| 232. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
May 2008
Food Systems and the Escape from Poverty and Ill-
Health Traps in Sub-Saharan Africa
Millienium Development Goal #1 is to halve extreme poverty ($1/day per person)
and hunger. Progress toward this goal has been excellent at global level, led by China and
India, but woefully insufficient in sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa, a disproportionate share of the extreme poor are “ultra-poor”, surviving on less than $0.50/day per person, a condition that appears both stubbornly persistent and closely associated with widespread severe malnutrition – “ultra hunger” – and ill health. Indeed, ill health, malnutrition and ultra-poverty are mutually reinforcing states that add to the challenge of addressing any one of them on its own and make integrated strategies essential. Food systems are a natural locus for such a strategy because agriculture is the primary employment sector for the ultra-poor and because food consumes a very large share of the expenditures of the ultra-poor. The causal mechanisms underpinning the poverty trap in which ultra-poor, unhealthy and undernourished rural Africans too often find themselves remain only partially understood, but is clearly rooted in the food system that guides their production, exchange, consumption and investment behaviors. Four key principles to guide interventions in improving food systems emerge clearly. But there remains only limited empirical evidence to guide detailed design and implementation of strategies to develop African food systems so as to break the lock of poverty and ill-health traps.
This paper was prepared for the Cornell University and United Nations
University Symposium on The African Food System and its Interactions with Health and
Nutrition, held at the United Nations, New York City, November 13, and at Cornell University,
November 15, 2007.
View Working Paper 232 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 231. |
Hoffmann, Vivian, Christopher B. Barrett, and David R. Just
November 2007
Do Free Goods Stick to Poor Households? Experimental Evidence on Insecticide Treated Bednets
According to economic theory, the market will allocate a good to
those willing and able to pay the most for it. This suggests that efforts to
target durable health goods such as insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) to poor
populations may prove ineffective. However, wealth and endowment effects
militate against the sale of in-kind transfers. We quantify these effects
through a field experiment in Uganda in which households were randomly
assigned to receive ITNs, a cash transfer, or have the opportunity to purchase
nets with their own resources. Our results indicate that very few nets will be
resold by recipient households.
View Working Paper 231 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 230. |
Stephens, Emma C. and Christopher B. Barrett
May 2008
Incomplete Credit Markets and Commodity Marketing Behavior
We develop a simple theoretical model of market participation over multiple
seasons in the presence of liquidity constraints and transactions costs to explain the ‘sell low, buy high’ puzzle wherein certain households forego opportunities for intertemporal price arbitrage through storage and are observed to
sell output post-harvest at prices lower than observed prices for purchases in
the subsequent lean season. We test our model with data from western Kenya
using maximum likelihood estimation of a multivariate sample selection model
of market participation. Access to off-farm income and credit indeed seem to
influence crop sales and purchase behaviors in a manner consistent with the
hypothesized patterns.
View Working Paper 230 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 229. |
Stifel, David, Felix Forster, and Christopher B. Barrett
March 2008
The Evolution of Horizontal Inequalities in Madagascar, 1999-2005
This paper explores whether there exist persistent horizontal inequalities in Madagascar; that is, whether there is a pattern over time of consistently poorer performance among subpopulations readily identifiable by one or more identity markers. Three key messages come out of this analysis. First, there exists a core group of households that remained persistently poor over the 1999-2005 period. These households were land poor, lived in remote areas, and were headed by uneducated individuals, most commonly unmarried women. Second, in addition to establishing the existence of horizontal inequalities across groups, relative differences in returns to education and land holdings underscore the existence of vertical inequalities within groups, as one characteristic affects the returns to another. Third, persistent horizontal inequalities are associated with multiple different identities, some of which are offsetting and some of which are reinforcing. For example, women’s higher education tends to offset (or even overcome) the disadvantages associated with being a permanent head of household, while being land poor compounds the disadvantages associated with remoteness.
View Working Paper 229 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 228. |
Duclos, Jean-Yves Duclos, Josée Leblancy, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and David Sahn
April 2008
Health and welfare in 19th-century France
This paper develops a methodology that allows us to estimate the entire
population distributions from the bin-aggregated sample height data on potential
conscripts into the French army. We do this through the estimation of
the parameters of mixtures of distributions that allow for maximal parametric
flexibility. The statistical approach we develop enables us to compare
the full distributions of heights across France’s 88 departments during the
years of the nineteenth century. To illustrate the value of this approach,
we estimate and compare means and poverty headcounts, respectively, by
difference-of-means tests and stochastic dominance tests. In the case of the
latter, we further explore the differences in the results for stochastic dominance
in distribution according to the effective number of points compared
and the extent to which the ranges of the possible poverty lines are restricted.
Our results show an increase in the body height of French men throughout
the century and a correlation between body-heights and living outside Paris
and the south-western region.
View Working Paper 228 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 227. |
Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn
March 2008
Ability, Grade Repetition, and School Attainment in Senegal: A Panel Data Analysis
Little is known about the relationship of early ability and subsequent educational outcomes in
developing country environments, because the panel data needed to analyze this question have
been lacking. In this study we take advantage of unique data from Senegal, combining test
score data for children from the second grade with information on their subsequent school
progression from a follow-up survey conducted seven years later. We find that measures of
early cognitive ability, corrected for measurement error using multiple test observations per
child, are very strongly positively associated with later school progression. A plausible
interpretation is that parents invest more in a child’s education when the returns to doing so are higher. The results point to the need for remedial policies to target lagging students early on to reduce early dropout. A current policy targeting poorly performing students is grade repetition, which is pervasive in Francophone Africa. Using variation across schools in test score thresholds for promotion to identify the effects of second grade repetition, we find that a
repeated student is more likely to leave school before completing primary than a student with
similar ability who is not held back, pointing to the need for alternative measures to improve
skills of lagging children.
View Working Paper 227 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 226. |
Glick, Peter
September 2007
Are Client Satisfaction Surveys Useful? Evidence from Matched Facility and Household Data in Madagascar
Client satisfaction surveys in developing countries are increasingly being promoted as a
means of understanding health care quality and the demand for these services. However,
concerns have been raised about the reliability of responses in such surveys: for example,
‘courtesy bias’ may lead clients, especially if interviewed upon exiting clinics, to provide
misleadingly favorable responses. This study uses unique data from Madagascar to
investigate these and other issues. Identical questions about satisfaction with local health
care centers were asked in user exit surveys and in a population based household survey;
the latter would be less contaminated by courtesy bias as well as changes in provider
behavior in response to being observed. We find strong evidence that reported satisfaction
is biased upward in exit surveys for subjective questions regarding (for example) treatment
by staff and consultation quality, but is not biased for relatively objective questions about
facility condition and supplies. The surveys do provide useful information on the
determinants of consumer satisfaction with various dimensions of provider quality. Still, to
obtain reliable estimates of consumer perceptions of health service quality, household based
sampling appears to be far superior to the simpler exit survey method.
View Working Paper 226 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 225. |
Sahn, David E. and Stephen D. Younger
August 2007
Living Standards in Africa
This paper substantiates two claims — that Africa is poor compared to the rest of the world and that poverty in Africa is not declining consistently or significantly, in contrast to other regions of the world. We consider poverty in the dimensions of health and education, in addition to income, stressing the inherent conceptual and measurement issues that commend such a broader perspective. We note a lack of consistency in the movement of the poverty measures. During similar periods, we often find them moving in opposite directions. We therefore discuss the need go beyond examining each poverty measure individually, and present an approach to evaluating poverty reduction in multiple dimensions jointly. The results of the multidimensional poverty comparisons reinforce the importance of considering deprivation beyond the material standard of living and provide insight into how to reconcile differing stories that arise from examining each indicator separately.
Forthcoming in Sudhir Anand, Paul Segal, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Debates in the Measurement of Global Inequality, Oxford University Press, 2008.
