Working Paper
India’s political economy responses to the global food price shock of 2007–08
India’s policy responses to the food price crisis were strong. Exports of basic staples were banned. Domestic support prices of wheat and rice were raised substantially. The urea price increases in global markets were absorbed through enhanced...
Working Paper
The Happy Farmer
Using survey data from rural Vietnam, this paper documents a statistically significant, positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. Wage workers are less happy than farmers across a range of different types of wage jobs...
Journal Article
Property Rights and Productivity
This paper explores the effect of land titling on agricultural productivity in Vietnam and the productivity effects of single versus joint titling for husband and wife. Using a plot-fixed-effects approach our results show that obtaining a land title...
Journal Article
Weather Shocks and Cropland Decisions in Rural Mozambique
Economic development in low income settings is often associated with an expansion of higher-value agricultural activities. Since these activities often bring new risks, an understanding of cropland decisions and how these interact with shocks is...
Research Brief
Policy processes and the global food price crisis 2007-08
The recent food price crisis and the responses of the policy makers in developing countries provide an unprecedented opportunity to analyse the policy processes in these countries. Policy responses differed depending on the nature and magnitude of...
Journal Article
Institutions and African Economies
This article presents an overview of the current special issue ‘Institutions and African Economies’. The findings include: (1) greater prevalence of democratic regimes improved both agricultural productivity and the overall growth of African...
Journal Article
Biofuels and Economic Development
Biofuels could offer new economic opportunities for low-income countries. We use a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of Tanzania to evaluate different biofuels production options and estimate their impacts on growth and poverty...
Working Paper
An Integrated Analysis of Economywide Effects of Climate Change
The effects of climate change in Turkey are expected to be significant. The aim of this paper is to quantify the effects of climate change on the overall economy by using an integrated framework incorporating a computable general equilibrium model...
Research Brief
Burkina Faso – growth without poverty reduction
Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, poor in natural resources, and with low levels of human development. Its economy remains agricultural and focused on food crops and cotton production. Over the last twenty years it has experienced...
Research Brief
Children’s nutrition status in Mozambique
Evidence obtained from detailed household surveys in Mozambique during the 2008-09 food price shock reveals just how pronounced the impact of food price inflation can be on children’s overall nutrition status. Moderate and severe underweight...
Research Brief
The political economy of food price policy in Egypt
The Egyptian food system has been affected by both global food markets and domestic factors. During the recent global food price crisis, an estimated 30–40 percent of the price fluctuations in the global food market were transmitted to Egypt’s food...
Research Brief
The impact of the 2007-08 food price crisis in Brazil
The impact of the 2007–08 food price crisis in Brazil was relatively subdued compared with what took place in many other developing countries. Because the crisis potentially undermined both social inclusion and price stability, both important...
Research Brief
The political economy of food price policy in China
The global food crisis in 2007–08 raised concerns everywhere, including in China. However, despite China’s highly-integrated domestic and international markets for many agricultural commodities, the effect of the crisis in China was only moderate...
Research Brief
Food security in Bangladesh
Global food price hikes during 2007-08 resulted in a sharp rise in staple food prices in Bangladesh, which in turn led to a significant rise in the number of households falling below the poverty line. On the political front, Bangladesh was run by an...
Book Chapter
Assessing efficiency of input utilization in wheat production in Uzbekistan
Increased technical and scale efficiency in the production of wheat has been of major interest for farmers and administrators alike in Uzbekistan particularly since wheat became a strategic crop to achieve the goal of food self-sufficiency soon after...
Journal Article
Agriculture and Small Towns in Africa
Africa is urbanizing rapidly. Yet most dual economy models focus on the sectoral rather than spatial dimensions of development. This article adopts a “dual–dual” approach to measuring rural/urban and farm/nonfarm linkages. We develop an economy-wide...
Journal Article
Producing Biofuels in Low-Income Countries
This paper jointly evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and...
Working Paper
Behavioral Design
Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to...
Working Paper
Young People, Agriculture, and Employment in Rural Africa
This paper examines the current interest in addressing the problem of young people’s unemployment in Africa through agriculture. Using notions of transitions and mobilities we set out a transformative work and opportunity space framework that...
Working Paper
The Economywide Impacts and Risks of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme
We estimate the impact of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme using an economywide approach. We find potentially substantial net benefits with indirect benefits accounting for about two-fifths of total benefits. Due to these indirect benefits, the...
Working Paper
The effects of land titling in Tanzania
We use household survey data to investigate the effects of formal, private property rights to agricultural land on agricultural investment, land valuation and access to credit in Tanzania. Results show that while there are no detectable effects of...
Working Paper
Producing Biofuels in Low-Income Countries
This paper evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and household...
Working Paper
Employment, Unemployment, and Underemployment in Africa
This paper documents and analyses the predominance of informal employment in Africa and shows that lack of demand for labour rather than worker characteristics is the main reason for pervasive underemployment. Integration into the global economy and...
Journal Article
Technology Adoption and Food Security in Subsistence Agriculture
This paper evaluates the impact of an intervention to improve farming techniques and food security in the Gaza area of rural Mozambique. We examine the impact of a group-based approach to technology adoption in subsistence agriculture, using panel...
