2 0 0 7 • Vo l I I I s sue IV echnological innovation often stimulates economic growth by creating new products, improving efficiency, and opening doors to new markets. Yet many rural communities believe these advantages are off limits to them—because their towns are either too small or too remote for their entrepreneurs to create technological innovations. In reality, though, the advantages of...

Over the past two decades, Rwanda has experienced impressive economic growth, resulting in considerable improvements in living standards and poverty reduction. Despite these gains, progress on nutritional status, especially those of rural children, continues to be a serious concern. This paper seeks to analyze dietary quality relative to income status and prices based on geographic location and...

According to the great management guru Peter Ducker "the organizations’ have only two functions, one is marketing and other is innovation." Rural markets are characterized with huge potential for marketers, but at the same time pose several challenges to serve them with similar set of marketing mix used in urban settings. The main challenges in rural marketing are: Physical distribution, Channe...

Competition among private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans is seen by some as leading to lower premiums and expanded benefits. But how much competition exists in MA markets? Using a standard measure of market competition, our analysis finds that 97 percent of markets in U.S. counties are highly concentrated and therefore lacking in significant MA plan competition. Competition is considerably lower...

In terms of technology, this probably started to some degree with the wiring of funds from bank to bank, but has now progressed significantly with ATMs, on line banking, and the Internet. The technology is readily available in this day and age to everyone, and everyone has been and is increasingly using it to pursue the business of your customers in a variety of ways. This is not just a matter ...

Globalization has been a great benefit to rural America in that it has opened overseas markets for its agriculture. Yet, there is growing concern that U.S. rural communities will lose not only their share of agricultural trade but also nonfarm jobs to global competition. This article examines how they can remain competitive relative to low-income countries. ESSAYS ON ISSUES THE FEDERAL RESERVE ...

billing—Exploring Policy Options for a New Rural America—but in addition identifies the basis for a new framework for rural policy. Evidence that a new policy framework is needed is abundant (Stauber; Johnson and Martin). In one way or another, rural areas of North America and of most of the developed world have for at least the past century experienced secular decline compared to urban areas. ...

limited access to financing from venture capitalists. Of this situation, there is widespread evidence and agreement. There is not, however, agreement as to the principal reasons why entrepreneurs in rural areas have difficulty in acquiring equity capital for new business start-ups and expansions. On the one hand, some suggest (e.g., Florida and Kenney, 1988) that few venture capital investments...

Developing countries have struggled with low electrification rates in the rural areas. This study investigates one major issue impeding the rural electrification programs in rural Kenya: high connection payments. The paper uses estimates obtained from a stated preference study, namely a contingent valuation method completed in 2007, to examine the willingness to pay to connect to grid-electrici...

Although mobile phone usage has proliferated in urban areas of developing countries, many rural or poor users remain completely unconnected, particularly in Africa. In this paper, we advocate an alternative “voice message mostly” mobile phone architecture to reach the next billion users. Using initial analyses of mobile phone usage and rural power data, we outline the potential benefits of swit...