View Working Paper 225 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 224. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
August 2008
Smallholder Market Participation: Concepts and Evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa
This paper reviews the evidence on smallholder market participation, with a focus on staple foodgrains (i.e., cereals) in eastern and
southern Africa, in an effort to help better identify what interventions are most likely to break smallholders out of the semi-subsistence
poverty trap that appears to ensnare much of rural Africa. The conceptual and empirical evidence suggests that interventions aimed at
facilitating smallholder organization, at reducing the costs of intermarket commerce, and, perhaps especially, at improving poorer households’
access to improved technologies and productive assets are central to stimulating smallholder market participation and escape from
semi-subsistence poverty traps. Macroeconomic and trade policy tools appear less useful in inducing market participation by poor smallholders
in the region.
Prepared for FAO workshop on Staple Food Trade and Market Policy Options for Promoting Development in Eastern and Southern Africa, Rome, March 1-2, 2007.
In Food Policy 33(4): 299-317, August, 2008
Now available on-line as an article in press.
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| 223. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
July 2007
Displaced Distortions: Financial Market Failures and Seemingly Inefficient Resource Allocation in Low-income Rural Communities
Poor households in rural areas of the developing world commonly lack access to (formal or informal) credit or insurance. These financing constraints naturally spill over into other behaviours and (asset, factor and product) markets as households rationally exploit other market and non-market resource allocation mechanisms to resolve, at least partly, their financing problems. These displaced distortions of financing constraints commonly manifest themselves in allocative inefficiency that may lead researchers and policymakers to mistakenly conclude that poor households routinely make serious allocation errors and to direct policy interventions towards the symptoms manifest in other markets rather than towards the root financial markets failures cause.
July 2007 draft for festschrift volume in honor of Arie Kuyvenhoven
Now available as a reprint.
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| 222. |
Vanderpuye-Orgle, Jacqueline and Christopher B. Barrett
February 2008
Risk Management and Social Visibility in Ghana
In this paper we test for risk pooling within and among social networks to see
if the extent of informal insurance available to individuals in rural Ghana varies with their
social visibility. We identify a distinct subpopulation of socially invisible individuals
who tend to be younger, poorer, engaged in farming, recent arrivals into the village who
have been fostered and are not members of a major clan. While we cannot reject the null
hypothesis that individual shocks do not affect individual consumption and that
individual consumption tracks network and village consumption one-for-one among the
socially visible, risk pooling fails for the socially invisible subpopulation. These results
have important implications for the design of social protection policy.
Forthcoming in African Development Review
View Working Paper 222 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 221. |
Sahn, David E.
June 2007
Weights on the Rise: Where and for Whom
Using over 70 nationally representative surveys, I find evidence of a dramatic
increase in the share of women who are overweight in developing and transition
economies, especially in Latin America and the Middle East. Urban rates of overweight,
measured by the body mass index, are also far higher than those in rural areas. In
examining the inter-temporal changes in the entire standardized weight distribution, there
are nonetheless many instances where it is not possible to reject the null of non-
dominance, especially in rural areas. It is also clear that the distribution of women’s
BMIs in most countries is becoming markedly less equitable, and that this increase in
univariate inequality is driven largely by the increase in BMIs among overweight and
obese women. This is somewhat analogous to the often discussed “rich get richer” story.
That is, the increasing concentration of weight, standardized by heights, among the
overweight is driving a significant share of the overall increase in BMI inequality. A
related finding is that when I decompose the changes in the prevalence of overweight into
the effect of shifts in the mean versus changes in the distribution, in many countries, even
holding mean BMI constant, there would be a marked increase in the prevalence of
clinically overweight women due to changes in the shape of the BMI distribution.
View Working Paper 221 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 220. |
Hogset, Heidi and Christopher B. Barrett
April 2008
Social Learning, Social Influence and Projection Bias:
A Caution on Inferences Based on Proxy-reporting of Peer Behavior
This paper explores the consequences of conflating social learning and social influence
concepts and of the widespread use of proxy-reported behavioral data for accurate
understanding of learning from others. Our empirical analysis suggests that proxy-reporting is
more accurate for new innovations, about which social learning is more plausible, than for
mature technologies. Furthermore, proxy-reporting errors are correlated with respondent
attributes, suggesting projection bias. Self- and proxy-reported variables generate different
regression results, raising questions about inferences based on error-prone, proxy-reported
peer behaviors. Self-reported peer behavior consistently exhibits statistically insignificant
effects on network members’ adoption behavior, suggesting an absence of social effects.
View Working Paper 220 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 219. |
Glick, Peter
May 2007
Reproductive Health and Behavior, HIV/AIDS,
and Poverty in Africa
This paper examines the complex linkages of poverty, reproductive/sexual health and
behavior, and HIV/AIDS in Africa. It addresses the following questions: (1) what have we
learned to date about these links and what are the gaps in knowledge to be addressed by
further research; (2) what is known about the effectiveness for HIV prevention of
reproductive health and HIV/AIDS interventions and policies in Africa; and (3) what are the
appropriate methodological approaches to research on these questions. With regard to what
has been learned so far, the paper pays considerable attention in particular to the evidence
regarding the impacts of a range of HIV interventions on risk behaviors and HIV incidence.
Other sections review the extensive microeconomic literature on the impacts of AIDS on
households and children in Africa and the effects of the epidemic on sexual risk behavior and
fertility decisions. With regard to methodology, the paper assesses the approaches used in
the literature to deal with, among other things, the problem of self-selection and non-
randomness in the placement of HIV and reproductive health programs. Data requirements
for different research questions are discussed, and an effort is made to assess what
researchers can learn from existing sources such as Demographic and Health Surveys.
Presented at the AERC/Hewlett Foundation Workshop, “Poverty and
Economic Growth: The Impact of Population Dynamics and Reproductive Health Outcomes
in Africa” in Brussels, Belgium, November 5-6, 2006
View Working Paper 219 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 218. |
Younger, Stephen D.
December 2006
Labor Market Activities and Fertility
“This paper focuses on one aspect of the demographic transition, women’s labor market
activity, and how it relates to the basic variables of fertility and poverty. Just as there
are differences in fertility and mortality in rich and poor countries, there are
differences in women’s time use. In rich countries, women tend to work outside the
home, usually in wage employment on a fixed hourly schedule. In poor countries,
women tend to work at home or, especially in Africa, on their family’s farm or at own-
account activities where time use is more flexible. Understanding the relationship
between the demographic transition and these differences in time use is our main
theme...”
Presented at the AERC/Hewlett Foundation Workshop, “Poverty and
Economic Growth: The Impact of Population Dynamics and Reproductive Health Outcomes
in Africa” in Brussels, Belgium, November 5-6, 2006
View Working Paper 218 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 217. |
Randrianarisoa, Claude and Bart Minten
June 2005
Getting the Inputs Right for Improved Agricultural Productivity in Madagascar, Which Inputs Matter and Are the Poor Different?
We found that while farmers are willing to pay for improved irrigation infrastructure through water use associations, the amounts they are willing to contribute are significantly below the costs – and significantly below international standards – and this especially so for the poorest farmers. For chemical fertilizer, a more rational structuring of the fertilizer supply chain, with clear and consistent market signals, might help at least the more accessible regions to more readily adopt this input.
Paper presented during the workshop “Agricultural and Poverty in Eastern Africa,” June, 2005,
World Bank, Washington D.C.
View Working Paper 217 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 216. |
Stifel, David C. and Jean-Claude Randrianarisoa
April 2006
Agricultural Policy Impact Analysis:
A Seasonal Multi-Market Model for Madagascar
We describe the main features and results of a multi-market model for Madagascar that
focuses on income generating activities in an agricultural sector that is characterized by seasonal variability. We find evidence that investments in rural infrastructure and commercial food storage have both direct and indirect benefits on poor households.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 215. |
Doss, Cheryl, John McPeak, and Barrett, Christopher B.
September 2006
Interpersonal, Intertemporal and Spatial Variation in
Risk Perceptions: Evidence from East Africa
This study investigates variation over time, space and household and individual
characteristics in how people perceive different risks. Using original data from the arid
and semi-arid lands of east Africa, we explore which risks concern individuals and how
they assess their relative level of concern about these identified risks. Because these
assessments were gathered for multiple time periods, sites, households and individuals
within households, we are able to identify the degree to which risk perceptions vary
across time, across communities, across households within a community, and across
individuals within a household. We find the primary determinants of risk rankings to be
changing community level variables over time, with household specific and individual
specific variables exhibiting much less influence. This suggests that community based
planning and monitoring of development efforts that address risk exposure should be
prioritized. We also find that individuals throughout this area are most concerned about
food security overall, so that development efforts that directly address this problem
should be given the highest priority.
