Public preference for sustainable land use policies – Empirical results from multinomial logit model analysis

Public preferences for sustainable land use policy instruments and the motivations behind such preferences are important to make appropriate policies. Based on survey data (n = 309) from northeastern Somalia, we examined preferences for a set of land use policy instruments relative to no policy (i.e. the current status quo) and how cultural worldviews predict such preferences. We used a multinomial logit model to analyze the comparative evaluation of choices due to its interpretability and robustness to violations of normality. Overall, the results show that the respondents are likely to consent to all types of land use policy instruments relative to no policy and are more inclined to market-based and informational policy instruments. Specifically, preferences for regulatory policy instruments are positively associated with hierarchy and egalitarian worldviews and are negatively associated with fatalism and individualistic worldviews with only hierarchy and fatalism are significant. The market-based policy instrument is desirable to all cultural worldviews except fatalism, but only egalitarian and individual worldviews are significant. Preferences for informational policy instruments are positively associated with all cultural worldviews but only egalitarian worldviews showed a significant effect. Although there are some contradictions, these results are broadly consistent with the proposition of the cultural theory of risk. This study highlights that preferences for land use policies are heterogeneous with cultural worldviews mainly explaining the sources of this heterogeneity. It is evident that the respondents were willing to consent to land use policies relative to the status quo of no policy and indicates the need for concerted effort to reduce land degradation and deforestation in the country. We, therefore, recommend that policymakers incorporate the different ways that humans perceive and interpret social-environmental relations into policy decisions to achieve sustainable policy outcomes.

What Influences Rice Farmers’ Choices of Credit Sources in Côte d’Ivoire? An Econometric Analysis using the Multinomial Conditional Logit Model

In Côte d’Ivoire, the low participation of smallholder farmers in the credit market remains a matter of concern. This study examines the key determinants of rice farmers’ participation in the credit market. We use a Multinomial Conditional Logit model to consider the characteristics related to the use of different credit sources. A total of 588 rice farmers were randomly sampled from seven rice areas. Our findings reveal that gender, age, education level, experience in rice farming, rice plot size, lowland rice farming, extension contact, membership of a farmer-based organization, marketing of paddy rice, and off-farm income significantly influence the use of different credit sources. While credit requirements such as saving plus collateral, kinship/friendship, membership, favoured client, loan maturity, and the distance between borrowers and lenders are credit source-specific variables that significantly determine rice farmers’ choices between different credit sources. These empirical results show that in addition to farmer-specific variables, policymakers should consider the characteristics of credit sources for developing a credit market suitable for smallholder farmers.

Do Citizens of a City that Owns a Local Public Airport Have Attachment to the Airport and Use it?

This research investigates whether passengers living in a city with a local public airport have an attachment to that airport and tend to use it. Focusing on the greater Kansai area with its three airports and Kobe, which owns one of them, Kobe Airport, as an example, an empirical analysis was conducted using a nested logit model and micro data. The result of the basic model shows that passengers living in Kobe prefer the Kobe Airport when compared to passengers living in other cities. An additional analysis based on a questionnaire survey revealed that a certain percentage of respondents choose Kobe Airport because they love it, meaning that the non-economic factor of attachment influences passengers’ decisions. The results of this research suggest that enhancing attachment to an airport might be a possible idea for policy makers of airport cities to increase their passengers.

Customer Perception and Awareness of Green Banking Practices

The governments, business firms, policymakers, advocacy groups, and even the public recently are hotly debating on the issues of environmentally friendly practices. In this context, being a part of 'going green', green banking, which plays an important role in environmental sustainability, has been a buzzword in the global baking industry. This study identifies how the customers perceive the emerging concept of green banking initiatives of banks and also analyzes the factors that influence such practices of the customers. Using a structured questionnaire, the primary data were collected from 403 commercial banks of Kathmandu valley, Nepal. The awareness index was prepared, and the binary logit model was applied for the econometric analysis. This study observed that the customers are positive towards the environmentally friendly practices of banks and ready to adopt the green banking practices. The research implies that in order to promote environmental sustainability, banks and financial institutions should be able to educate the customers about green banking practices and their benefits.

Risk of Business Bankruptcy

Recently, the demand of business owners to ensure the sustainability of their businesses has come to the fore. It results in a focus on identifying the risks of businesses' financial failure. Several prediction models can be applied in a given area. Which of these models is most suitable for Slovak companies? The aim of this chapter was to point out the possibility of applying the DEA method in measuring the financial health of companies and predicting the risk of their possible bankruptcy. The research was carried out on a sample of companies operating in the field of heat supply. The indicators were selected using related empirical studies, a univariate Logit model, and a correlation matrix. In this chapter, two main models were applied: the DEA model and the Logit model. The main conclusion of the paper is that the DEA method is a suitable alternative in assessing businesses' financial health.

