical economics. The mathematical formalization of the rentier state theory enables a more sophisticated analytical tool for the assessment of the role of nonrenewable resource revenues in economic growth and institutional dynamics. The embedding of the elements of a rentier state into the labor surplus economy framework leads to grave consequences as reflected in the quantitative part of the survey. The augmented labor surplus economy model shows that both the political economy and the purely economic causes of the resource curse can have similar effects on the resource allocation in the affected nation. Hence, it is not possible to use econometric tools to compartmentalize the effects of the Dutch disease and those explanations based upon political economy. This is the reason why one can only estimate the total growth effects of oil revenues. Besides cross-country panel estimations, a case study of Azerbaijan provides additional insights into petroleum based economic development.
These international panel and country specific estimations are partly based on the two sector model of economic growth. In the case of Azerbaijan, a vector error correction model, which is based upon the behavioral model of the equilibrium exchange rate, is applied to detect the Dutch disease tendencies.
- Stefan Buchholz (2016):
Dimensionen und Bestimmungsfaktoren der HIV/AIDS-bezogenen Stigmatisierung in der Republik Südafrika: Ergebnisse einer empirischen Untersuchung unter Studenten in der Metropolregion Kapstadt. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 522 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-4302-0 (€ 60,50)
[Abstract] [more info]
Deutsches Abstract: Stigmatisierungsprozesse gegenüber Menschen mit HIV/AIDS stellen ein elementares Hindernis im Kampf gegen die Immunschwächekrankheit dar. In Südafrika fielen diese in der Vergangenheit so drastisch aus, dass Betroffene das Bekanntwerden ihrer HIV-Infektion mit dem Leben bezahlt haben. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt eine Ursachenanalyse HIV/AIDS-bezogener Stigmatisierungsprozesse in der südafrikanischen Gesellschaft dar. Basierend auf sozialwissenschaftlichen Theorien und empirischen Vorkenntnissen wird ein Erhebungsinstrument zur Erfassung stigmatisierender Einstellungen entwickelt. Zudem werden mögliche Bestimmungsfaktoren erfasst und mit Hilfe multivariater statistischer Verfahren auf ihre Erklärungskraft für stigmatisierende Einstellungen gegenüber Menschen mit HIV/AIDS hin untersucht. Grundlage der Analyse ist eine quantitative Erhebung, die im Jahr 2013 unter Studentinnen und Studenten der Metropolregion Kapstadt durchgeführt wurde. Bei der Präsentation der Ergebnisse wurde besonderer Wert auf eine verständliche und transparente Darstellung der methodischen Vorgehensweise gelegt.
English Abstract: Stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS is widely considered to be a fundamental roadblock in the fight against the disease. In South Africa, processes of stigmatization have reached dramatic levels in the past. People who made their HIV infection public have been socially excluded, harassed, assaulted and even murdered by members of their communities. This dissertation is focused on the social-psychological root causes of stigmatizing attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Based on insights from social scientific theories and findings from previous studies, a survey instrument was developed to measure stigmatizing attitudes among more than 1.000 university students from the Cape Town Metropolitan Area. Furthermore, possible determining factors of HIV/AIDS-related stigma were assessed and investigated for their empirical relevance in explaining the phenomenon. In his analysis, the Author attached great value on explaining the applied research methods and presenting the empirical findings in a transparent and coherent manner.
- Annika Engelbert, Markus Kaltenborn, Nina-Annette Reit-Born (2016):
Effective corruption control. Supplier remedies in public procurement in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - A comparative analysis of mechanisms and their implementation. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 131 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-4251-1 (€ 35,00)
[Abstract] [more info]
This book presents the results of a three-year research project based at the Ruhr-University Bochum, financed by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Cologne. Corruption in public procurement is widespread and particularly damaging to development objectives, as it undermines any state's duty to maximize the social and economic welfare of its citizens. Yet, research on country-specific regulation meant to address this problem has remained scarce. This book aims to fill this gap by providing a systematic comparative analysis of supplier remedies mechanisms in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. It elaborates on the potential of legal remedies to serve as anticorruption tools. Based on the fact that the anti-corruption effect of remedies mechanisms depends ultimately on the actual use by suppliers, three main factors are discussed: (1) the institutional setting and independence of the remedies systems; (2) their accessibility for aggrieved bidders; and (3) their efficiency, driven by bidder's cost-benefit analysis and including the aspects of procedural fees, duration, available relief and prospects of success. The assessment of the legislation is complemented by information gained from various stakeholders such as public procurement authorities, development organizations, NGOs and scientific experts. Despite many similarities of the systems due to their common historical background, the analysis identifies remarkably different regulative and institutional approaches, and discusses their more or less supportive effects on the use of supplier remedies mechanisms.