Forthcoming in World Development
View Working Paper 215 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 214. |
Dostie, Benoit and David E. Sahn
June 2008
Labor Market Dynamics in Romania During a
Period of Economic Liberalization
In this paper, we estimate a model of labor market dynamics among
individuals in Romania using panel data for three years, 1994 to 1996.
Our motivation is to gain insight into the functioning of the labor market
and how workers are coping during this period of economic liberalization and transformation that began in 1990. Our models of labor market transitions for men and women examine changing movements in and
out of employment, unemployment, and self-employment, and incorporate
specific features of the Romanian labor market, such as the role of unemployment benefits. We take into account demographic characteristics,
state dependence, and individual unobserved heterogeneity by modeling
the employment transitions with a dynamic mixed multinomial logit.
View Working Paper 214 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 213. |
Meyerhoefer, Chad and David E. Sahn
December 2006
The Relationship between Poverty and Maternal Morbidity and Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa
“Good maternal health is of fundamental importance to a country’s well-being and
ability to prosper, and there are few times when maternal health is more at risk than in the
period surrounding childbirth. Protecting the health of mothers during reproduction
safeguards their future contributions to society and ensures the health and productivity of
future generations. If either the health of mothers or their newborn offspring is
compromised, there will be serious negative consequences for their families,
communities, and the entire process of economic and social development. This is why
the United Nations has set as one of its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
the reduction of the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by two-thirds in the developing
world by the year 2015...”
Presented at the AERC/Hewlett Foundation Workshop, “Poverty and
Economic Growth: The Impact of Population Dynamics and Reproductive Health Outcomes
in Africa” in Brussels, Belgium, November 5-6, 2006
View Working Paper 213 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 212. |
Barrett, Christopher B., Michael R. Carter, and Peter D. Little
February 2006
Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa
This paper introduces a special issue exploring persistent poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. As a set, these papers break new ground in exploring the dynamics of structural poverty, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis and adopting an asset-based approach to the study of changes in well-being, especially in response to a wide range of different (climatic, health, political, and other) shocks. In this introductory essay, we frame these studies, building directly on evolving conceptualisations of poverty in Africa.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 211. |
Santos, Paulo and Christopher B. Barrett
April 2007
Understanding the Formation of Social Networks
This paper reviews the growing literature that uses social networks
as a method to analyze social context, paying special attention to how
methods of sampling data on relationships aspects inference with respect to the formation of social networks. We use original data from
southern Ethiopia to demonstrate a new approach to collecting data
on relationships, that starts with a random sample of individuals and
then randomly samples from the prospective relationships among sample respondents. We show that this method yields estimates of the
structure of social relations that are statistically indistinguishable from
those generated using more expensive and time-consuming methods
that trace respondents’ social networks. We then use Monte Carlo simulation to test the value of this approach and show that introduc-
ing this second level of sampling improves the accuracy of the inference
on the determinants of network formation.
View Working Paper 211 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 210. |
Munyao, Kioko and Christopher B. Barrett
August 2007
Decentralization of Pastoral Resources Management and Its Effects on Environmental Degradation and Poverty. Experience from Northern Kenya
“Growing concerns about persistent poverty and environmental sustainability have helped
fuel efforts at decentralizing governance throughout the developing world. The 1992
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro brought widespread calls for greater community
participation and equity in natural resources management and sustainable development
planning, and these pressures have grown amid institutional reforms fostered by
movements towards democratization and market-based economic policy, spurred by,
among others, the Bretton Woods institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank) in the last two decades of the twentieth century (Goumandakoye 2003).
Ironically, however, in many cases decentralization has been used by national
governments not as a means to cede authority to local subjects, but rather to extend
control still deeper into local community life and resource management, while still
reaping the political capital associated with the rhetoric of bringing government services
and development closer to the people. Often this involves the subtle but real transfer of
influence, even control, from customary users of the resource to newcomers with better
connections to government representatives... ”
Now available as a reprint .
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| 209. |
Osterloh, Sharon M. and Christopher B. Barrett
August 2007
The Unfulfilled Promise of Microfinance in Kenya: The KDA Experience
“Microfinance offers promise for alleviating poverty by providing financial services to
people traditionally excluded from financial markets. Small-scale loans can relieve capital
constraints that might otherwise preclude cash-strapped entrepreneurs from investing in
profitable businesses, while savings services can create opportunities to accumulate wealth in
safe repositories and to manage risk through asset diversification. While this promise of
microfinance is widely touted, it is infrequently subject to careful evaluation using detailed data.
This chapter examines the extension of microfinance services to people in Kenya. Using
data collected from seventeen Financial Service Associations (FSAs) founded by the Kenya
Rural Enterprise Program (K-REP) Development Agency (KDA), we explore the intricacies of
microfinance institutions emerging in these challenging environment...”
Now available as a reprint .
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| 208. |
Sahn, David E. and Stephen D. Younger
June 2008
Measuring Intra-Household Inequality: Explorations Using the Body Mass Index
This paper tests for relationships between level of well-being and inequality at both inter-country and intra-household levels, but using a different indicator of well-being, the body mass index (BMI). BMI captures individual’s consumption relative to their needs, and reflects a combination of both consumption (of calories, sanitation, and health care) and health status, two important dimensions of well-being. We do not find any evidence to support either the across country Kuznets curve or the intra-household Kuznets curve. Instead, we find consistent evidence for an increase in BMI inequality as average living standards (of countries or households) improve. A distinct and surprising result is that between one half and two-thirds of BMI inequality is accounted for by within-household BMI. This finding clearly suggests that a large share of the inequality that is measured using household surveys which assumes that the well-being of all household members is the same, is likely grossly under-estimating overall inequality in a given country. In examining the within-household ratios of adult to child body mass indexes we also find some evidence that health shocks are both large and affect children more than adults; although, there are also indications that in households with chronic food deficits, there is an attempt to protect young children from food and related stresses that contribut to low BMI. It is thus clear that policies and programs that target households, not individuals, will be largely ineffective.
Presented at the WIDER Conference on Advancing Health Equity, Helsinki, Finland, September 29-30, 2006, and the CIRPÉE Conference on Health Economics, Université Laval, March 30, 2007
Forthcoming in Health Economics
View Working Paper 208 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 207. |
Glick, Peter, Stephen D. Younger, and David E. Sahn
September 2006
An Assessment of Changes in Infant and under-Five Mortality in Demographic and
Health Survey Data for Madagascar
Repeated rounds of nationally representative surveys are an important source of information on changes in the welfare of the population. In particular, policymakers and donors in many developing countries rely heavily on the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to provide information on levels and trends in indicators of the health status of the population, including child survival. The reliability of observed trends, however, depends strongly on the comparability across survey rounds of the sampling strategy and of the format of questions and how interviews ask them. In Madagascar, the most recent (2003/4) DHS indicated very sharp declines in rates of infant and under-five mortality compared with the previous survey from 1997. However, retrospective under-one and under-five mortality data in 1997 and 2003/4 for the same calendar years also show large differences, suggesting that this trend may be spurious. We employ a range of descriptive and multivariate approaches to investigate the issue. Despite evidence of significant interviewer recording errors (with respect to date of birth and age at death) in 2003/4, the most likely source of problems is that the two samples differ: comparisons of time-invariant characteristics of households and of women suggests that the later DHS sampled a somewhat wealthier (hence lower mortality) population. Corrections to the data using hazard survival model estimates are discussed. These suggest a much more modest reduction in infant and under-five mortality than indicated by the raw data for the two surveys.
