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on Development |
| By: | Ayalew, Hailemariam; Berhane, Guush; Wondale, Meseret; Breisinger, Clemens |
| Abstract: | The recent surge in violent conflicts, intertwined with climate-induced drought risks, is jeopardizing decades of development progress in many low- and middle-income countries. This study investigates the compounded effects of armed conflicts and climate-induced disruptions on agricultural input use in Ethiopia, a country experiencing significant fragility due to both factors. Using a unique household- and plot-level panel dataset collected before (2019) and after (2023) the onset of a widespread conflict, we examine how these disruptions affect the use of key agricultural inputs, such as inorganic fertilizers, improved seeds, agrochemicals, compost, and manure. The analysis reveals that exposure to conflict significantly reduces the likelihood of using both inorganic and organic inputs. Conflict-affected households are 9 percentage points less likely to use both inorganic fertilizers and improved seeds, and 14 percentage points less likely to use organic fertilizers, such as compost and manure. Exposure to recurrent rainfall variability by inducing uncertainty of use of inputs further exacerbates these negative impacts, reducing fertilizer use by an additional 3 percent among drought-exposed households. These findings highlight the multifaceted challenges faced by smallholder farmers in fragile settings, where both conflict and environmental stressors undermine agricultural productivity and threaten food security. The study underscores the need for targeted anticipatory (pre-conflict) and resilience building (post-conflict) interventions to support resilience in agricultural practices within conflict-affected regions, particularly those facing climate-induced weather risks. |
| Keywords: | agriculture; armed conflicts; climate change; weather hazards; inputs; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2307 |
| By: | Balana, Bedru; Mekonnen, Dawit Kelemework; Arega, Tiruwork; Ringler, Claudia; Bryan, Elizabeth; Yami, Mastewal; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum; Wondwosen, Abenezer |
| Abstract: | Between 2017 and 2021, the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) of the United States Agency for International Development supported public works in the areas of watershed rehabilitation and small-scale irrigation under Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP). The investments aimed to improve food security and nutrition and to increase the resilience capacities of households through improved natural resource systems and asset development. However, there is little evidence about how these water-related investments supported household food security, nutritional outcomes, and resilience. This study used a mixed-methods approach to fill some of these knowledge gaps. Econometric results show that households in BHA intervention areas had smaller food gaps, and this association is statistically significant. Similarly, households that adopted small-scale irrigation and water harvesting techniques on their own plots show significantly better nutritional outcomes than those that did not. The results further suggest that in general the households in BHA areas are more resilient than those in non-BHA woredas. However, higher resilience capacities are associated with agricultural water management on own plots rather than with public works in communal lands. Thus, if household security, nutrition and resilience are key goals of program interventions, then programs need to grow intentionality in developing assets, and particularly irrigation. |
| Keywords: | public works; public investment; watershed management; small-scale irrigation; nutrition; resilience; social safety nets; food security; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2308 |
| By: | Leight, Jessica; Bahiru, Kibret Mamo; Buehren, Niklas; Getahun, Tigabu; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Mulford, Michael; Tambet, Heleene |
| Abstract: | Sustainable land management (SLM) technologies including composting and agro-forestry are widely promoted as strategies to counter land degradation and enhance resilience against adverse weather shocks. Given that women are disproportionately vulnerable to such shocks, promoting their uptake of these technologies may be particularly important. We conducted a randomized trial in rural Ethiopia analyzing a bundled intervention providing training and inputs designed to encourage uptake of three interrelated SLM technologies: fruit tree planting, composting, and home gardening. The trial included 1900 extremely poor households in 95 subdistricts, randomly assigned to treatment arms in which women only or couples were included in the intervention. The findings one year post-baseline suggest a positive and large effect on take-up of all three technologies: the probability of reporting any trees increased by eight percentage points, and the probability of reporting a garden and/or composting increased by 20 to 30 percentage points, symmetrically across treatment arms. There are also significant reported increases in household vegetable production and consumption as well as in women’s dietary diversity. There is, however, some evidence that tree survival rates and tree health are weakly lower in intervention households compared to control households who spontaneously planted trees. Some positive effects on equitable intrahousehold decision-making and task-sharing are observed, especially in the couples’ training arm, but in general there is no robust evidence that either intervention significantly shifted intrahousehold gender dynamics. |
