New Publications

Read about new publications in our publication series and other recent publications from IEE Members.

UA Ruhr Studies on Development and Global Governance

IEE corresponding member Marco Rimkus has published his PhD thesis as the latest contribution to the UA Ruhr Studies on Development and Global Governance series.
Marco Rimkus (2015): Welternährung, Nutztierschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit. Eine monetäre Bewertung in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern. - Berlin: Logos Verl. - X, 459 pp. ISBN 978-3-8325-3893-4 (€ 59,00).
You find more details about this study in the article on "Research Activities: Global Food Security, Food Safety, and Industrial Agriculture" by Marco Rimkus.

IEE Working Paper

With a comprehensive study entitled "Do the Poor Benefit from Corporate Social Responsibility? A Theory-Based Impact Evaluation of Six Community-Based Water Projects in Sri Lanka" Wilhelm Löwenstein, Martina Shakya, and Marc Hansen, together with IEE alumni Sanjay Gorkhali, contributed to the latest volume to the IEE Working Papers series.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can work as an effective means towards minimising business risk and maintaining amicable relationships with diverse groups of stakeholders. While many studies have examined the impacts of CSR on firm value and customer perceptions, little is known about the effects of a philanthropic engagement of the private sector on external stakeholder groups, such as local communities in developing countries. This paper examines welfare effects of six community-based water supply projects that were supported by a thermal power plant in Sri Lanka as part of the company's CSR strategy. The implications of these CSR activities are analysed from the perspective of the project beneficiaries, the majority of them poor smallholder farmers. Household production and labour income functions are estimated from survey data to analyse two pathways, through which the water projects affect the beneficiaries' lives. First, the households get individual access to water that allows for the irrigation of home gardens, increases land productivity, and changes households' farm output and income (irrigation channel). Second, the projects have an indirect effect on households' income via a time channel, i.e. due to the individual water access, the households save time as there is no more need to fetch water from distant bodies of water or wells. This allows for a reallocation of labour time for other productive income-generating activities. Despite the considerable costs that households have to bear for an individual water connection, the study finds a systematic, positive net income effect of the projects on the beneficiaries via both the irrigation and the time channel. Qualitative evidence supports these findings and also reveals additional positive, non-monetarised project impacts. As the water projects would not have been realised without the subsidiary financial support of the power plant, it is concluded that the company's CSR engagement is increasing the welfare of the beneficiary communities.
Wilhelm Löwenstein / Martina Shakya / Marc Hansen / Sanjay Gorkhali (2015): Do the Poor Benefit from Corporate Social Responsibility? A Theory-Based Impact Evaluation of Six Community-Based Water Projects in Sri Lanka, IEE Working Paper Vol. 210, - VII, 86 pp. ISBN 978-3-927276-96-3 (€ 10,00).

Book Publications

Metaheuristics in the Modern Economy is a new book of IEE research fellow Elkhan Richard Sadik-Zada, dedicated to the applications and comparison of heuristic optimization methods like Tabu Search, Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing and Ant Colony Optimization in modern economics. In addition, the author shows the advantages of the hybrid metaheuristics combining pure strategies.
Most of the real scheduling problems in job-shop scheduling are non-deterministic polynomial-time hard problems, which is why they cannot be solved in an appropriate time, even using supercomputers (that are only available to a limited number of scientific and defense institutions anyway). With the emergence of the mass production and consumer markets in the 1950's the importance of the optimization of the machine scheduling has grown. As an alternative to precise optimization methods, heuristic algorithms deliver good results with less time and equipment costs than precise methods. But which metaheuristic is appropriate for a concrete enterprise? In addition, modern econometrics applies increasingly metastrategies like genetic algorithms and simulated annealing. Hence, the book is relevant also for readers interested in the applications of metaheuristics in the time series analysis. The author compares the existing major metaheuristics and concludes that hybrid metaheuristic algorithms adapted to a concrete economic problems are the most efficient strategy in solving real scheduling problems.
Elkhan Richard Sadik-Zada (2015): Metaheuristiken in der modernen Ökonomie. - Bochumer Universitätsverlag. - 129 pp. - ISBN 978-3899667615.