View Working Paper 207 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 206. |
Santos, Paulo and Christopher B. Barrett
May 2006
Informal Insurance in the Presence of Poverty Traps:
Evidence from Southern Ethiopia
This paper explores the consequences of nonlinear wealth dynamics on the formation of
informal insurance networks. Building on recent empirical work among a poor population
that finds evidence consistent with the hypothesis of poverty traps, and using original
primary data on social networks and transfers, we find that asset transfers respond to
recipients’ losses, but only so long as the recipients are not “too poor”. The persistently
poor are excluded from social networks and do not receive transfers in response to
shocks. We also find some evidence that the threshold at which wealth dynamics
bifurcate may serve as a focal point at which transfers are concentrated. Our results
suggest that, in the context of poverty traps, asset transfers may aim to insure the
permanent component of income generation, rather than the transitory component, as
standard insurance models assume.
View Working Paper 206 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 205. |
Brown, Douglas R., Emma C. Stephens, James Okuro Ouma, Festus M. Murithi and
Christopher B. Barrett
December 2006
Livelihood Strategies in the Rural Kenyan Highlands
The concept of a livelihood strategy has become central to development practice
in recent years. Nonetheless, precise identification of livelihoods in quantitative data has
remained methodologically elusive. This paper uses cluster analysis methods to
operationalize the concept of livelihood strategies in household data and then uses the
resulting strategy-specific income distributions to test whether hypothesized outcome
differences between livelihoods indeed exist. Using data from Kenya’s central and
western highlands, we identify five distinct livelihood strategies that exhibit statistically
significant differences in mean per capita incomes and stochastic dominance orderings
that establish clear welfare rankings among livelihood strategies. Multinomial regression
analysis identifies geographic, demographic and financial determinants of livelihood
choice. The results should facilitate targeting of interventions designed to improve
household livelihoods.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 204. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
February 2007
Poverty Traps and Resource Dynamics In
Smallholder Agrarian Systems
Poverty traps and resource degradation in the rural tropics appear to have multiple and complex, but
similar, causes. Market imperfections, imperfect learning, bounded rationality, spillovers, coordination
failures and economically dysfunctional institutions all play a role, to varying degrees in different places
and times. Pinning down these mechanisms empirically remains a challenge, however, but one essential
to the design of appropriate interventions for reducing poverty and environmental degradation in areas
where livelihoods depend heavily on natural resources.
Prepared for the international conference on
“Economics of Poverty, Environment and Natural Resource Use,”
held at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, May 17-19, 2006
Forthcoming as Chapter 2 in Ruijs, A. and R. Dellink, eds., Economics of Poverty, Environment and Natural Resource Use, Springer.
View Working Paper 204 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 203. |
Mude, Andrew, Christopher B. Barrett, John G. McPeak, Robert Kaitho and Patti Kristjansen
November 2006
Empirical Forecasting of Slow-Onset Disasters for Improved
Emergency Response: an Application to Kenya’s Arid North
Mitigating the negative welfare consequences of crises such as droughts, floods, and
disease outbreaks, especially in highly vulnerable areas insufficiently equipped to prevent
food and livelihood security crisis in the face of adverse shocks, is a major challenge in
many areas of the world. Given the finite resources allocated for emergency response,
and an the expected increase in incidences of humanitarian catastrophe due to changing
climactic patterns, there is a need for the development of rigorous and efficient methods
of early warning and emergency needs assessment. In this paper we develop an empirical
model, based on a relatively parsimonious set of regularly measured variables from
communities in Kenya’s Arid North, that generates sufficiently accurate forecasts of the
likelihood of famine with at least three months lead time. While several early warning
and emergency needs assessment guides exist, our empirical forecasting method has the
advantage of demonstrable statistical rigor and out-of-sample performance. Such a
forecasting model is an invaluable tool for emergency awareness and response needs,
offering rigorous, cost-effective and practical early warning capacity.
Presented at Policy Research Conference on
“Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,”
held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006
View Working Paper 203 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 202. |
Little, Peter D., John McPeak, Christopher B. Barrett and Patti Kristjanson
March 2008
Challenging Orthodoxies: Understanding Poverty in Pastoral Areas of
East Africa
Understanding and alleviating poverty in Africa continues to receive considerable
attention by a range of diverse actors, including politicians, international celebrities,
academics, activists, and practitioners. Despite the onslaught of interest, there
surprisingly is little agreement on what constitutes poverty in rural Africa, how it should
be assessed, and what should be done to alleviate it. Based on data from an
interdisciplinary study of pastoralism in northern Kenya, this article examines issues of
poverty among one of the continent’s most vulnerable groups, pastoralists, and
challenges the application of such orthodox proxies as incomes/expenditures, geographic
remoteness, and market integration. It argues that current poverty debates ’homogenize‚
the concept of ’pastoralist‚ by failing to acknowledge the diverse livelihoods and wealth
differentiation that fall under the term. The article concludes that what is not needed is
another development label (stereotype) that equates pastoralism with poverty, thereby
empowering outside interests to transform rather than strengthen pastoral livelihoods.
Overview Paper for the Policy Research Conference on
“Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,”
held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006
Forthcoming in Development and Change
View Working Paper 202 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 201. |
Santos, Paulo and Christopher B. Barrett
June 2006
Heterogeneous Wealth Dynamics:
On the Roles of Risk and Ability
This paper studies the causal mechanisms behind poverty traps, building on evidence of
nonlinear wealth dynamics among a poor pastoralist population, the Boran from southern
Ethiopia. In particular, it explores the roles of adverse weather shocks and individual
ability to cope with such shocks in conditioning wealth dynamics. Using original data, we
establish pastoralists’ expectations of herd dynamics and show both that pastoralists
perceive the nonlinear long-term dynamics that characterize livestock wealth in the
region and that this pattern results from adverse weather shocks. We estimate a stochastic
herd growth frontier that yields herder-specific estimates of unobservable ability on
which we then condition our simulations of wealth dynamics. We find that those with
lower ability converge to a unique dynamic equilibrium at a small herd size, while those
with higher ability exhibit multiple stable dynamic wealth equilibria. Our results
underscore the criticality of asset protection against exogenous shocks in order to
facilitate wealth accumulation and economic growth and the importance of incorporating
indicators of ability in the targeting of asset transfers, as we demonstrate with simulations
of alternative asset transfer designs.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on
“Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,”
held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006
View Working Paper 201 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 200. |
Minten, Bart, Jean Claude Randrianarisoa and Christopher B. Barrett
December 2007
Productivity in Malagasy Rice Systems:
Wealth-differentiated Constraints and Priorities
This study explores the constraints on agricultural productivity and priorities in boosting productivity in rice, the main staple in Madagascar, using a range of different data sets and analytical methods, integrating qualitative assessments by farmers and quantitative evidence from panel data production function analysis and willingness-to-pay estimates for chemical fertilizer. Nationwide, farmers seek primarily labor productivity enhancing interventions, e.g., improved access to agricultural equipment, cattle, and irrigation. Shock mitigation measures, land productivity increasing technologies, and improved land tenure are reported to be much less important. Research and interventions aimed at reducing costs and price volatility within the fertilizer supply chain might help at least the more accessible regions to more readily adopt chemical fertilizer
Invited panel paper prepared for presentation at the International Association of Agricultural Economists Conference, Gold Coast, Australia,
August 12-18, 2006
Now available as a reprint .
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| 199. |
Postel-Vinay, Gilles and David E. Sahn
May 2006
Explaining Stunting in Nineteenth Century France
We examine the share of French men with stunted growth during the nineteenth century
using data on potential conscripts into the army. The share of stunted men (height below
1.62 meters) in France’s 82 departments declines dramatically across the century,
especially in the south. Our models examine the role of education expenditures, health
care personnel, local wages, asset distribution, as well as a dummy variable for Paris as
determinants of stunting, and decompose changes over time into the effects of levels and
returns to covariates. All covariates are strongly significant, with education spending
being particularly important. Living in congested Paris contributed to poor health status.