| Keywords: | climate change; land management; gender; social protection; sustainable land management; Africa; Eastern Africa; Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2309 |
| By: | Siewers, Samuel |
| Abstract: | Building upon the argument that factor endowments influence distributional outcomes, this paper examines the consequences of the China shock to global food markets for economic inequality in Brazilian municipalities from 1985 to 2020. I propose a new identification strategy that exploits plausibly exogenous variation in demand for soybeans based on fluctuations in the size of the pig stock in China and show that the proceeds of this China-driven agricultural bonanza have been rather unequally distributed. The soy boom has fueled land consolidation and economic inequality, especially in places dominated by large-scale mechanized agriculture. Income gains have been mostly limited to the top deciles of the distribution, while the poorest segments of the population have become worse off. Additionally, there is evidence that the more unequal a municipality, the more deforestation and rural conflict increase as soy expands. |
| Keywords: | inequality, soybeans, Brazil, China shock, deforestation, conflict, sustainability, supply chains |
| JEL: | D63 F63 O13 Q17 Q56 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:310313 |
| By: | Ayalew, Hailemariam; Breisinger, Clemens; Karugia, Joseph T.; Kimaiyo, Faith Chepkemoi; Kimathi, Sally; Olwande, John |
| Abstract: | Amid global supply chain disruptions and an escalating fertilizer crisis, Kenya’s National Fertilizer Subsidy Program (NFSP) emerges as a critical intervention to enhance agricultural resilience. This paper investigates the NFSP's impacts on fertilizer adoption, maize productivity, and market dynamics, employing a quasi-experimental design with two-way fixed effects and two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation. We leverage random variation in government-issued SMS notifications to identify causal effects. Results show that the NFSP increased fertilizer adoption by 7%, leading to maize yield gains of 26–37% (164–233.5 kg/acre), with greater benefits for younger and more educated farmers. However, the program caused a substantial crowding-out effect, reducing private-sector fertilizer use by 49–57%. Barriers such as financial constraints, delayed notifications, and logistical inefficiencies limited equitable access, undermining the program's potential. Despite these challenges, the NFSP was cost-effective, offering favorable value-cost ratios for farmers and the government. To enhance impact and sustainability, we recommend addressing participation barriers and integrating private-sector agro-dealers into the distribution framework. This study provides crucial insights for policymakers on designing subsidy programs that balance immediate productivity gains with market sustainability, especially during periods of global agricultural uncertainty. |
| Keywords: | subsidies; fertilizers; resilience; supply chain disruptions; supply chains; global value chains; maize; smallholders; Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Kenya |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2306 |
| By: | Nigus, Halefom; Nillesen, Eleonora (RS: GSBE UM-BIC, Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, RS: GSBE MGSoG); Mohnen, Pierre (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, QE Econometrics) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effect of exposure to markets on farm households' agricultural investment decisions. We assess whether and how market experience affects farmers' adoption of risky but profitable technologies and explore the role of plausible demand-side barriers therein. Specifically, we hypothesize that risk preferences and locus of control change with market experience and as such may explain the relationship between market experience and investment decisions. We use surveys and incentivized experimental data, collected from the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia and use an Endogenous Switching Probit and IV-Probit models to attenuate endogeneity issues. Our findings suggest, first, that market exposure induces farmers to adopt agricultural technologies, such as chemical fertilizer, improved seeds, manure, and row planting and second, that market experience attenuates risk aversion and, although less robustly so, leads to a more internal locus of control. Policies to in crease farmers' investments may thus not be confined to providing access to technologies and information but should perhaps be complemented with interventions that attend to lowering psychological barriers. |
| JEL: | C93 G22 H41 O17 |
| Date: | 2023–08–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2023028 |
| By: | Carlo Lombardo; Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco |
| Abstract: | We examine firm-level upgrading in Colombian manufacturing firms as a result of a high-skilled labor supply shock triggered by the Venezuelan exodus. Using a unique and confidential dataset from 2013 to 2019 and a shift-share instrumental variables approach, we find that the increased supply of skilled workers primarily drove high-skill hires, especially in R&D divisions. This skill-upgrading process boosted investments in R&D activities. Improved access to higher-quality inputs led to better production and organizational processes, product enhancements, and an increased likelihood of obtaining quality certifications, which serve as a straightforward objective measure of firm-level upgrading. Collectively, these changes were crucial for firms to increase their exports at both the extensive and intensive margins. This effect was driven by a rise in differentiated product exports, allowing firms to enter new and more sophisticated markets, particularly in high- and upper-middle-income countries. |