Journal Articles

Together with Paolo de Renzio PhD IDS candidate Jurek Seifert co-authored an article on South-South cooperation in development cooperation, which has been published in Third World Quarterly as part of a special issue. As part of his research stay at the BRICS Policy Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jurek has been involved in the compilation of the special issue.
The article is premised on the observation that international development cooperation is undergoing fundamental changes and that new – or often re-emerging – actors have gained importance during the past two decades, and are increasingly challenging the traditional approach to development cooperation associated with the members of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. The supposedly alternative paradigm of these actors, 'South–South cooperation' (SSC), has been recognised as an important cooperation modality, but faces contradictions that are not too different from those of its North–South counterpart. SSC providers are highly heterogeneous in terms of policies, institutional arrangements, and engagement with international forums and initiatives. With their article the authors contribute to current debates on SSC by mapping the diversity of its actors – based on illustrative case studies from the first and second 'wave' of providers – and by presenting and discussing some possible scenarios for the future of SSC within the international aid system.
Paulo de Renzio / Jurek Seifert (2014): South-South Cooperation and the Future of Development Assistance: Mapping Actors and Options. In: Third World Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 10, 1860-1875.

Stefan Buchholz and Anne Siebert contributed a short German language article on South African-German university cooperation.
This article provides an insight into the long-term cooperation between the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy at Ruhr-University Bochum and the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. In particular, the background and experiences made within the interdisciplinary Master Program in Development Management and different PhD programs are described. Moreover, the South African-German Center for Development Research and Criminal Justice is introduced.
Stefan Buchholz / Anne Siebert (2014): Deutsch-südafrikanische Hochschulkooperation. In: Afrika Süd. Zeitschrift zum südlichen Afrika, 6/2014, 36-37.

Other Publication Formats

IEE research fellow Ruth Knoblich published two interviews with leading scholars in the field of science and technology on Theory Talks – an open-access journal that contributes to International Relations debates by publishing interviews with cutting-edge theorists.
Dirk Messner, Director of the "German Development Institute (DIE)" and Co-Director of the "Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR)" at the University of Duisburg-Essen, illustrates to what extent global power shifts have been leading to new patterns of international cooperation, using international science and technology cooperation as a case in point. He touches on issues, such as the general significance of interdisciplinary research for global development, initiatives taken by development institutions, such as the World Bank setting up open-access facilities to research pools, and the opportunities held by big data.
Ruth Knoblich (2015): Theory Talk #67: Dirk Messner on the Dynamics of Global Change and the Significance of International Science and Technology Cooperation in the Post-Western World, http://www.theory-talks.org/2015/01/theory-talk-67_30.html (30-1-2015).
Loet Leydesdorff, Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, talks about innovation dynamics from the perspective of System Theory. He elaborates on the framework of the "Triple Helix" that disaggregates national innovation systems into evolving university-industry-government eco-systems.
Ruth Knoblich (2015): Theory Talk #68: Loet Leydesdorff on the Triple Helix: How Synergies in University-Industry-Government Relations Can Shape Innovation Systems, http://www.theory-talks.org/2015/03/theory-talk-68.html (11-3-2015).

PhD IDS candidate Diotima Chattoraj contributed a book review on Sharika Thiranagama's book, "In My Mother's House: Civil war in Sri Lanka". She critically reviews the author's ethnographic account the dynamics reshaping the identities of members of northern Sri Lankan Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims, two important minority groups that were internally displaced during the Sri Lankan civil war.
Diotima Chattoraj (2015): Book Review: Sharika Thiranagama, In My Mother's House: Civil War in Sri Lanka. In: South Asia Research, 35 (1), February 2015 Issue, 136-138.