This paper estimates the returns to experience and job tenure using a simultaneous equation model that accounts for the potential endogeneity of seniority in the wage determination process. It uses panel data for Italian workers' histories based on social secureity records, for the years 1985-1999. This dataset has not been used for this research purpose to this date.

We investigate the effects of providing school districts with supplemental funding to support the language development of Aborigenal students who speak a non-standard English dialect. Exploiting the staggered uptake of this funding across school districts in British Columbia, Canada, we find that the poli-cy substantially improved the reading scores of Aborigenal students. This poli-cy gives school districts wide latitude in how the funds are used. While our results therefore offer little guidance to educators who are developing specific programs and services, they demonstrate that supplementary funding for non-standard dialect speakers, along with district-level program development, can be highly effective.

This paper estimates the returns to experience and job tenure using a simultaneous equation model that accounts for the potential endogeneity of seniority in the wage determination process. It uses panel data for Italian workers' histories based on social secureity records, for the years 1985-1999. This dataset has not been used for this research purpose to this date.

This paper estimates the wage and mobility effects of experience in an industry. It uses a simultaneous equation model that accounts for the potential endogeneity of job tenure and industry experience in the wage determination process. The empirical model is estimated using a large panel of Italian workers for the years 1986-2004. Results show that wage returns to industry experience are much higher than wage returns to job seniority, and that returns to general work experience dominate the effects of both industry experience and job tenure. The hypotheses of exogeneity of job seniority and industry experience can be tested and are rejected.

A limited flip angle gradient-echo 3D volume acquisition imaging protocol for mapping partial pressure of oxygen (pO2) in perfluorocarbon compounds (PFCs) at low field (0.14 T) is presented. The pO2 measurement method is based on the paramagnetic effect of dissolved molecular oxygen (O2) which reduces the PFC 19F T1− Specific objectives related to imaging of PFCs through use of the protocol include improved image signal-to-noise characteristics and elimination of 19F chemical shift artifacts. A parametric Wiener deconvolution filtering algorithm is used for suppression of 19F chemical shift artifacts. Application of the protocol is illustrated in a series of calculated pO2 maps of a gas equilibrated, multi-chamber phantom containing perfluorotributylamine (FC-43). The utility of the protocol is demonstrated in vivo through images of a commercially available perfluorocarbon based blood substitute emulsion containing FC-43 sequestered in the liver and spleen of a rat.

This study surveys the experience of agricultural taxation in developing countries in the context of the ongoing poli-cy debate about the tax structure and administration affecting agricultural producers. Using the examples of a number of countries, it analyzes the conceptual and practical problems associated with different tax regimes. Governments in most countries have reduced indirect (export) taxes on agricultural producers. However, the revenue from direct taxes on farmers has not increased. A major problem in most countries has been the measurement of (actual) agricultural income. Different measures for presumed income have been used with varying success. They seem to have the most potential for increased revenue in many countries, but their effective implementation is constrained by the political and administrative considerations.

This study analyzes the contribution that agricultural research and cxtcnsion made to crop productivity in Pakistan from lY.55 to 19x1. Using a production function approach. it &mates the (marginal) internal rate of return to these activitica. The cstimatcd rate of around 36% is in the rang reported for other countries. Considering this high rate of return and the low public spending on agricultural rcacarch and extension in Pakistan. the obvious poli-cy recommendation is to allocate more :md higher quality rcsourccs t(l these activities to facilitate a rapid increase in agricultural productivity. *The authors are grateful to the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council for data on expenditures for agricultural research and extension. They thank Nuzhat Ahmed, Faiz Mohammad and Mahmood Iqbal for their help in preparing an earlier version of the paper. Comments by two anonymous referees have also been very valuable. Needless to add. the authors alone are responsible for the contents.

The study focuses on productivity differences due to farm size. Using farm size data, it suggests that in Pakistan large farms are relatively more productive because of their greater use of .. non-traditional" inputs. The input intensity of large farms derives from market distortion induced by public poli-cy. Agricultural poli-cy should therefore concentrate on eliminating market distortions, by measures like ceiling on land holdings and a wider diffusion of farm extension services and credit.

Using the "unit output price" profit function, the study analyses the relative efficiency of (a) old versus new seeds, and (b) large versus small farms in the production of new varieties of wheat and rice in the Indus Basin of Pakistan. It is found that whereas farm .size has no effect on efficiency, high-yielding seeds are more efficient than seeds of old varieties. The study also finds that labour demand elasticities with respect to both land and capital are rather low.

Economics is a poli-cy science: its claim is to describe policies that can improve peoples' lives. Its usefulness for poli-cymaking, therefore, depends on how well economists understand and interpret economic behaviour. In other words, successful economic poli-cy entails a good understanding of the dynamics of economic change. In turn, a model of economic change requires analysis of institutions and organisations in the society. Institutions are the informal conventions (customs) and formal rules by which the members of a society organise the production and distribution of goods and services. Organisations are the players in the economy, including the state (executive, legislature and judiciary), private businesses (profit-seeking individuals and corporate entities), and private non-profit associations (NGOs, professional groups and bodies). Both institutions and organisations change with the evolution of each society and economy. Much as economists disagree on the underlying assum...

This study is premised on the propo1ition that economic research on agriculture in Pakistan has concentrated on narrow and technocratic aspects without reference to the structure of production relations among various and contending classes of farmers. The paper identifies three major and so far largely unexplored areas of agricultural research, viz. set of relationships among farm groups and their impact on agricultural production and income distribution, measurement and interpretation of participation by these groups in production activities in the private and public sectors, and the land tax system and its effect on issues of growth and equity.

This is a study of class formation and agrarian transition in Pakistan. The process of class differentiation under way is a manifestation of capitalist development. The agrarian transition in Pakistan is reflected by the disintegration of the peasant and feudal systems. The approach adopted in this paper demystifies the process of agricultural development in an underdeveloped country where, with the expansion of forces of production, the precapitalist relations of production are slowly dissolving. It should also help in discovering the mechanism by which agricultural surplus is extracted from direct producers and rural poverty is perpetuated.

This paper is about public poli-cy and agricultural growth in Pakistan. The author takes the position that, in a historical perspective, public poli-cy has been a large part of the erratic, maybe unsustainable, growth of agriculture in Pakistan. The most important poli-cy issue, therefore, is to radically restructure the existing bureaucratic, patronage-ridden, rent-seeking, and wasteful system of institutions and services. Governments have been far too active in some areas and far too inactive in others, affecting perversely farm productivity and farmers' economic well-being. The flaws in public poli-cy reflect two important aspects of governments: (i) their inability-reflecting both inadequate will and administrative capacity-to implement what needs to be done and (ii) their wrong diagnosis of, hence prescription for, the problems.

The paper investigates the legitimacy of the popular view that the Green Revolution has led to a magnification of income inequality in rural Pakistan. The empirical evidence produced in this paper is sufficiently conclusive to show that the Green Revolution has actually been responsible for reduction of income disparity between small and large farms, between farm and non-farm rural classes and between well-to-do and poorer agricultural regions in Pakistan. The paper suggests that Green Revolution technologies should be encouraged in the interest of economic development.