Prepared for the Third International Conference on
Economics and Human Biology Conference, Strasbourg, France, June 22-24, 2006
View Working Paper 199 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 198. |
Duclos, Jean-Yves, David E. Sahn and Stephen D. Younger
October 2007
Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons
with Discrete Indicators of Well-being
This paper provides a method to make robust multidimensional poverty comparisons when
one or more of the dimensions of well-being or deprivation is discrete. Sampling distributions
for the statistics used in these poverty comparisons are provided. Several examples show that
the methods are both practical and interesting in the sense that they can provide richer
information than do univariate poverty comparisons.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 197. |
Lentz, Erin C. and Christopher B. Barrett
July 2008
Improving Food Aid’s Impact:
What Reforms Would Yield The Highest Payoff?
Developing an integrated model of the food aid distribution chain, from donor
appropriations through operational agency programming decisions to
household consumption choices we simulate alternative policies and sensitivity
analysis to establish how varying underlying conditions — e.g., delivery costs,
the political additionality of food, targeting efficacy — affect the optimal policy
for improving the well-being of food insecure households. We find that
improved targeting by operational agencies is crucial to advancing food
security objectives. At the donor level, the key policy variable under most
model parameterizations is ocean freight costs associated with cargo preference
restrictions on US food aid.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 196. |
Glick, Peter
February 2008
Policy Impacts on Schooling Gender Gaps in Developing Countries: The Evidence and a Framework for Interpretation
In many regions of the developing world girls continue to receive less education than boys.
This paper reviews the evidence on the effects of policies in the education sector and
outside it on household schooling investments in girls and boys, distinguishing between
policies that are ostensibly gender neutral and those that explicitly target girls. It is
frequently (but certainly not universally) found that the demand for girl’s schooling is
more responsive than boys’ to gender neutral changes in school cost or distance as well as
quality. Although these patterns can be interpreted in terms of parental preferences, this
paper shows that they can also plausibly be explained within a human capital investment
framework through assumptions about the nature of schooling cost and returns functions.
Among these policies, increasing the physical accessibility of schools emerges as a
measure that may result in disproportionate enrollment gains for girls. Where gender gaps
are large or persistent, however, direct targeting of girls is probably necessary. Formal
evidence from a number of demand or supply side interventions, including subsidies to
households and to schools to enroll girls and the provision of girls-only schools, suggests
the potential for targeted measures to yield substantial gains for girls. Many other policies,
such as subsidized childcare or flexible school scheduling that address the opportunity
costs of girls’ time, hold promise but for the most part have yet to be subject to rigorous
assessment. The paper discusses methodological problems in such assessments and
concludes with suggestions for future research on policies to close schooling gender gaps.
View Working Paper 196 (PDF FORMAT)
This is an expanded version of a paper that is forthcoming in World Development
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| 195. |
Aryeetey, Ernest and Ravi Kanbur
November 2005
Ghana’s Economy at Half Century: An Overview of Stability, Growth and Poverty
As Ghana enters its second half century, we are faced with a paradox. Despite a solid transition to democracy in the political situation, despite recorded recovery in the last fifteen years from the economic malaise of the two decades preceding, and despite reductions in measured poverty, there is widespread perception of failure of the economic and political system in delivering improving living standards to the population. This essay introduces a volume of papers that call for a deeper examination of the macro level data on growth and on poverty. A sectoral and regional disaggregation reveals weaknesses in the levels and composition of private investment, in the generation of employment, in sectoral diversification, and in the distribution of the benefits of growth. At the same time, the push for decentralization, and for better allocation, monitoring and implementation of public expenditure has raised more questions than it has answered. These are the challenges that Ghana faces if it is to fulfill the bright promise of its independence in 1957. The papers in this volume set out an analytical agenda that we hope will help in laying the ground work for the path that the nation’s policy makers will have to steer on the road to 2057.
Introduction to a forthcoming volume, Ernest Aryeetey and Ravi Kanbur (editors), The Economy of Ghana: Analytical Perspectives on Stability, Growth and Poverty, James Currey. The
View Working Paper 195 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 194. |
Sahn, David E. and Stephen D. Younger
August 2007
Inequality and Poverty in Africa in an Era of Globalization:
Looking Beyond Income to Health and Education
This paper describes changes over the past 15-20 years in non-income measures of well-
being – education and health – in Africa. We expected to find, as we did in Latin
America, that progress in the provision of public services and the focus of public
spending in the social sector would contribute to declining poverty and inequality in
health and education, even in an environment of stagnant or worsening levels of income
poverty. Unfortunately, our results indicate that in the area of health, little progress is
being made in terms of reducing pre-school age stunting, a clear manifestation of poor
overall health. Likewise, our health inequality measure showed that while there were a
few instances of reduced inequality along this dimension, there was, on balance, little
evidence of success in improving equality of outcomes. Similar results were found in our
examination of underweight women as an indicator of general current health status of
adults. With regard to education, the story is somewhat more positive. However, the
overall picture gives little cause for complacency or optimism that Africa has, or will
soon reap the potential benefits of the process of globalization.
Presented at the UNU-WIDER Conference on “The Impact of Globalization on the Poor
in Africa,” Johannesburg, South Africa, 1-2 December, 2005
View Working Paper 194 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 193. |
Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn
January 2008
Are Africans Practicing Safer Sex: Evidence from Demographic
and Health Surveys for Eight Countries
We use repeated rounds of Demographic and Health Survey data from eight African countries to
examine changes in and determinants of three HIV risk behaviors: age at first intercourse;
number of current sexual partners, and use of condoms. As a prelude, we assess the within-
country comparability of DHS surveys over time. We find some evidence of changes in sample
composition, which is easily handled in a multivariate framework, and find evidence as well of
changes in how people respond to questions about HIV behavior. Because of the latter, which
likely represents an increase in social desirability bias over time, our estimates of risk reduction
may be upper bounds on the true effects. Overall the picture is one of reductions in risk
behaviors over recent 4-6 year intervals, especially with respect to condom use; in some cases
the changes seem large given the short time periods involved. With some exceptions, however,
the extent and pervasiveness of these changes seems inadequate in relation to the urgency of the
public health crisis represented by AIDS. With respect to the determinants of behaviors,
schooling and wealth have contradictory impacts on risk behavior: they both tend to increase the
likelihood of using condoms while (for men) also increasing the demand for additional sexual
partners.
Presented at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) Seminar on “Interactions between Poverty and HIV/AIDS,” Cape Town, South Africa, December 2005.
Alternate version in Economic Development and Cultural Change 56(2):397-439, January, 2008
View Working Paper 193 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 192. |
Dorosh, Paul and Bart Minten
November 2005
Rice Price Stabilization in Madagascar: Price and Welfare Implications of Variable Tariffs
Given the large share of major staples in the budgets of the poor, governments in many
developing countries intervene in food markets to limit variation in the prices of staple
foods. This paper examines the recent experience of Madagascar in stabilizing prices
through international trade and the implications of adjustments in tariff rates. Using a
partial equilibrium model, we quantify the overall costs and benefits of a change in
import duties for various household groups, and compare this intervention to a policy of
targeted food transfers or security stocks.
View Working Paper 192 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 191. |
Minten, Bart, Lalaina Randrianarison, and Johan F. M. Swinnen
September 2005
Supermarkets, International Trade and Farmers in Developing
Countries: Evidence from Madagascar
Global retail companies (“supermarkets”) have an increasing influence on developing
countries, through foreign investments and/or through the imposition of their private
standards. The impact on developing countries and poverty is often assessed as negative.
In this paper we show the opposite, based on an analysis of primary data collected to
measure the impact of supermarkets on small contract farmers in Madagascar, one of the
poorest countries in the world. Almost 10,000 farmers in the Highlands of Madagascar
produce vegetables for supermarkets in Europe. In this global supply chain, small
farmers’ micro-contracts are combined with extensive farm assistance and supervision
programs to fulfill complex quality requirements and phyto-sanitary standards of
supermarkets. Small farmers that participate in these contracts have higher welfare,
more income stability and shorter lean periods. We also find significant effects on
improved technology adoption, better resource management and spillovers on the
productivity of the staple crop rice. The small but emerging modern retail sector in
Madagascar does not (yet) deliver these benefits as they do not (yet) request the same
high standards for their supplies.
