Urban shade as a cryptic habitat: fern distribution in building gaps in Sapporo,northern Japan

Urban Ecosystems - Biodiversity conservation and restoration in cities is a global challenge for the 21st century. Unlike other common ecosystems, urban landscapes are predominantly covered by...     

Nonmarket networks among migrants: evidence from metropolitan Bangkok,Thailand

This paper examines the nonmarket interactions among migrants in the urban labor market of Bangkok, Thailand. We test whether the population size and the labor-market performance of previous migrants have externalities to new migrants who have moved from the same province of origin. Our empirical results, which control origin fixed effects, time fixed effects, and origin- and year-specific correlated shocks, show that (1) the relative population size of previous migrants in the market decreases the employment probability of new migrants (substitution effect), (2) the employment probability of previous migrants increases that of new migrants (positive externalities), and (3) when the employment probability of previous migrants is high, however, the scale effect becomes positive, which demonstrates a threshold in the informational scale economies. The results imply that positive informational scale effect dominates negative substitution effect when the efficiency of previous migrants is sufficiently high in the destination labor market.

The future of small farms in Asia

Farms throughout Asia are predominantly small. By nature, small farms use labour‐intensive production methods. The question arises as to the viability of small farms in the face of the rapidly increasing wage rate in most Asian countries. There is also indication that the production efficiency of small farms has declined relative to large farms in many Asian economies, indicating the increasing disadvantage of small farms in Asia. Therefore, this study argues that unless new policy measures are taken to expand farm size, Asia as a whole is likely to lose comparative advantage in agriculture and become an importer of food grains in the future.     

Marriage behavior response to prime-age adult mortality: evidence from malawi

This article examines the effect of AIDS-related mortality of the prime-age adult population on marriage behavior among women in Malawi. A rise in prime-age adult mortality increases risks associated with the search for a marriage partner in the marriage market. A possible behavioral change in the marriage market in response to an increase in prime-age adult mortality is to marry earlier to avoid exposure to HIV/AIDS risks. We test this hypothesis by using micro data from Malawi, where prime-age adult mortality has drastically increased. In the analysis, we estimate the probability of prime-age adult mortality that sample women have observed during their adolescent period by utilizing retrospective information on deaths of their siblings. Empirical analysis shows that excess prime-age adult mortality in the local marriage market lowers the marriage age for females and shortens the interval between the first sex and first marriage.