Explore the vast range of titles available.

1. Theory and previous studies have shown that commercial fishers with a diversified catch across multiple species may experience benefits such as increased revenue and reduced variability in revenue. However, fishers can only increase the species diversity of their catch if they own fishing permits that allow multiple species to be targeted, or if they own multiple single-species permits. Individuals holding a single permit can only increase catch diversity within the confines of their permit (e.g. by fishing longer or over a broader spatial area). 2. Using a large dataset of individual salmon fishers in Alaska, we build a Bayesian variance function regression model to understand how diversification impacts revenue and revenue variability, and how these effects have evolved since the 1970s. 3. Applying these models to six salmon fisheries that encompass a broad geographic range and a variety of harvesting methods and species, we find that the majority of these fisheries have experienced reduced catch diversity through time and increasing benefits of specialization on mean individual revenues. 4. One factor that has been hypothesized to reduce catch diversity in salmon fisheries is large-scale hatchery production. While our results suggest negative correlations between hatchery returns and catch diversity for some fisheries, we find little evidence for a change in variability of annual catches associated with increased hatchery production. 5. Synthesis and applications. Despite general trends towards more specialization among commercial fishers in Alaska, and more fishers exclusively targeting salmon, we find that catching fewer species can have positive effects on revenue. With increasing specialization, it is important to understand how individuals buffer against risk, as well as any barriers that prevent diversification. In addition to being affected by environmental variability, fishers are also affected by economic factors including demand and prices offered by processors. Life-history variation in the species targeted may also play a role. Individuals participating in Alaskan fisheries with high contributions of pink salmon — which have the shortest life cycles of all Pacific salmon — also have the highest variability in year-to-year revenue.

There is a renewed global emphasis on domestic revenue mobilisation for local development. This call came through the Sustainable Development Goals, which places enormous responsibility on local government bodies, especially in developing countries, to focus on local sources of revenue for development. Just like many local government bodies in most developing countries, Ghana’s Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have had humongous challenges raising adequate revenue for local development. However, some assemblies have demonstrated more effectiveness in raising internally generated funds than others. Revenue variability studies on Ghana’s MMDAs are almost non-existent. This paper seeks to contribute to the role that local politics plays in different collection outcomes in the selected assemblies in Ghana. The study focuses on the selected urban Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies in the Greater Accra region that share similar characteristics. With the fiscal exchange theory, local politics has shown to have had some influence on local revenue mobilisation outcomes. The exploratory-sequential mixed methods approach was adopted for the study. Through in-depth interviews of relevant local government officers and a survey of opinions of taxpayers in all four selected Assemblies, it was found that local politics have played significant roles in occasioning different revenue mobilisation outcomes in the selected Assemblies.

The importance of collective action for local revenue mobilization cannot be over-emphasized, yet has received little attention in current literature. Using strategies for co-operation, collaboration and partnership with local stakeholders to maximize revenue collection appears neglected in the revenue mobilization debate in many developing countries. Extant literature suggests that coercion and public service motivation have been relied upon, yet revenue mobilization remains a significant challenge. This paper expands this body of knowledge by examining the role of collective action and how it helps explain revenue outcomes in the Tema and Accra Metropolitan Assemblies on the one hand, and Ga East and Ga West Municipal Assemblies on the other. It is demonstrated in the discussions that while some of these Assemblies are making better efforts at raising more revenue using more effective collective action measures, others are unable to do the same. This was done through key informant interviews and a survey of the opinions of taxpayers in the selected urban Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies in Ghana. This paper is part of a broader effort to examine the extent to which local revenue mobilization can be scaled-up in the face of several constraints in a developing country context.