View Working Paper 191 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 190. |
Barrett, Christopher B. and Michael R. Carter
June 2005
Risk and Asset Management in the Presence of Poverty Traps:
Implications for Growth and Social Protection
This note suggests a behavioral approach to poverty and vulnerability that escapes the standard, troublesome dependence on an arbitrary money-metric poverty line. More importantly, our approach, which is based on an empirically estimable dynamic asset poverty threshold, has immediate implications for both the linkage between poverty, risk and growth and for the design of social protection policies. One can identify the dynamic asset poverty threshold either by testing for asset smoothing behavior or via tests for bifurcated/split accumulation dynamics. We illustrate the concept and the estimation of dynamic asset poverty thresholds through brief applications to Ethiopia and Honduras.
View Working Paper 190 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 189. |
Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn
June 2007
Cognitive Skills among Children in Senegal: Disentangling the Roles of
Schooling and Family Background
We use unique data to estimate the determinants of cognitive ability among 14 to 17 year olds in
Senegal. Unlike standard school-based samples, tests were administered to current students as well as
to children no longer—or never—enrolled. Years of schooling strongly affects cognitive skills, but
conditional on years of school, parental education and household wealth, as well as local public school
quality, have surprisingly modest effects on test performance. Instead, family background primarily
affects skills indirectly through its impacts on years of schooling. Therefore closing the schooling gaps
between poor and wealthy children will also close most of the gap in cognitive skills between these
groups. Forthcoming in Economics of Education Review
View Working Paper 189 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 188. |
Bahiigwa, Godfrey and Stephen D. Younger
July 2005
Children’s Health Status in Uganda
This paper studies trends and determinants of children's standardized heights, a good overall
measure of children's health status, in Uganda over the 1990s. During this period, Uganda made
impressive strides in economic growth and poverty reduction (Appleton, 2001). However, there
is concern that improvements in other dimensions of well-being, especially health, has been
much weaker.
We find that several policy variables are important determinants of children's heights. Most
importantly, a broad package of basic health care services has a large statistically significant
effect. Provision of some of these services, especially vaccinations, appears to have faltered in
the late 1990s, which may help to explain the lackluster performance on stunting during that
period. We also find that civil conflict, a persistent problem in some areas of the country, has an
important (negative) impact on children's heights. Better educated mothers have taller children,
but the only substantial impact is for children of mothers who have completed secondary school.
Finally, we find that households that rely more on own-production sources of income tend to
have more malnourished children, even after controlling for their overall level of income and a
host of other factors. This latter conclusion is supportive of the Plan for Modernization of
Agriculture, which aims to shift farmers from subsistence to commercial agriculture or other
more productive activities.
View Working Paper 188 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 187. |
Sahn, David E. and Stephen D. Younger
August 2007
Decomposing World Education Inequality
We decompose global inequality in educational achievement into within- and between-
country components. We find that the former is significantly larger. This is different
than results for international income inequality, but similar to results for international
health inequality.
View Working Paper 187 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 186. |
Ssewanyana, Sarah and Stephen D. Younger
January 2005
Infant Mortality in Uganda:
Determinants, Trends, and the Millennium Development Goals
Unusually for an African economy, Uganda’s growth has been rapid and sustained for an
extended period of time. Further, this growth has clearly translated into substantial declines in
poverty for all socio-economic groups and in all regions of the country. Despite this, there is
concern in the country that other indicators of well-being are not improving at the same rate as
incomes. This paper studies one such indicator, infant mortality. We use three rounds of the
Uganda Demographic and Health Surveys to construct a national time series for infant mortality
over a long period of time, 1974-1999. We also use these survey data to model the determinants
of infant mortality and, based on those results, to examine the likelihood that Uganda will meet
the Millennium Development Goal of halving infant mortality by 2015.
Alternate version in Journal of African Economies 17(1):34-61, 2008
View Working Paper 186 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 185. |
Bellemare, Marc F. and Barrett, Christopher B.
May 2006
An Ordered Tobit of Market Participation: Evidence from Kenya and Ethiopia
Do rural households in developing countries make market participation and volume
decisions simultaneously or sequentially? This article develops a two-stage
econometric model that allows testing between these two competing hypotheses
regarding household-level market behavior. The first stage models the household’s
choice of whether to be a net buyer, autarkic, or a net seller in the market. The
second stage models the quantity bought (sold) for net buyers (sellers) based on observable
household characteristics. Using household data from Kenya and Ethiopia
on livestock markets, we find evidence in favor of sequential decision-making, the
welfare implications of which we discuss.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 184. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
January 2005
On the Relevance of Identities, Communities, Groups and Networks to the Economics of Poverty Alleviation
In The Social Economics of Poverty: Identities, Groups, Communities and Networks, Christopher B. Barrett (ed.), London: Routledge, 2005:
This book aims to advance economists’ understanding of such questions
by exploring how individuals’ social and moral identities affect their
membership in communities, groups, and networks, how those identities and
social affiliations affect microeconomic behavior, and how the resulting
behaviors affect poverty. Humans do not live in isolation: their behavior
depends on the relations that shape their world. Variation in relationships can
perhaps lead to predictable variation in behaviors and economic outcomes,
which, in turn, affect social relationships through subtle feedback mechanisms.
Partly as a consequence, the dynamics of human social interactions and the
effects on persistent poverty have become a very active area of economic
research.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 183. |
Glick, Peter J., Alessandra Marini, and David E. Sahn
October 2007
Estimating the Consequences of Unintended Fertility for Child Health and Education in Romania: An Analysis Using Twins Data
We use the natural experiment of twins at first birth to estimate the effects of unplanned fertility
on the nutritional status and school enrollment of children in Romania, a country with a unique
fertility history. A first birth twins shock has negative impacts on children’s human capital
investments, particularly for later siblings. We infer that harsh pronatalist polices prior to the
1989 Revolution had adverse consequences for the human capital of Romanian children, and that
policies to make fertility control easier will have significant positive impacts on children’s health and schooling.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 182. |
Kanbur, Ravi
January 2005
Pareto’s Revenge
Consider a project or a policy reform. In general, this change will create winners
and losers. Some people will be better off, others will be worse off. Making an overall
judgment on social welfare depends on weighing up the gains and losses across
individuals. How can we make these comparisons? In the 1930s, a strong school of
economic thought led by Lionel Robbins held that economists qua economists have no
business making such judgments. They only have a basis for declaring an improvement
when no such interpersonal comparisons of gains and losses are involved. Only a change
which makes nobody worse off and at least one person better off, can be declared an
improvement.
Such a change is called a Pareto Improvement (PI). If no such changes are
possible, the state of affairs is described as being Pareto Efficient (PE), a Pareto
Optimum, or Pareto Optimal (PO). Named after Vilfredo Pareto, PI and PE are central to
post 1945 high economic theory. After all, PE makes an appearance in the two
fundamental theorems of Welfare Economics. These are that every competitive
equilibrium (CE) is PE, and every PE allocation can be achieved as a CE, under certain
conditions. Through these theorems, the post second world war economic theory of
Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu links back to Lionel Robbins and Vilfredo Pareto,
and thence to Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand of competitive markets. From there the links
come full circle back to stances taken in current policy debates on the role of markets and
government.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 181. |
Kanbur, Ravi
January 2005
Reforming the Formula:
A Modest Proposal for Introducing Development Outcomes in IDA Allocation
Procedures
This paper develops a modest proposal for introducing final outcome indicators in the
IDA aid allocation formula. It starts with a review of the current formula and the rationale
for it. It is argued that this formula, and in particular the Country Policy and Institutional
Assessment (CPIA) part of it, implicitly relies too heavily on a uniform model of what
works in development policy. Even if this model were valid "on average", the variations
around the average make it an unreliable sole guide to the country-specific productivity
of aid in achieving the final objectives of development. Rather, it is argued that changes
in the actual outcomes on these final objectives could also be used as part of the
allocation formula. A number of conceptual and operational objections to this position
are considered and debated. The paper concludes that there is much to be gained by
taking small steps in the direction of introducing outcome variables in the IDA formula,
and assessing the experience of doing so in a few years’ time.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 180. |
Moser, Christine, Christopher B. Barrett, and Bart Minten
January 2008
Spatial Integration at Multiple Scales:
Rice Markets in Madagascar
This paper uses an exceptionally rich data set to test the extent to which markets in Madagascar
are integrated across space at different scales of analysis and to explain some of the factors that
limit spatial arbitrage and price equalization within a single country. We use rice price data
across four quarters of 2000-2001 along with data on transportation costs and infrastructure
availability for nearly 1400 communes in Madagascar to examine the extent of market
integration at three different spatial scales—sub-regional, regional, and national—and to
determine whether non-integration is due to high transfer costs or lack of competition. The
results indicate that markets are fairly well integrated at the sub-regional level and that factors
such as high crime rates, remoteness, and lack of information are among the factors limiting
competition.
ition.