| Keywords: | firm-level upgrading, migration, trade, development |
| JEL: | D22 D24 F22 F14 F16 J61 L16 O14 O31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11645 |
| By: | Fusillo, Fabrizio; Nenci, Silvia; Pietrobelli, Carlo (RS: UNU-MERIT); Quatraro, F. |
| Abstract: | Although evolutionary economics has extensively analyzed the evolution of industries in relation to innovation and technology lifecycles, the interplay between industry lifecycles and evolutionary patterns of knowledge networks has not been fully explored yet. This work aims to bridge this gap by analyzing the co-evolutionary patterns of knowledge and trade flows in the mining industry, using social network tools in combination with the Schumpeterian tradition of analysis. The study focuses on three Latin American countries: Brazil, Chile, and Peru, where the mining sector plays a significant role in the economy, particularly in the context of energy and digital transitions. Our findings suggest that the innovation network and the global value chain-trade network display divergent co-evolutionary patterns: while the former tends to be stable and concentrated, the latter shows increasing fragmentation and turbulence. The analysis also shows remarkable evolutionary evidence at the country level. |
| JEL: | L10 L72 O30 F14 N56 |
| Date: | 2023–10–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2023037 |
| By: | Mekonnen, Daniel Ayalew; de Brauw, Alan |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the employment characteristics of food micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), using survey data collected from 1, 686 food vendors in Addis Ababa and Butajira, Ethiopia. The data suggest that 74 percent of the enterprises were formal or had a tax identification number. The average number of workers across enterprises was 2.3, which varies between 1.2 as in the case of street sellers and 5.3 as in the case of restaurants. Among enterprises with an additional worker besides the owner, only about 32 percent of them had part-time workers. The share of youth in part-time and full-time employment was 43 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Adults especially women constituted the majority of both full-time and part-time workers. More than 53 percent of the enterprises were owned and operated by women, but the significant majority of them were one-person enterprises, suggesting that women-owned enterprises are less likely to create additional jobs. In fact, results from the logistic regressions suggest that the odds of women-owned enterprises employing anyone were between 0.53 to 0.62 times the odds of men-owned enterprises. Only 17 percent of the enterprises had outstanding loans at the time of the survey. However, the relationship between loan uptake status and the number of workers was not strong. Results also indicate that the number of workers was positively and significantly associated with the size of enterprise revenue but the relationship with profitability was not strong, possibly because the size of profits per worker was quite low. To put this in perspective, the size of profits per worker (for example, for street sellers who are mostly self-employed and rarely take their wages into account during cost calculations) was less than the cost of a healthy diet. Overall, while the food MSMEs in the study sites may have the potential to deliver food at lower cost and contribute to gender and social inclusion through self-employment, the scope of food MSMEs, especially those run by women, to generate additional employment appears to be limited. |
| Keywords: | employment; enterprises; gender; women; youth; Africa; Eastern Africa; Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:cgiarp:168503 |
| By: | Marius Faber; Kemal Kilic; Gleb Kozliakov; Dalia Marin |
| Abstract: | The world economy has become more and more globalized as firms have organized production along global value chains. But more recently, globalization has stalled. This paper shows that higher uncertainty, in combination with better automation technologies, has likely contributed to that trend reversal. We show that plausibly exogenous exposure to uncertainty in developing countries leads to reshoring to high-income countries, but only if industrial robots have made this economically feasible. In contrast, we find no strong evidence of nearshoring or diversification. We address concerns about reverse causality by showing that results hold when using two alternative identification strategies. In a narrative approach, we use only locally generated spikes in uncertainty, for which the narrative around the events suggest that they are plausibly exogenous. In a small open economy approach, we restrict the sample to small developed countries that are unlikely to cause uncertainty in the developing world. Moreover, we show that results are robust to the main threats to identification related to shift-share instruments. |
| Keywords: | Global value chains, Uncertainty, Automation, Reshoring, Shift-share design |
| JEL: | F14 F15 F16 J23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2025-02 |