Individuals relying on natural resource extraction for their livelihood face high income variability driven by a mix of environmental, biological, management, and economic factors. Key to managing these industries is identifying how regulatory actions and individual behavior affect income variability, financial risk, and, by extension, the economic stability and the sustainable use of natural resources. In commercial fisheries, communities and vessels fishing a greater diversity of species have less revenue variability than those fishing fewer species. However, it is unclear whether these benefits extend to the actions of individual fishers and how year-to-year changes in diversification affect revenue and revenue variability. Here, we evaluate two axes by which fishers in Alaska can diversify fishing activities. We show that, despite increasing specialization over the last 30 years, fishing a set of permits with higher species diversity reduces individual revenue variability, and fishing an additional permit is associated with higher revenue and lower variability. However, increasing species diversity within the constraints of existing permits has a fishery-dependent effect on revenue and is usually (87% probability) associated with increased revenue uncertainty the following year. Our results demonstrate that the most effective option for individuals to decrease revenue variability is to participate in additional or more diverse fisheries. However, this option is expensive, often limited by regulations such as catch share programs, and consequently unavailable to many individuals. With increasing climatic variability, it will be particularly important that individuals relying on natural resources for their livelihood have effective strategies to reduce financial risk.

Irrigated agriculture in snow-dependent regions contributes significantly to global food production. This study quantifies the impacts of climate change on irrigated agriculture in the snow-dependent Yakima River Basin (YRB) in the Pacific Northwest United States. Here we show that increasingly severe droughts and temperature driven reductions in growing season significantly reduces expected annual agricultural productivity. The overall reduction in mean annual productivity also dampens interannual yield variability, limiting yield-driven revenue fluctuations. Our findings show that farmers who adapt to climate change by planting improved crop varieties may potentially increase their expected mean annaul productivity in an altered climate, but remain strongly vulnerable to irrigation water shortages that substantially increase interannual yield variability (i.e., increasing revenue volatility). Our results underscore the importance for crop adaptation strategies to simultaneously capture the biophysical effects of warming as well as the institutional controls on water availability. Studies on examining the climate impact on irrigated agriculture do not account for regional specific details. Here the authors studied both the direct and indirect impact of climate change on irrigated agriculture in the Yakima River Basin (YRB) and found that increasingly severe droughts and temperature driven reductions in growing season significantly reduces expected annual agricultural productivity.

Livelihoods of ethnic minority populations living in the mountains of Northern Vietnam are highly vulnerable to climate-induced natural hazards. Therefore, the livelihoods of vulnerable ethnic minority populations in these areas could be improved through climate change adaptation measures. This study pursues an enhancement of three different aggregate indices such as Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI), Livelihood Vulnerability Index framed within the IPCC vulnerability framework (LVI-IPCC), and Livelihood Effect Index (LEI) to find out components contributing to the livelihood vulnerability of major ethnic minority populations in a case study of Mo Vang mountain (Yen Bai, Vietnam). A total of 120 Dzao and Hmong respondents from 11 villages are surveyed based on a combination of informal interviews, a questionnaire survey, and Focused Group Discussions (FGD). Twenty-nine sub-components belonging to 10 major components (socio-demographic profile, livelihood strategies, social networks, revenue, health, food, water, housing, land, and natural hazards and climate variability) are conducted to calculate LVI, LVI-IPCC, and LEI. The results show that the livelihood of Hmong populations is more vulnerable to climate change for natural conditions such as natural hazards and climate variability, housing, land, water, food, and health. However, the livelihood of Dzao populations is more vulnerable because of socio-economic conditions such as socio-demographic profile, livelihood strategies, revenue, and social networks. The results provide a scientific basis for both residents, local officials, and policy-makers prioritizing solutions to enhance livelihood capitals as well as to improve adaptive capacity to climate change in the mountains of Northern Vietnam.

