PurposeThe purposes of this paper are twofold. First, it analyses the income structure in cooperative financial institutions and examines how traditional and non-traditional incomes are related. Second, it evaluates whether increasing diversification towards non-traditional incomes facilitates or hampers the benefits of financial cooperative owners.Design/methodology/approachData are collected from over 3,100 US credit unions over the period of 1994–2016. A number of modern econometric techniques are employed throughout the analysis, including the use of panel fixed effect, generalised method of moments (GMM) and two-stage least square (2SLS) methodologies.FindingsUsing US credit unions as the empirical setting, the empirical results reveal that the expansion of traditional income leads to a corresponding increase in income from non-traditional activities. However, an increasing reliance on non-traditional income causes a significant drop in interest margins. The authors also find that the extent to which income diversification affects owner benefit varies across credit union types and period of time. While income diversification negatively affects owners' benefits in single common bond credit unions, it has no significant influence on multiple common bond and community credit union owners' benefits. Third, diversification can be beneficial during crisis time, but can be detrimental to owner benefit during normal time.Originality/valueThis paper provides some of the first empirical investigations on the diversification strategy of cooperative financial institutions. Therefore, the results offer significant policy implications for policymakers and market participants on whether financial cooperatives should diversify or specialise.

No abstract

The ride-hailing service (RHS) has emerged as a major form of daily travel in many Southeast Asian cities where motorcycles are extensively used. This study aims to analyze the local context in motorcycle-based societies, which may affect the establishment of travelers’ choice set after the appearance of RHSs. In particular, it empirically compares three types of choice-set structures in the context of urban travel mode choice by estimating standard logit and nested logit models to test six hypotheses on the associations of RHS adoption with its determinants. Revealed preference data of 449 trips from both RHS users and non-RHS users were collected through a face-to-face interview-based questionnaire survey in Hanoi, Vietnam, in December 2020. The results of model estimations revealed: (1) a substitutional effect for two-wheelers but not for four-wheelers, (2) a significant positive influence of car ownership on car RHS adoption but not on motorcycle RHS adoption, (3) significantly high sensitivity to travel time of motorcycle RHS but not of car RHS, (4) a significant negative effect of traffic congestion on car RHS adoption but an insignificant one on motorcycle RHS adoption, and (5) a significant positive association of an individual’s experience in using a smartphone with car RHSs but insignificant association with motorcycle RHSs. Our findings suggest that transportation policies of RHS motorcycles should be different from those of RHS cars because of the heterogeneity in travel behaviors of RHS users between them. They also indicate that the transition from motorcycles to cars as well as the difference in service availability among different types of RHSs should be incorporated into the development of transportation policies in Southeast Asian cities.

Cây Giảo cổ lam (Gynostemma pubescens) phân bố chủ yếu tại các tỉnh phía Bắc, là một trong những loại thảo dược quí và tốt cho sức khỏe của con người. Trong nghiên cứu này, chúng tôi nghiên cứu nhân giống in vitro và nuôi trồng đánh giá sự sinh trưởng phát triển cây Giảo cổ lam cấy mô trong nhà kính tại Đà Lạt, Lâm Đồng. Kết quả cho thấy, môi trường MS (Murashige Skoog) bổ sung 1mg/l BA, 30g/l sucrose, 8g/l agar, pH 5.8 là tốt nhất đến sự tái sinh chồi in vitro, với chiều cao chồi 1.84 cm, số chồi 10.50 chồi/mẫu. Môi trường MS bổ sung 0.5 mg/l TDZ, 30g/l sucrose, 8 g/l agar, pH 5.8 là tốt nhất đến sự tái sinh chồi in vitro, với chiều cao chồi 1.99cm, số chồi 13.80 chồi/mẫu. Nồng độ IBA từ 0 - 1 mg/l đều thích hợp đến sự tái sinh rễ in vitro của cây Giảo cổ lam, với tỉ lệ tái sinh rễ đạt 100%. Vụn xơ dừa là giá thể thích hợp nhất để chuyển cây Giảo cổ lam cấy mô ra ngoài vườn ươm, với tỷ lệ sống đạt 100%, chiều cao cây 9.73cm, chiều dài rễ 6.45cm. Đất mùn là giá thể tốt nhất đến sự sinh trưởng phát triển của cây, với tỷ lệ sống đạt 100%, chiều cao cây 82.08cm, chiều dài rễ 36.57cm, khối lượng tươi 57.32g/cây. Tưới 100 ml phân Nitrophoska (2 g/l) theo định kỳ mỗi tuần một lần là tốt nhất đến sự sinh trưởng phát triển của cây, với tỷ lệ sống đạt 100%, chiều cao cây 94.22cm, chiều dài rễ 37.71cm, khối lượng tươi 59.38g/cây.

The Vietnamese fisheries sector, including both marine fisheries and aquaculture, has made spectacular progress in recent years, becoming one of the top seafood producing and exporting countries in the world. Looking forward, development goals of this sector must address challenges associated with climate change, including changing distribution of commercially important marine species such as tuna and disruptions to land-based aquaculture production systems. This study investigates the likely impacts of climate change on Vietnam’s fisheries sector by exploring plausible future scenarios for four key commodities representing capture fisheries (tuna), freshwater aquaculture (pangasius catfish and tilapia), and brackish water aquaculture (shrimp). The extent of impact varies, but climate change represents a potentially significant threat to sustainable production in each production system. Producers, policy makers, and other stakeholders need to plan for and adapt to climate change to ensure the sustainable development of Vietnam’s fisheries sector. This study uses a foresight scenario analysis using a qualitative scenario approach as the starting point for additional modeling of climate change impacts.