- Caroline Breitung (2015):
Organisational behaviour of humanitarian agencies in their interaction with armed rebel groups. A case study of humanitarian engagement with the Lord's Resistance Army. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 243 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-4142-2 (€ 40,00)
[Abstract] [more info]
Humanitarian organisations have developed manifold strategies to deal with armed rebel groups in their everyday operations. While some humanitarian agencies directly engage with armed non-state actors in order to get humanitarian access or to secure aid workers' protection, others opt for avoidance strategies. Although it is often reasoned that the humanitarian engagement of rebels would be mainly driven by the humanitarian organisations' mandates, the dissertation argues that a range of other organisational factors on the side of the humanitarian agencies equally influence interaction processes with insurgent forces. Amongst these are the operational goals, available resources and structures of humanitarian organisations, the humanitarian personnel delivering aid, as well as the perception the humanitarian organisation has of the respective insurgent group it is dealing with. In order to test the theoretical assumptions that are drawn up, a case study was conducted on humanitarian interactions with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The research results confirm that the mentioned organisational aspects - to varying degrees - impact on the ways humanitarian actors engage insurgent forces.
- Marco Rimkus (2015):
Welternährung, Nutztierschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit. Eine monetäre Bewertung in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 459 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-3893-4 (€ 59,00)
[Abstract] [more info]
Die globale Ernährungssicherung ist eines der prominenten Ziele der internationalen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Hierbei geht es nicht nur darum, dass Nahrungsmittel dauerhaft und in ausreichender Menge bereitgestellt werden, sondern auch in einer angemessenen Qualität. Bei der Erreichung dieses Zieles steht die Gesellschaft vor einem Dilemma. Die Ausweitung der Produktivität im landwirtschaftlichen Sektor geht in der Regel mit einer Industrialisierung einher, die von verschiedenen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen kritisiert wird.
Die Kritik wird umso deutlicher, wenn es sich um tierische Lebensmittel handelt. Zudem werden Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländer regelmäßig mit Nahrungsmittelskandalen konfrontiert, bei denen die Gesundheit der Konsumenten beispielsweise durch die Substitution von Lebensmittelinhaltsstoffen gefährdet wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund beleuchtet die vorliegende Arbeit das Spannungsfeld zwischen Ernährungssicherung, Nahrungsmittelsicherheit und industrieller Landwirtschaft. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Frage, welche Bedeutung ökologisch erzeugte Lebensmittel als Vertrauensgut in vier ausgewählten Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern China, Peru, Sambia und der Elfenbeinküste haben. Hierzu wird die Relevanz des Nutztierschutzes (Animal Welfare) und der Lebensmittelsicherheit aus der Sicht der Konsumenten mit Hilfe verschiedener ökonomischer Bewertungsmethoden ermittelt.
- Tobias Thürer (2015):
Does speculation with agricultural commodity futures cause price bubbles in the event of negative production shocks? - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 220 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-3876-7 (€ 42,00)
[Abstract] [more info]
Since the mid 2000s, an increasing financialization of commodity futures markets is taking place. This has fueled an ongoing discussion about the effect of financial investments on the development of commodity prices. Against this background, the trading activities of financial speculators also come to the fore. There is the concern that such speculators can cause irrational overshootings of agricultural commodity prices, e.g. in the event of global production shocks. In such an event the decrease of total supply induces a price surge menacing food security in developing countries. Yet, the question emerges whether speculation aggravates this price increase, eventually inducing a price bubble. The relevance of this concern is reinforced by the fact that due to climate change an increased frequency and severity of global agricultural production shortfalls is at stake. If speculation evokes an additional threat to food security in the event of a production shock, the political agenda should not be confined to focus solely on the adaptation to climate change. Instead, it is then also necessary to address speculative activities on agricultural commodity markets. This book scrutinises whether speculative bubbles can be identified in the event of severe global production shocks. For this, a framework for tracing the transmission of the futures price's development on the spot market is developed. Using annual data from 1979-2012 for maize it is analysed whether production shock related price bubbles occurred.