Working Paper
Changes in Land Tenure and Agricultural Intensification in Sub-Saharan Africa
Due to increasing population pressure on limited cultivable land in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), farm size has been shrinking, fallow periods have been shortened, and soil fertility has been declining. In accordance with the Boserupian...
Working Paper
Modeling Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources and Agriculture Demand in the Volta Basin and Other Basin Systems in Ghana
An assessment of the impacts of projected climate change on water availability and crop production in the Volta Basin and the southwestern and coastal basin systems of Ghana has been undertaken as a component of the impacts and adaptation study for...
Working Paper
The Impact of Climate Change on Pastoral Production Systems
This paper examines the determinants and implied economic impacts of climate change adaptation strategies in the context of traditional pastoralism. It is based on a household level survey in southern Ethiopian rangelands. Pastoralists’ perception of...
Report
Characteristics of the Vietnamese rural economy :
Research report prepared under Component 5 of the Business Sector Development Programme (BSPS), Hanoi, Vietnam and the Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS), 2013. With DERG, CIEM and IPSARD research teams.The origin of this report dates back...
Report
Characteristics of the Vietnamese rural economy (In Vietnamese) :
Research report prepared under Component 5 of the Business Sector Development Programme (BSPS), Hanoi, Vietnam and the Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS), 2013. With DERG, CIEM and IPSARD research teams.The origin of this report dates back...
Working Paper
A Natural Experiment of Industrial Policy
Ethiopia represents an excellent case study of recent industrial policy experimentation in Africa. The country is well known for its successful promotion of the cut-flower industry through business-government co-ordination. What is less known is that...
Working Paper
Tenure Insecurity, Climate Variability, and Renting-Out Decisions Among Female Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia
Land tenure arrangements in Africa are generally skewed in favour of males. Compared to males, female plot owners face complex sets of constraints and systemic high tenure insecurity which culminate in low yields. In order to obtain better returns...
Working Paper
Impact of Income and Non-Income Shocks on Child Labour
This paper investigates the impact of income and non-income shocks on child labour using a model in which the household maximizes utility from consumption as well as human capital development of the child. Two types of shocks are considered...
Working Paper
The Rise of a Middle Class in East and Southern Africa
We examine the implications of the rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa for food consumption patterns and the food system. A unique classification of food items shows that highly processed food has one-third of the purchased food market...
Working Paper
Morocco’s Unique Situation in the Climate Change Arena
Alterations in rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures due to climate change will most likely translate into yield reductions in desirable crops. In this particular context, the object of this paper is to lay down findings and results for...
Working Paper
The Theory and Practice of Agriculture, Growth, and Development in Africa
Africa’s improved growth performance over the last 15 years provides an opportunity for the continent to transit from recovery to structural transformation. This paper reviews the evolution of development theory and practice, the role of agriculture...
Working Paper
Climate Variability and Household Welfare in Northern Ghana
Climate variability poses a major risk to agricultural incomes in Africa. In Ghana, most of the country’s poor people live in the north and households find it difficult to hold back their productive assets during the lean season. This study...
Working Paper
Structural Adjustment in Africa
The main purpose of this paper is to argue that Ghana's economic recovery under SAP would have been much brighter if policy makers had not made some obvious errors in the application of the theory of 'comparative advantage' and in the selection...
Journal Article
Climate Change and Economic Development in Africa
Recent studies indicate that climate change will negatively impact Africa's growth and development prospects, particularly in the absence of adaptation and mitigation. Losses of up to 4% of Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) are projected, and...
Book Chapter
Implications of Accelerated Agricultural Growth on Household Incomes and Poverty in Ethiopia :
Book chapter in: P. Dorosh and S. Rashid (eds) Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia: Progress and Policy Challenges.Ethiopia’s economy has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Although growth in agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) from 1998 to...
Book Chapter
The Role of Agricultural Growth in Reducing Poverty and Hunger :
Book chapter in: Fan, S., and R. Pandya-Lorch (eds.), Reshaping Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.In recent times, many countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, have been left puzzled by their failure to improve...
Report
Characteristics of the Vietnamese rural economy
Following the successful implementation of the Doi Moi reform programme, Viet Nam has experienced outstanding economic progress, for example in aggregate output and poverty reduction. For many years, Viet Nam developed much faster than the typical...
Report
Characteristics of the Vietnamese rural economy (in Vietnamese)
Tiếp nối sự thành công của chương trình cải cách Đổi mới, Việt Nam đã gặt hái được rất nhiều thành tựu kinh tế về tăng trưởng và giảm nghèo, Việt nam đã phát triển nhanh hơn các nước đang phát triển khác; và từ năm 2014, sự khác biệt về tăng trưởng...
Working Paper
Food Deprivation and Undernutrition in Rural Bangladesh
After the devastating famine of 1974, Bangladesh has successfully avoided any further disaster of its kind, surviving two close calls in 1979 and 1984 and a succession of floods in the recent years. Welcome as it, this success raises for the analyst...
Journal Article
The Happy Farmer
Using a unique survey data set this paper documents a positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. This direct effect is only partly offset by negative, indirect effects working through income and other variables. These...