View Working Paper 180 (PDF FORMAT)
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179. |
Minten, Bart and Christopher B. Barrett
May 2008
Agricultural Technology, Productivity, and Poverty
in Madagascar
This paper uses a unique, spatially-explicit dataset to study the link between
agricultural performance and rural poverty in Madagascar. We show that, controlling for geographical
and physical characteristics, communes that have higher rates of adoption of improved
agricultural technologies and, consequently, higher crop yields enjoy lower food prices, higher real
wages for unskilled workers, and better welfare indicators. The empirical evidence strongly favors
support for improved agricultural production as an important part of any strategy to reduce the
high poverty and food insecurity rates currently prevalent in rural Madagascar.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 178. |
Carter, Michael R. and Christopher B. Barrett
February 2006
The Economics of Poverty Traps and Persistent Poverty: An Asset-Based Approach
Longitudinal data on household living standards open the way to a deeper analysis of the
nature and extent of poverty. While a number of studies have exploited this type of data
to distinguish transitory from more chronic forms of income or expenditure poverty, this
paper develops an asset-based approach to poverty analysis that makes it possible to
distinguish deep-rooted, persistent structural poverty from poverty that passes naturally
with time due to systemic growth processes. Drawing on the economic theory of poverty
traps and bifurcated accumulation strategies, this paper briefly discusses some feasible
estimation strategies for empirically identifying poverty traps and long term, persistent
structural poverty. We also propose an extension of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke class of
poverty measures to provide a natural measure of long-term welfare status. The paper
closes with reflections on how asset-based poverty can be used to underwrite the design
of persistent poverty reduction strategies.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 177. |
Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait M. and David Shapiro
December 2004
Buffering Inequalities: The Safety Net of Extended Families in Cameroon
Extended family systems play an important role in buffering socioeconomic inequality in African
societies, notably through fosterage of children across nuclear family units. Yet, there is concern
that this support system would break down under the influence of globalization and recent
economic crises. Whereas previous scholarship to address this concern has focused on trends in
rates of family extension/ fosterage, we argue in this paper that a full account of trends in the
buffering influence of extended families requires simultaneous attention to trends in (a) fosterage
rates, (b) the distribution of fosterage opportunities, (c) the ameliorative effects of fosterage.
This study focuses on the buffering influence of fosterage on schooling inequalities.
Taking Cameroon as a case study and using the retrospective fosterage and schooling histories of
2,257 children, we examine the historical trends in these three proximate determinants of the
buffering influence of extended families. Findings suggest that while the ameliorative effects of
fosterage (once children are fostered) have not changed over time, both the rates and the
distribution of fosterage opportunities have changed in ways that raise concern for children at the
bottom quintile of the resource distribution.
View Working Paper 177 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 176. |
Oosthuizen, Morné and Haroon Bhorat
December 2004
The Post-Apartheid South African Labour Market
Since 1994, the South African economy has undergone significant changes with the government implementing various policies aimed at redressing the injustices of the past, fleshing out the welfare system and improving competitiveness as South Africa becomes increasingly integrated into the global economy. These policies have, directly or indirectly, impacted on the labour market and, consequently, on the lives of millions of South Africans.
This paper’s chief objective is the analysis of some of the changes in the South African labour market in the post-apartheid era. The period, between 1995 and 2002, began with much promise and many challenges as the economy liberalised and normal trade relations were resumed with the rest of the world. Soon after the African National Congress came into power, the macro-economic strategy named “Growth, Employment and Redistribution” (or GEAR) was unveiled in 1996. This strategy predicted, amongst other things, employment growth averaging 270 000 jobs per annum from 1996 to 2000, with the number of new jobs created rising over time from 126 000 in 1996 to 409 000 in 2000 (GEAR 1996). Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, these projections were not realised. In fact, in terms of the labour market, the experience of the second half of the 1990s appears to have fallen short of even the baseline scenario contained in the GEAR document, which projected a net increase in (non-agricultural formal) employment of slightly more than 100 000 jobs per annum.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 175. |
Glick, Peter and François Roubaud
December 2006
Export Processing Zone Expansion in Madagascar: What are the Labor Market and Gender Impacts?
This paper analyzes part of the controversy over export processing zones—the labor market and gender impacts—using unique time-series labor force survey data from an African setting: urban Madagascar, in which the EPZ (or Zone Franche) grew very rapidly during the 1990s. Employment in the Zone Franche exhibits some basic patterns seen elsewhere in export processing industries of the developing world, such as the predominance of young, semi-skilled female workers. Taking advantage of microdata availability, we estimate earnings regressions to assess sector and gender wage premia. Zone Franche employment is found to represent a significant step up in pay for women who would otherwise be found in poorly remunerated informal sector work. Because it provides relatively high wage opportunities for those with relatively low levels of schooling, export processing development may also eventually have significant impacts on poverty. Further, by disproportionately drawing women from the low-wage sector informal sector (where the gender pay gap is very large) to the relatively well-paid export processing jobs (where pay is not only higher but also similar for men and women with similar qualifications), the EPZ has the potential to contribute to improved overall gender equity in earnings in the urban economy. Along many non-wage dimensions, jobs in the export processing zone are comparable to or even superior to other parts of the formal sector. However, the sector is also marked by very long working hours and high turnover, which may work to prevent it from being a source of long-term employment and economic advancement for women.
Paper prepared for the conference “African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage” Cape Town, South Africa October 2004
Now available as a reprint .
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| 174. |
Glick, Peter
August 2005
Scaling Up HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing in Africa: What Can Evaluation Studies Tell Us About Potential Prevention Impacts?
Although there is a widespread belief that scaling up HIV voluntary testing and counseling
(VCT) programs in Africa will have large prevention benefits through reductions in risk
behaviors, these claims are difficult to establish from existing evaluations of VCT.
Considerations from behavioral models and the available data suggest that as VCT coverage
expands marginal program effects are likely to decline due to changes in the degree of client
selectivity, and that potential uptake among those at highest risk is uncertain. The paper also
assesses two other common perceptions about VCT in Africa: that a policy of promoting
couples-oriented VCT would be more successful than one emphasizing individual testing, and
that VCT demand and prevention impacts will be enhanced where scaling up is accompanied by
the provision of anti-retroviral drugs.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 173. |
Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn
April 2007
Changes in HIV/AIDS Knowledge and Testing Behavior in Africa: How Much and for Whom?
Demographic and Health Survey data from six African countries indicate that HIV
prevention knowledge is improving and that more Africans are getting tested. Still, in
many cases fewer than half of adult respondents can identify specific prevention
behaviors; knowledge appears particularly inadequate in countries not yet fully gripped
by the epidemic. Schooling and wealth impacts on prevention knowledge generally have
either not changed or have increased, meaning that initial disparities in knowledge by
education and wealth levels have persisted or widened. HIV messages therefore need to
be made more accessible to and/or better understood by the poor and less educated.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 172. |
León, Mauricio and Stephen D. Younger
August 2007
Transfer Payments, Mother’s Income, and Child Health in
Ecuador
This paper evaluates the impact of the Bono Solidario, a transfer payment scheme in
Ecuador, on children’s nutritional status. In addition to testing for pure income effects,
because the program transfers money to mothers of young children, we are able to test
whether mother’s income has a stronger effect on children’s heights and weights than
ordinary household income. Using simple quasi-reduced form estimates that control for the
endogeneity of household expenditures and the choice to participate in the program, we draw
two main conclusions: that the Bono Solidario transfer payment scheme has had a
statistically significant but quite modest impact on children’s nutritional status in Ecuador,
and that this impact is no different than any other income effect on height and weight. In
particular, the fact that the Bono is transferred to mothers has not made it more efficacious
at reducing malnutrition than other household income.