Semi and Nonparametric Conditional Probability Density, a Case Study of Pedestrian Crashes

Background: Kernel-based methods have gained popularity as employed model residual’s distribution might not be defined by any classical parametric distribution. Kernel-based method has been extended to estimate conditional densities instead of conditional distributions when data incorporate both discrete and continuous attributes. The method often has been based on smoothing parameters to use optimal values for various attributes. Thus, in case of an explanatory variable being independent of the dependent variable, that attribute would be dropped in the nonparametric method by assigning a large smoothing parameter, giving them uniform distributions so their variances to the model’s variance would be minimal. Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify factors to the severity of pedestrian crashes based on an unbiased method. Especially, this study was conducted to evaluate the applicability of kernel-based techniques of semi- and nonparametric methods on the crash dataset by means of confusion techniques. Methods: In this study, two non- and semi-parametric kernel-based methods were implemented to model the severity of pedestrian crashes. The estimation of the semi-parametric densities is based on the adoptive local smoothing and maximization of the quasi-likelihood function, which is similar somehow to the likelihood of the binary logit model. On the other hand, the nonparametric method is based on the selection of optimal smoothing parameters in estimation of the conditional probability density function to minimize mean integrated squared error (MISE). The performances of those models are evaluated by their prediction power. To have a benchmark for comparison, the standard logistic regression was also employed. Although those methods have been employed in other fields, this is one of the earliest studies that employed those techniques in the context of traffic safety. Results: The results highlighted that the nonparametric kernel-based method outperforms the semi-parametric (single-index model) and the standard logit model based on the confusion matrices. To have a vision about the bandwidth selection method for removal of the irrelevant attributes in nonparametric approach, we added some noisy predictors to the models and a comparison was made. Extensive discussion has been made in the content of this study regarding the methodological approach of the models. Conclusion: To summarize, alcohol and drug involvement, driving on non-level grade, and bad lighting conditions are some of the factors that increase the likelihood of pedestrian crash severity. This is one of the earliest studies that implemented the methods in the context of transportation problems. The nonparametric method is especially recommended to be used in the field of traffic safety when there are uncertainties regarding the importance of predictors as the technique would automatically drop unimportant predictors.

An Analysis of the Influencing Factors in the Establishment of the Overseas Agricultural Cooperation Zones under the Belt and Road Initiative Based on Logit Model

A total of 57 overseas agricultural cooperation zones have been selected from 68 countries along the Belt and Road and extended areas from 2006 to 2018 as samples, and the corresponding indexes of bilateral trade in agricultural products, agricultural resource endowments, labor resources, infrastructure, and economic freedom have been chosen for parameter estimation based on the maximum likelihood method under the Logit model for an empirical analysis of the main influencing factors in the establishment of the overseas agricultural cooperation zones. The empirical analysis results indicate that the total import and export trade volume of agricultural products, agricultural land area, and labor resources of the host country have a significant promoting effect on the establishment of overseas agricultural cooperation zones. The economic freedom index has a significant negative impact on the establishment of overseas agricultural cooperation zones, while the port throughput has no significant impact. China should consider several main factors when selecting a host country to establish overseas agricultural cooperation zones, including bilateral trade volume of agricultural products, agricultural resource endowments, labor resources, and economic freedom of the host country, which can provide reference for the spatial layout of the overseas agricultural cooperation zones.

Predictions from an Empirical Study in the Turkish Mobile Telecommunications Market on the Determinants of Mobile Customer Churn

Acquiring new customers compared to holding the existing ones is costlier and more troublesome for businesses, so customer retention is of great importance in today's intensely competitive environment. It is crucial in customer relations management to identify and analyse customers whose loyalty decreases and who tend to leave, and prevent churn through various methods under resource constraints. This issue is especially prominent in the mobile communication market. This paper uses a binomial logit model based on a survey with 637 mobile users in Turkey to determine the factors affecting customer churn and how they find their effect. Results indicate that, among various factors, network quality, billing, tariff level, tariff plan, and education level are the determinants affecting customer churn and associated with the intention to switch. Our findings demonstrate implications for both managers and rule-makers in the mobile telecommunications sector.