- Carlos Gustavo Villela (2014):
Understanding Institutionalized Collective Remittances: The Mexican Tres por Uno Program in Zacatecas. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - 386 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-3703-6 (€ 43,00)
[Abstract] [more info]
This book considers the activities of migrant organizations in the face of state diaspora engagement policies in their members' countries of origin. The case study is the Programa Tres por Uno para los Migrantes in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. The research uses events - understood as festivities and work meetings - as lenses. They offer a door to access the actors' reality and furthermore serve as an object of analysis themselves. The study combines analysis of biographical interviews at the microlevel with that of organizations' work meetings at the mesolevel and the analysis of the staging in public events as way to access the macrolevel. The work concludes that institutionalizing collective remittances enhances the capital- skills (cultural capital), relations (social capital) and economic resources (economic capital)- generated by lives and practices taking place in a transnational way. The work proposes the term diasporic capital. Diasporic capital creates the identity of and nurtures the belonging to a distinct class. As a result, migrant organizations participating in the Tres por Uno Program are given legitimacy to speak in the name of all the nationals living abroad and their leaders to claim a higher social status.
- Valentina Dillenseger (2013):
Technologietransfer durch Migranten aus Entwicklungsländern – Berlin: Logos Verl. - 200 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-3591-9 (€ 35,50)
[Abstract] [more info]
Wissen und Technologie stellen heutzutage den entscheidenden Wettbewerbsvorteil für Volkswirtschaften dar. Daher werden Ingenieure, Forscher und hochqualifizierte Wissenschaftler sowohl von Industrie- als auch von Entwicklungsländern umworben. Verlieren Niedrigeinkommensländer dabei ihre besten Köpfe an Industrieländer, so ist denkbar, dass beide Seiten hiervon profitieren. Wenn mithilfe der qualifizierten Immigranten im Hocheinkommensland mehr Innovationen hervorgebracht werden, können diese durch die Netzwerke der einzelnen Migranten auch in deren Heimatländer gelangen und dort imitiert und adaptiert werden. Damit kann es indirekt durch die Migration zu einem technologischen Fortschritt im Auswanderungsland kommen. Doch kann ein Niedrigeinkommensland tatsächlich profitieren? Welche Voraussetzungen müsste ein profitierendes Niedrigeinkommensland dazu schaffen? Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen werden Migrationstheorien verbunden mit Ansätzen des endogenen technologischen Wachstums sowie der Technologieimitation.
- Abate Mekuriaw Bizuneh (2013):
Climate Variability and Change in the Rift Valley and Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia: local knowledge, impacts and adaptation. – Berlin: Logos Verl. – 205 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-3524-7 (€ 42,50)
[Abstract] [more info]
This study deals with three interrelated problems. First, it pursues the quest for local knowledge to understand climate variability and change at local levels. Due to controversies, uncertainties, skepticism and embedded economic and political interests in the climate change discourse, effective world collective action is more likely to delay for quite some time to come. Moreover, as climate change discourse remains very weak at engaging local knowledge, policies that emanate from the discourse might be less responsive to local climate problems both in terms of policy ingredients and time frame. So, having highlighted the paramount importance of local knowledge, this study documents and critically analyzes this knowledge system among subsistence farmers in Ethiopia. Secondly, it analyzes the economic impacts of climate variability and change and adaptation through quantitative methods with a special focus on crop production. Finally, it analyzes the factors that influence adaptive behavior. In so doing, it challenges the traditional approach of adaptation research and brings in a conceptual framework borrowed from psychosocial theory and empirically tests the approach in explaining adaptive behavior of farmers.
- Shafaq Hussain (2012):
Growth Effects and the Determinants of Female Employment in Pakistan: a macro- and microeconomic analysis. – Berlin: Logos Verl. – 206 S.
ISBN 978-3-8325-3131-7 (€ 37,00)
[Abstract] [more info]
This study analyses the effects of an increase in female labor force participation on the economic growth of a developing country such as Pakistan, as well as the factors hindering or promoting female employment in a religiosly conservative region.
The Solow Model was used as a basis for this analysis and with a data set of 85 developing countries over a duration of 25 years, the positive and significant effects of an increase in female labor force participation on per capita income were obtained.
A case study of Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan was conducted to explore the determinants of female employment. Consequently the decisive factors were the standard determinants of female labor supply while religious conservatism played no significant role in the area with respect to aiding or hindering female employment decisions.
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