Narrow Results

Drawing on the previous research on context and family involvement in entrepreneurial growth, this study examines the impact of households on the creation and growth of a rural enterprise. We aim to investigate how household strategies affect the development of new enterprise, how household dynamics influence enterprise growth strategy decisions, and how household manage and create business portfolios. To address these questions, we conducted comparative case studies utilising information from four business households situated in rural areas of Uttarakhand. In all four cases, a thematic interview approach was employed to explore consistent themes, such as business operations, household requirements, motivations for initiating and running a business, and community interactions. The findings illustrate how household contribute to the development and growth of rural enterprise, how these business change over time, the collaborative efforts of families in business venture and how they build and expand their business activities. The study identified three main themes: the close connection between household and business; how family and kinship act as valuable resources in enterprise growth; and how households effectively manage risk and uncertainty through entrepreneurial bricolage. These results highlight the role of households and household strategy in shaping enterprise growth, in contrast to earlier studies that focused on individual aspirations and business strategy. By focusing on farm family businesses and the resource-based view, this study offers valuable insights into the strategies employed by agripreneurial households to manage and leverage their resources effectively.

After the 2008 crisis, the Russian consumer loan market shows high growth rates, accompanied by the quality deteriorating even faster. At the same time, a great proportion of households are not attracted by the banks and borrow informally. In this paper, we aim to learn why households refuse to become bank clients, using the data from a 2009–2010 national survey of Russian households. Our results suggest that household's choice of the informal credit market is based not only on credit rationing, but also on a lack of financial literacy, credit discipline and trust in the banking sector as a whole.

The Australian Government introduced a carbon tax from 1 July 2012. The then opposition party leader, now Prime Minister, introduced legislation to repeal the tax. Amongst the many issues being debated is that of the incidence of the tax. In this study, we explore household consumption and income changes arising from a A$23 carbon price employing a computable general equilibrium model (entitled A3E-G). The model has been calibrated using a social accounting matrix database of Australia with 10 household income groups. This carbon price generates A$6.39 billion revenue while reducing Australia's carbon emissions by 11%. The empirical evidence suggests household level impacts range from proportional to mildly progressive tax incidence. In this study, we propose four revenue recycling options to overcome any undesirable distributional effects from the carbon price. Results indicate that revenue recycling through income tax reductions and uniform lump sum transfers improves post tax income levels and welfare towards middle and high income groups. A nonuniform lump sum transferring option favors low income households. Uniform reductions in commodity tax rates are not found to be welfare improving but we find positive impacts on export competitiveness from this option.

Health inequities are explained by the structural and material determinants of health, so an endeavour to achieve good health for the population calls for an examination of such determinants in the country. However, very little is known about the scenario for this in a post-conflict situation. This study examines the distribution of health determinants, identifies the relationship between the structural and material determinants of health, and estimates the effects of the districts on health determinants in Afghanistan. We use probit regression models on the household sample survey data of 2009, 2010 and 2011. The unequal distribution of both structural and material determinants is found to be a contentious issue for the country. The regression results show that the financial improvement and improvement in the overall conditions of the households have a significant positive association with all the material determinants of health for the population, including freedom of movement in a post-conflict country. The effects of the districts are significant for all the determinants of health. Freedom of movement is found to be the most important time invariant structural determinant that affects all the material determinants of the health of the Afghan population. This study indicates the linkages between geographical and socioeconomic variances with the determinants of health in Afghanistan. We intend to re-examine the way in which health is conceptualized within the development framework for the nation.

Using data from the 2007 Timor-Leste Living Standards Survey, this paper examines the determinants of household energy choices in Timor-Leste. The majority of households are dependent on dirty fuels such as fuelwood and kerosene for energy. Only a small fraction of households use clean energy such as electricity. Econometric results show that wealthy households, urban households, and those headed by individuals with higher levels of education are less likely to use and depend on kerosene and more likely to use and depend on electricity. While female-headed households are generally more likely to use and depend on fuelwood, richer female-headed households are more likely to use and depend on electricity. Our findings highlight the importance of ensuring an adequate supply of clean energy for all at affordable prices and of investing in education to raise awareness about the adverse impacts of using dirty fuels.