|
on Development |
| By: | Tadesse Kuma Worako (Ethiopian Development Research Institute); Mekdim Dereje (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)/Ethiopia Strategy Support Program (ESSP)); Bart Minten (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)/Ethiopia Strategy Support Program (ESSP)) |
| Abstract: | A large primary survey was conducted to understand the status of food security and diet diversity of smallholder coffee farmers from within major commercial coffee producing zones in the country. We relied on data from almost 1,600 households that were randomly selected and then interviewed using a multi-stage sampling technique. The study applied both descriptive and econometric methods to analyse data from the household survey. As core findings indicate, income from coffee sales was found to be positively and significantly related to food security while better diet diversity is found to be associated with total household wealth. However, diet diversity has no positive or negative association with the share of coffee in total household income. In both cases of food security and diet diversity, land size, the total value of household assets and the value of livestock are found to have a positive contribution as predicted. This implies that cash crop production of coffee can help to assure improved food security in the country, although other additional measures are needed to obtain improved diet diversity of smallholder coffee growers. |
| Date: | 2016–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:etd:wpaper:015&r=dev |
| By: | Osmar Jasan Bolívar Rosales (Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas Públicas); Darwin Ugarte Ontiveros (Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas Públicas) |
| Abstract: | This document evaluates the impact of the conditional cash transfer programs (CCT), Juancito Pinto, Juana Azurduy and the Dignity Rent, on poverty reduction in Bolivia. The study is based on information from the 2013 Household Survey and the application of impact evaluation techniques. Results suggest that the implementation of these programs reduced the incidence of moderate poverty in Bolivia in 8.2pp and extreme poverty in 9.6pp, for the group which received these transfers. |
| Keywords: | Social Conditional Cash Transfer Program, Impact Evaluation, Poverty |
| JEL: | I38 D04 C21 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:efp:wpaper:2015-2&r=dev |
| By: | Haughton, Jonathon; Khandker, Shahidur R. |
| Abstract: | With 7 million borrowers and US$5.4 billion in outstanding loans in 2012, the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) is the largest single microcredit lender in the world. We measure the impact of VBSP lending and seek to answer the question of whether continued subsidies to the bank, which amount to about 2 percent of the value of its loans, are justified. VBSP grew particularly rapidly between 2004 and 2008, when its share of total loans in Viet Nam rose from 10 to 27 percent, and by 2008 an estimated two-fifths of its loans were ostensibly used for directly productive purposes. Using data from a panel of 1,846 rural households interviewed in 2004, 2006, and 2008 as part of the Viet Nam Household Living Standards Survey, we estimated the impact of VBSP lending on consumption and income per capita, as well as self-employment earnings. Both an intention-to-treat model with fixed effects, and a quantity-of-credit model with fixed effects and using instrumental variables, show significant or close to significant impacts of VBSP microloans on consumption and income, but our data do not have enough power to determine whether this mainly works via agricultural or nonagricultural self-employment income. Without VBSP, the rural poverty rate would have been 0.7 percentage points higher in 2008 than it actually was. The subsidy is likely justified, given the evidence and scale of the positive impact of VBSP loans on consumption spending and the concentration of benefits among poorer households in Viet Nam. |
| Keywords: | finance, credit, rural areas, poverty, microcredit, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1569&r=dev |
| By: | Karen Macours; Renos Vakis |
| Abstract: | Numerous evaluations show that conditional cash transfer programs change households’ investments in their young children, but there are many open questions about how such changes can be sustained after transfers end. This paper analyzes the role of social interactions with local female leaders for sustaining program impacts. The social interactions are identified through the randomized assignment of leaders and other beneficiaries to different cash transfer packages. Random exposure to leaders that received the largest package was found to augment short-term program impacts on households’ investments in education and nutrition, and to affect households’ attitudes towards the future during the intervention. This paper shows that the strong social multiplier effects from leaders’ treatment persisted two years after the end of the program. Households randomly exposed to female leaders with the largest package sustained higher investments in their children and reported higher expectations and aspirations for the future of their children. These results suggest that program design features that enhance ownership of a program’s objectives by local leaders may shift other beneficiaries’ norms and sustain higher levels of human capital investments. |
| JEL: | I15 I25 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22871&r=dev |