Natural resources often exhibit large interannual fluctuations in productivity driven by shifting environmental conditions, and this translates to high variability in the revenue resource users earn. However, users can dampen this variability by harvesting a portfolio of resources. In the context of fisheries, this means targeting multiple populations, though the ability to actually build diverse fishing portfolios is often constrained by the costs and availability of fishing permits. These constraints are generally intended to prevent overcapitalization of the fleet and ensure populations are fished sustainably. As linked human-natural systems, both ecological and fishing dynamics influence the specific advantages and disadvantages of increasing the diversity of fishing portfolios. Specifically, a portfolio of synchronous populations with similar responses to environmental drivers should reduce revenue variability less than a portfolio of asynchronous populations with opposite responses. We built a bioeconomic model based on the Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister), Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and groundfish fisheries in the California Current, and used it to explore the influence of population synchrony and permit access on income patterns. As expected, synchronous populations reduced revenue variability less than asynchronous populations, but only for portfolios including crab and salmon. Synchrony with the longer-lived groundfish population was not important because environmentally driven changes in groundfish recruitment were mediated by growth and natural mortality over the full population age structure, and overall biomass was relatively stable across years. Thus, building a portfolio of diverse life histories can buffer against the impacts of poor environmental conditions over short time scales. Increasing access to all permits generally led to increased revenue stability and decreased inequality of the fleet, but also resulted in less revenue earned by an individual from a given portfolio because more vessels shared the available biomass. This means managers are faced with a trade-off between the average revenue individuals earn and the risk those individuals accept. These results illustrate the importance of considering connections between social and ecological dynamics when evaluating management options that constrain or facilitate fishers’ ability to diversify their fishing.

Despite its relevance for fiscal policy, non-tax revenue is only defined by exclusion and it is an area that has been scarcely studied for developed economies. This study is an attempt to provide an analysis of this relevant component of government revenue, using comparable national accounts data. It assesses the size, composition and volatility of non-tax revenue in the European Union, and it explores, by means of panel data analysis, whether macroeconomic and fiscal conditions can explain the observed heterogeneity in non-tax revenue across the Member States. We also find that the relative variability of non-tax revenue is around three times higher than that of tax revenue, being a significant source of fiscal risk that is often overlooked.

Wild and semidomesticated reindeer are one of the key species in Arctic and subarctic areas, and their population dynamics are closely tied to winter conditions. Difficult snow conditions have been found to decrease the calving success and survivability of reindeer, but the economic effects of variation in winter conditions on reindeer husbandry have not been studied. In this study, we combine state-of-the-art economic–ecological modeling with the analysis of annual reindeer management reports from Finland. These contain local knowledge of herding communities. We quantify the occurrence probabilities of different types of winters from annual management reports and analyze the effects of this variation in winter conditions on reindeer husbandry using an age- and sexstructured bioeconomic reindeer–lichen model. Our results show that difficult winters decrease the net revenues of reindeer husbandry. However, they also protect lichen pastures from grazing, thereby increasing future net revenues. Nonetheless, our solutions show that the variability of winter conditions overall decrease the net income of herders compared to constant winter conditions. Low lichen biomass appears to make reindeer management more sensitive to the effects of difficult winter conditions. We also found that it is economically sensible to use supplementary feeding during difficult winters, but the net revenues still decrease compared to average winters because of the high feeding costs. Overall, our analysis suggests that the increasing variability of winter conditions due to climate change will decrease net revenues in reindeer husbandry. This decrease will still occur even if the most extreme effects of climate change do not occur. This study shows that combining a state-of-the-art bioeconomic model and practitioner knowledge can bring compatible insights, ideas, results, and a bottom-up perspective to the discussion.

This paper provides evidence on how the variability of the power produced by a wind farm and its revenue are affected by implementing a ramp-rate limitation strategy and by adding a storage device to the system. The wind farm receives penalties whenever the ramp-rate limitations are not respected and may be supported by batteries to avoid this scenario. In this paper, we model the battery usage as a discrete time homogeneous Markov chain with rewards thanks to which it is possible to simulate the state of the charge of the battery and to calculate the amount of penalties suffered by the wind farm during any period. An application is performed considering the power produced by a hypothetical wind turbine located in Sardinia (Italy) using real wind speed data and electricity prices from a period of 10 years. We applied the concept of ramp-rate limitation on our hourly dataset, studying several limitation scenarios and battery capacities.