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The purpose of this study is to analyze the impacts of different policies to address the water supply crisis experienced by the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo during 2013 to 2015 and evaluate the resilience of its water supply system for the coming years.

The methodology used in this study is based on the system dynamics simulation paradigm, combined with empirical data obtained from the regional water authority.

The results from the simulations suggest that the first layer of sustainability of the water supply in the region strongly depends on how the system’s operator responds to crises, in particular how it balances policies acting on the supply and demand for the resource.

Severe water crises typically make salient the perception that water is a finite and public resource. Long-term, sustainable management of the system requires a paradigm shift from widespread, old-fashioned beliefs that water is an infinite resource. It also requires active management to increase the system’s preparedness to withstand events caused by climate change.

This study contributes to the system dynamics and water resource management literature by presenting an integrative model to evaluate the resilience of a particular water supply system. Although there are previous studies on this subject, the present one focuses on the role that the water authority plays in a crisis and especially on a specific combination of policies to address an episode of crisis in a system unprepared for it.

This paper aims to understand and explore the causal relationship of elements responsible for the macro vicious cycle of poverty in Guinea-Bissau, and discuss policies to break it.

The methodology used in this study is based on the system dynamics simulation paradigm.

Breaking the Guinean poverty cycle requires a multifaceted approach involving more resources and the building of several national capabilities. Traditional approaches tend to fail.

Limitations come from the level of abstraction used in the model, which does not detail the processes for building specific capabilities and their interrelationships, and the necessary exclusion of variables that may have an impact in the process. Considering implications, the study models the evolution of human development index (HDI) in Guinea-Bissau, linking it to the economy and political sectors and allowing the simulation of different scenarios.

The study presents a critical stance towards common recommendations from international agencies, and it provides a blueprint for development of more effective public policies.

Overcoming the poverty trap in sub-Saharan countries remains a challenge for the international community. The study aims at helping in the process of integrating different frameworks into a compact and manageable model.

The study contributes to the system dynamics and economic development literatures by presenting an integrative model of human development in Guinea-Bissau. There is no study in the system dynamics literature modelling the relationship of HDI to economy and political sectors while different and contradictory points of view characterize the economics literature, leaving well-meaning public officials in Guinea-Bissau at a loss of mental models to tackle the poverty trap in the country.

This study aims to consider how migrants may act as channel of diffusion of knowledge which contributes to the dynamics of trade and comparative advantages of EU and MENA countries for the period 1990–2015.

Adopting an IV approach and a gravity framework to instrument for migration, the authors document how variations in stocks of migrants coming from (in) countries that are already competitive exporters of a given product impact on the probability that the destination (home) country starts to export competitively new products or succeed in exporting more intensively.

Controlling for potential confounding factors which can be correlated to knowledge flows and productivity shifts, the authors find trade-promoting effects via migration flows (mostly immigration) between the two areas, testing our hypotheses by different technology classes of products and different specifications.

The contribution of this work to the literature is threefold. First, by providing evidence on international knowledge diffusion induced by migration flows between MENA and EU regions, like no other work before, the authors document the effects of migration on trade and comparative advantages. Second, unlike standard literature on migration-trade link, the authors focus more on long-term structural changes in comparative advantages than on trade volumes. Third, we exploit how the effect of migration on margins of trade varies according to different types of goods, classified by technological level.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether good governance across countries, utilising the Rule of Law indicator of the Worldwide Governance Indicators, is associated with economic growth, measured in terms of real GDP. It is to be noted that in this paper both variables are measured in terms of changes, comparing like with like. It is hypothesised that a country with a high level of economic development and a high level of good governance (typically an economically advanced country) tends to find it more difficult to improve these two variables, when compared to a country with lower levels GDP per capita and good governance (typically an economically backward country). This assumption is termed the “diminishing marginal governance effect”.

The paper tests the hypothesis that governance improvements are related to real GDP growth, using the panel data regression approach. In this way both variables are measured in terms of changes, comparing like with like. Relevant control variables are utilised to impose the ceteris paribus condition.

The paper finds that improvements in good governance are statistically and significantly related to economic growth. This confirms the hypothesised “diminishing marginal governance effect” explained above.

The main research limitation of this paper is that measuring changes in the “Rule of Law” indicator over time may be subject to errors given that the “Rule of Law” score of each year is an average value with related standard deviations, and the latter vary from one year to another and from one country to another.

The major practical implication of this paper is that good governance matters for economic growth and that in order to produce evidence for this the governance score must be measured in terms of changes and not in terms of levels. Another implication is that equations that compare economic growth with levels of governance are misspecified as they would not be comparing like with like.

There are various beneficial social implications associated with good governance which is considered as a major pillar for orderly social relationships. Economic growth also has important social implications as it means, if properly distributed, improvements in material well-being of the population.

The originality of this paper is that it measures governance in terms of changes and not of levels. Studies on the relationship between governance and economic growth that measure governance in terms of levels generally do not find a positive relationship between the two variables. In using changes in both governance and real GDP, this paper confirms the “diminishing marginal effect of governance”, hypothesis.

Recent literature has considerably improved our understanding of vertical relations in the food chain. One area which has received relatively little attention however relates to the resilience of an agro-food supply chain, that is its ability to face and, if needed, to recover after a major disruption. The purpose of this paper is to study what factors, including characteristics of vertical links between upstream and downstream sectors, may make farmer-processor relationships more or less resilient to adverse shocks.

To do so, the author uses a unique region-level data set on disruptions to dairy supply chain in Poland during the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. More specifically, using between-region variation, the author investigates why in some regions supply chain disruptions, measured as the breakdown of relationships between farmers and processing industry, were smaller than in other regions.

The findings suggest that the supply chain which the author analysed was less resilient to crisis, i.e. the author observed larger disruptions to supply relations, when the supply base was more fragmented and when farmers had better outside options to market their produce via direct sales to consumers. In addition, dairy supply chain in Poland seemed to be less resilient in regions with larger share of the state-owned land.

The results come with several caveats. First, the empirical evidence comes from Poland during the specific period and thus it may not be easily generalised. Second, the results are based on historical correlations. Therefore, although they are robust across various specifications which the author estimates, they may not establish causal relationship due to some omitted variables or potential endogeneity issue. Finally, what the author uses here are region-level data. One may argue therefore that farm-level data would give more fine-tuned focus for testing impacts and theories regarding supply chain resilience.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to provide some evidence on agro-food supply chain from this perspective.