| By: | Benin, Samuel |
| Abstract: | This paper uses panel data on 46 African countries from 2001 to 2014 to estimate the impacts of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), an agriculture-led integrated framework of development priorities in Africa, on agricultural expenditure and productivity, income, and nutrition. A difference-in-difference treatment-effects model (based on when a CAADP compact is signed and the level of CAADP implementation reached) and different estimation methods and model specifications are used. The results show that CAADP has had a positive impact on agricultural value-added and land and labor productivity. The impact on agriculture expenditure is generally negative, suggesting that there is a substitution effect between the government’s own funding and external sources of funding for the sector. The estimated impact on income and nutrition is generally insignificant. There are some puzzling results from the interaction between specific period of compact signing and level of implementation reached. Implications for maintaining the positive impacts, as well as for further research to understand the puzzling results, are discussed. |
| Keywords: | agricultural development, agricultural growth, agricultural research, public expenditure, productivity, income, nutrition, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1553&r=dev |
| By: | Kailash Chandra Pradhan (Joint Director, National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (NILERD), NITI Aayog, Govt. of India.); Shrabani Mukherjee (Madras School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | A probit analysis estimates the relationship between different shocks and their corresponding choices of coping actions for poor and non-poor rural households using data set from Additional Rural Incomes Survey/Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (ARIS/REDS) surveys of National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) from rural India across 17 states. Both poor and non-poor households experience the covariate and idiosyncratic shocks and take the coping strategies differently. Regarding types of coping measure, asking for remittances from relatives, taking on public support programs, reallocating household resources, borrowing from formal and informal sources, using savings and selling assets are dominant. Extremely poor starve to mange distress of sudden shocks. Local governance and welfare programs provided by Rural Local Bodies fail to control the starving for poor households during the idiosyncratic shocks. Households’ education plays significant role in adopting appropriate coping strategies depending on nature of shocks. Repeated sequence of same kind of shocks brings out the scope of chronic poverty and vulnerability. |
| Keywords: | Rural Households, Shocks, Coping Strategies, Poverty, Probit ModelClassification-JEL: D10, D81, I30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2016-139&r=dev |
| By: | Kumar, Anjani; Thapa, Ganesh; Joshi, Pramod Kumar; Roy, Devesh |
| Abstract: | Food safety is the most vital component of food security. One option to ensure food safety is through enhancing compliance at the farm level. This study investigates the status, estimates the cost, identifies the determinants, and assesses the impact of compliance with food safety measures in milk production in Nepal. The study is based on cross-section primary data collected at the farm level from six districts of Nepal. These districts are known for milk production and capture the geographical and institutional diversity of milk production in the country. The study shows that the status of compliance with food safety measures at the dairy farm level is not very encouraging. The intensity with which food safety practices are adopted shows wide inter- and intra-district variations. This intensity depicts a positive relationship to herd size. The additional cost of compliance with food milk safety measures reveals an inverse relationship with herd size. The factors associated with the adoption of food safety measures are caste, number of children and elderly people in a family, household labor size, herd size, access to information, inspection for conformity with the safety and quality standards in dairy farming, perception of households about food safety assistance provided by milk buyers, and market outlet types. We also provide evidence of the impact of food safety measures on farm-gate prices and farmers’ profitability. |
| Keywords: | food safety, dairy, livestock, milk production, smallholders, agricultural policies, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1556&r=dev |
| By: | Noemi Pace (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Economics; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations); Silvio Daidone (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations); Benjamin Davis (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations); Luca Pellerano (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) |
