Fish-Products Consumption Economics in North-West of Iran
In natural resource economics, we sometimes observe a situation in which producers and consumers have direct access to the factors of production or can use some consumable products with little or no transformation. These goods are commonly referred to as “gifts of nature”. A factor of production is considered a gift of nature when little effort is required to make it usable; thus one would expect the appearance of under-pricing, over-utilization and/or over-consumption. Fish products, the results of fish culture, to some extent have such characteristics in Iran, where it is the output of a joint production process. In this country, fish is being produced using our excess capacity in water resources, with some more organic residuals where these are used in the other joint enterprises of farming or horticulture. Moreover, fish products have many recognized biological and physiological advantages; thus scientists view them as good sources of protein for human consumption. Iran is in relative deficit of this type of nutritious, high-protein product. But unfortunately, some available estimates suggest that the Iranian consumer’s inclination toward the consumption of fish products is not very promising. To develop a workable policy design to help policy makers to persuade Iranian consumers to purchase fish, a field research project was planned and executed in Northwest Iran. Almost 500 fish consumers were interviewed; the data gathered on the economic aspects of fish-consumption model in this region are analyzed in this paper. It is revealed that the rate of consumption here is lower than both the average national level and the average global level. This norm of consumption is correlated to some sociocultural-behavioral-economic factors. Policy-makers could make use of this model to persuade consumers to make better use of this “gift of nature” within the target group.
Fish-Culture Production Economics in North-West of Iran
Whatever the quantity and the rate of water utilization is, economic principles indicate that there will always be other water utilization methods which might increase the efficiency of the use of this resource. Due to the geo-climatic position of Iran, this country finds itself in a water deficit situation as compared to per capita use rates observed in the rest of the world. The scarcity of water has always been a serious, at times disastrous, problem in Iran, and this problem will likely get worse in the future. Thus, the most rational possible water resource utilization will be a permanent preoccupation of the nation, and therefore the government. One still less examined method of rationalizing water utilization in Iran is the multidimensional utilization of water, where fish culture takes place jointly with other previously adopted agricultural enterprises. The main question considered in this article is that of water productivity, ie. how economically do we use water in fish culture activities? The results of statistical analyses of our field research, based on questionnaire completion of a significant sample of fish-farming enterprises, reveal the fact that Iran could still improve water utilization productivity rates in these enterprises. However, wide variation in water productivity is observed. On the base of some better-operated enterprises extension proposals and policy recommendations could be made.
To Devolve or Not To Devolve? Welfare Reform in the States
This article analyzes variation in the degree to which states have responded to the devolution of welfare at the federal level by devolving authority over welfare policy to local government. I find that to the extent that states have devolved authority to lower levels of government, they tend to be states that already had a high degree of involvement of local government in welfare provision. In states without this record of local government involvement, the devolution that has occurred has not generated greater involvement of local government, but rather responsibility has been devolved to regional entities with ties to workforce development and with a substantial degree of business involvement. As states gain increasing authority over a redistributive policy, they may begin to treat it as a subset of a larger developmental policy—workforce development.