| Abstract: | Cash transfers programs have been shown to have positive effects on a variety of outcomes. While much of the literature focuses on the role of conditionality in achieving desired impact, this paper focuses on the role of ‘soft conditionality’ implemented through both ‘labeling’ and ‘messaging’ in evaluating the impact of the Child Grants Program in Lesotho, an unconditional cash transfer targeting poor households with orphans and vulnerable children. Beneficiary households received a clear message that the transfer should be spent on the interest and needs of children. Our findings are based on a randomized experiment and suggest that ‘soft conditionality’ does play a strong role in increasing expenditure for children, especially on education, clothing and footwear. Results indicate in fact that transfer income is spent differently from general income as it exerts both an income and a substitution effect. This behavioral change is confirmed by comparing the ex-ante expected behaviors with the ex-post actual response to the program. We find that for expenditure categories linked to the wellbeing of children the ex-post response was much higher than the ex-ante expected behavior. |
| Keywords: | cash transfers, consumption, food security, impact evaluation, randomized experiment, soft conditionality |
| JEL: | C93 D12 I38 O18 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2016:33&r=dev |
| By: | Santosh K. Sahu (Assistant Professor, Madras School of Economics); Sukanya Das (Madras School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper applies a program evaluation technique to assess the causal effect of adoption of agricultural related technologies on consumption expenditure and poverty measured by different indices. The paper is based on a cross-sectional household level data collected during 2014 from a sample of 270 households in rural India. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to test the robustness of the propensity score based results using the “rbounds test” and the mean absolute standardized bias between adopters and non-adopters. The analysis reveals robust, positive and significant impacts of agricultural related technologies adoption on per capita consumption expenditure and on poverty reduction for the sample households in rural India. |
| Keywords: | Agriculture related technology adoption, propensity score matching, poverty, Odisha, IndiaClassification-JEL: C13, C15, O32, O38 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2015-131&r=dev |
| By: | Ashour, Maha; Billings, Lucy; Gilligan, Daniel; Hoel, Jessica B.; Karachiwalla, Naureen |
| Abstract: | Adoption of productivity- and income-enhancing agricultural technologies is conspicuously low in Africa south of the Sahara. Farmers’ beliefs regarding the authenticity of agricultural inputs are important for explaining technology adoption: if farmers do not believe that inputs are genuine, they are unlikely to invest in them. The degree of alignment between beliefs about and actual counterfeiting can help explain both the social costs of the “lemons” problem, and low rates of adoption. This is the first paper to explore whether farmer beliefs regarding counterfeiting align with actual rates of counterfeiting, and we do so across a very large geographic area serving tens of thousands of farmers in Uganda using a more precise measure of counterfeiting than many previous studies. We examine the relationship between beliefs and counterfeiting using quantitative measures of farmer beliefs regarding the authenticity of herbicide in their local market as well as a large random sample of laboratory-tested herbicide samples to measure counterfeiting rates in local markets. We report evidence of considerable counterfeiting of herbicides in local markets, with nearly one in three bottles containing less than 75 percent of the labeled concentration of active ingredient. We find evidence that farmers’ beliefs regarding the extent of counterfeiting of herbicide are significantly associated with measures of the actual prevalence of counterfeiting in local markets. These results indicate that farmers are at least partly informed about the “market for lemons” problem in local input markets. However, the results also suggest that although better informed farmers imply a lower social cost of counterfeiting, the high rate of counterfeiting and the relative accuracy of farmer information contributes to low adoption of agricultural inputs in Africa. |
| Keywords: | social costs, maize, markets, seeds, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1552&r=dev |
| By: | Bonan, Jacopo; LeMay-Boucher, Philippe; Tenikue, Michel |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effects of different marketing and distribution techniques on the purchase of Long-Lasting Insecticide-Treated Nets (LL-ITN). Using a randomized controlled trial in urban Senegal, we look at the impacts of receiving information on malaria-related issues and of different sale treatments. We find that overall information has no significant effect on the demand for LL-ITNs, but has a significant effect on individuals who have never attended school and have poor knowledge of malaria. Receiving an offer to purchase an LL-ITN with a voucher valid for 7 days increases purchases by 23 percentage points, compared to an on-the-spot sale offer. |
| Keywords: | Malaria, Senegal, Randomized Experiment, Bednets, Distribution Campaign, Health Economics and Policy, C93, I12, I15, |
| Date: | 2016–11–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemmi:249787&r=dev |
| By: | Sowmya Dhanaraj (Madras School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Infant and child mortality rates in India have fallen by almost half from the time of adoption of millennium development goals to 2012 but there has not been a concurrent decrease in morbidity and under-nutrition rates. This may be due to a greater focus on treatment interventions vis-à-vis preventive interventions that reduce child deaths; the latter helps in overall child wellbeing by reducing under-nourishment and number of days lost due to illness. This study seeks to identify the mechanisms through which household and community-level socioeconomic factors affect child health and thereby identify preventive interventions that are of greatest consequence. We use the longitudinal data of Young Lives project that tracks the lives of two birth cohorts: 2000 children born in 2001-02 and 1000 children in 1994-95 and has information on multiple indicators of child health: morbidity episodes, health status as perceived by the caregiver, and nutritional status. Using multi-level analysis and structural equation modeling, we simultaneously analyse the effect of socioeconomic factors on multiple proximate factors like drinking water, sanitation and breastfeeding and, the effect of these factors on child health and nutrition. We find that household wealth, mother’s education and community level factors determine the socioeconomic status (SES) of the household. Low SES is in turn associated with high exposure (through crowding, open defecation, mud flooring), and low resistance (through inappropriate complementary feeding practices and partial immunization care) to diseases. However, we find that children belonging to households of low SES are more likely to be breastfed for longer duration. Among the proximate factors, open defecation, and inappropriate feeding practices and birth characteristics like low gestational age and birth weight significantly increase infant morbidity rates. These factors combined with drinking unsafe water, receiving partial or no immunization care and poor living conditions lead to high under-nutrition rates in infants. |
| Keywords: | child health, nutrition, SEM, multilevel analysis, determinants Classification-JEL: I10, I14, I18 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2015-136&r=dev |
| By: | Khan, Md. Tajuddin; Kishore, Avinash; Pandey, Divya; Joshi, Pramod Kumar |
| Abstract: | Zero tillage (ZT) for wheat is one of the most widely adopted resource-conserving technologies in the rice-wheat systems in northern India. In areas of Haryana with rice-wheat systems, 36.5 percent of all farmers practice ZT on 35 percent of their wheat area. Yet the literature measuring the impact of ZT on farmers’ fields is scarce. This study fills this gap by using the data collected from a random sample of 717 farmers from 50 villages in 10 districts of Haryana. It applies the difference-in-differences method to five-year recall data on wheat yields in ZT and conventionally tilled plots of land to quantify the crop loss due to unseasonal rains right before wheat harvests in March 2015. The results reveal significantly lower wheat yield losses in the ZT plots than in the conventionally tilled plots. On average, farmers suffered yield losses ranging between 3.73 and 4.53 quintals per hectare in 2015 due to unseasonal rains. The loss was lower by 1.05–1.10 quintals per hectare in ZT plots. The analysis clearly shows that adoption of ZT helped in reducing crop loss in wheat by 24–28 percent, valued at 1,523–1,595 Indian rupees (Rs.) per hectare (approximately US$22.50 per hectare). The loss avoided due to ZT is nearly equal to the prevailing rental rate of the ZT machine (Rs. 1,500 per hectare) in Haryana. Climate models suggest that the incidence of short-duration acute hydro meteorological events is likely to increase in years to come. Such events are hard to predict and prepare for, and dealing with them hinges mainly on disaster relief. However, our results show that adoption of ZT is one possible way to reduce potential loss from some of these weather events and that ZT is therefore well characterized as a climate-smart technology. |
| Keywords: | zero tillage, conservation tillage, wheats, rain, rainfall patterns, crop losses, Haryana, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1562&r=dev |
| By: | G. Naline (Madras School of Economics); Brinda Viswanathan (Madras School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study uses the NFHS-3 data to estimate SUR model for HAZ, WAZ and WHZ to understand how the determinants of intergenerational transmission, feeding and care practices and ICDS vary in their impact when these commonly used measures of child nutritional status are considered together in a systems framework. Asexpected mother’s height, BMI and anemia levels are all highly important in explaining the variations with large impact of height on HAZ, of BMI on WAZ and more widespread impact of anemia on WHZ. Initiation of breastfeeding within an hour of child’s birth, exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months, and inclusion of protein rich diets for the older children has a large impact on HAZ and so does access of daily food supplements from ICDS by rural children. Other predictors such as wealth status, safe water access, sanitation and use of clean cooking fuel by the households, are found to be strongly associated with all the indicators. The results from this study strengthen the evidence that though multiple determinants play a role in child’s growth the key factors are in the mother to child transmission and in quality of early child care of feeding habits and preventive and curative health care practices. |
| Keywords: | Child under-nutrition, stunting, underweight, wasting, Seemingly Unrelated Regression, India Classification-JEL: C51, I12, I13, I14, J13, O15. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2016-143&r=dev |