It is interesting to compare these results to Behrman and Hoddinott’s (2001)
evaluation of the impact of the PROGRESA transfer payment scheme in Mexico. Even though
the size of the monetary transfer is similar in each program, both in absolute terms and as a
share of household resources, Behrman and Hoddinott find much larger impacts of
PROGRESA on children’s heights than we find here. This contrast leads us to speculate that
it is the non-income aspects of PROGRESA, particularly the required health care and public
health lectures, which have had the larger effect on children’s nutritional status. If that is
true, then the Ecuadorian government’s plan to begin to condition the Bono Solidario on
health-seeking behaviors holds the promise of a more substantial impact on children’s
heights and weights.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 171. |
Dumas, Christelle, Peter Glick, Sylvie Lambert, David E. Sahn, and Leopold Sarr
July 2004
Progression through School and Academic Performance in Senegal: Descriptive Survey Results
This report provides a preliminary descriptive analysis of some of the data from
The Progression through School and Academic Performance in Senegal Study, a joint
research project of Cornell University, Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée
(CREA), and INRA. This project is based around a nation-wide household survey with a special
focus on schooling, complimented by academic and life skills tests and additional surveys
of local schools and communities. The topics covered in this report focus on the
household survey and test score data and include: enrollment rates; school attainment;
grade repetition; dropouts and progression to secondary school; academic and life skills
test scores; and perceptions about education and schooling.
View Working Paper 171 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 170. |
Lentz, Erin and Christopher B. Barrett
July 2005
Food Aid Targeting, Shocks and Private Transfers Among East African Pastoralists
Public transfers of food aid are intended largely to support vulnerable
populations in times of stress. We use high frequency panel data among
Ethiopian and Kenyan pastoralists to test the efficacy of food aid targeting
under three different targeting modalities, food aid’s responsiveness to
different types of covariate shocks, and its relationship to private transfers.
We find that, in this region, self-targeting food-for-work or indicatortargeted
free food distribution more effectively reach the poor than do food
aid distributed according to community-based targeting. Food aid flows do
not respond significantly to either covariate, community-level income or
asset shocks. Rather, food aid flows appear to respond mainly to more
readily observable rainfall measures. Finally, food aid does not appear to
affect private transfers in any meaningful way, either by crowding out
private gifts to recipient households nor by stimulating increased gifts by
food aid recipients.
View Working Paper 170 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 169. |
Barrett, Christopher B., Paswel Phiri Marenya, John McPeak, Bart Minten, Festus Murithi, Willis Oluoch-Kosura, Frank Place, Jean Claude Randrianarisoa, Jhon Rasambainarivo and Justine Wangila
February 2006
Welfare Dynamics in Rural Kenya and Madagascar
This paper presents comparative qualitative and quantitative evidence from rural Kenya and Madagascar in an attempt to untangle the causality behind persistent poverty. We find striking differences in welfare dynamics depending on whether one uses total income, including stochastic terms and inevitable measurement error, or the predictable, structural component of income based on a household’s asset holdings. Our results suggest the existence of multiple dynamic asset and structural income equilibria, consistent with the poverty traps hypothesis. Furthermore, we find supporting evidence of locally increasing returns to assets and of risk management behaviour consistent with poor households' defence of a critical asset threshold through asset smoothing.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 168. |
Glick, Peter, Josée Randriamamonjy, and David E. Sahn
June 2008
Determinants of HIV Knowledge and Condom Use among Women in Madagascar: An Analysis Using Matched Household and Community Data
We estimate the determinants of HIV/AIDS knowledge and related behavior (use of condoms)
among women in Madagascar, a country where prevalence remains low but conditions are ripe
for a rapid increase in infections. In both rural and urban areas, more educated and wealthier
women are more likely to know about means of preventing infection, less likely to have
misconceptions about transmission, and more likely to use condoms. Community factors such as
availability of health centers and access to roads also are associated with greater HIV knowledge. However, most of the large rural-urban difference in mean knowledge is due not to location per se but to differences in schooling and wealth; rather than simply being geographically targeted, AIDS education efforts must be designed to target and be understood by uneducated and poor subpopulations.
Forthcoming in African Development Review
View Working Paper 168 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 167. |
Glick, Peter, Rumki Saha, and Stephen D. Younger
May 2004
Integrating Gender into Benefit Incidence and Demand
Analysis
This report addresses two questions: To what extent does public spending
mitigate or exacerbate gender inequities in welfare in developing
countries? How can existing allocations of public expenditure be changed
to improve gender equity in the use of services such as health and
education? It does this through a detailed review and interpretation of
the existing literature and through primary analyses on a large sample of
developing country data sets. Regarding the first question, we integrate
gender considerations into standard benefit incidence analysis, and
address in particular the issue of whether and how gender gaps in benefits
vary across the income distribution. The second question is addressed
through gender-disaggregated econometric analysis of the demand for public
services, including health care, education, and water. The paper also
sets out the appropriate methodologies for integrating gender into benefit
incidence analysis and for comparing impacts by gender of policies
affecting the demand for services. The main lesson drawn from the
empirical analysis—as well as from a careful reading of the existing
literature—is that gender differences in the use of services, and the
response of these gaps to changes in incomes and policies, are not
universal and do not always occur where they might be most expected.
Therefore they need to be investigated on a case by case basis.
View Working Paper 167 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 166. |
Glick, Peter, Harivelo Rajemison, Arsène Ravelo, Yolande Raveloarison, Mamisoa
Razakamanantsoa, and David E. Sahn
March 2005
The Progression through School and Academic Performance in
Madagascar Study: Preliminary Descriptive Results
This paper is a preliminary analysis of the Etude sur la Progression Scolaire et la Performance Academique en Madagascar (EPSPAM). The study is based on a nation-wide household survey with a special focus on schooling, complimented by academic and life skills tests and additional surveys of local schools and communities. The survey was designed to investigate the household, community, and school-level determinants of a range of education outcomes in Madagascar: primary and secondary enrollment, grade repetition and dropout during primary and lower secondary school cycles, transitions from primary to secondary school, and learning — both academic (math and French test scores) and non-academic ('life-skills'). It also seeks to understand the association of early academic performance, on the one hand, and subsequent school progression and scholastic attainment, on the other. The study also investigates the knowledge and perceptions of parents about the schools in their communities. In addition, the policy environment in education in Madagascar has been very dynamic in the last several years. Therefore the study also evaluates the implementation and impacts of several important recent policies in education, including the elimination of public primary school fees and the provision of books and supplies, as well as a series of administrative reforms such as the professionalization of the chefs CISCO and efforts to make school finances more transparent.
View Working Paper 166 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 165. |
Sahn, David E. and Stephen D. Younger
June 2005
Changes in Inequality and Poverty in Latin America: Looking Beyond Income to Health and Education
This paper uses Demographic and Health Survey data from six Latin American countries to analyze levels and trends of inequality for two important non-income measures of well-being, children’s stature and adult women’s educational attainment. Our purpose is to determine whether the worrying trend of increasing income inequality in Latin America is also found in non-income dimensions of well-being. We find that it is not. Almost across the board, health inequality, measured by children’s stature, and education inequality, measured by young women’s years of schooling, have fallen in these countries in the late 1980s and 1990s, often dramatically. Further, by decomposing changes in non-income dimensions of poverty into shifts in the mean and changes in the distribution of health and education, we show that reduced inequality has contributed to significant reductions in education poverty, and to a lesser extent, health poverty. This, too, is a very different result from the income inequality literature.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 164. |
Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait M., J. Mayone Stycos, and Fatou Jah
May 2004
Integrating Education and Population Policy:
The Gender-Equity Payoffs of Reducing Pregnancy-Related Dropouts
Plausible arguments suggest that policies to avoid pregnancy-related dropouts can help
close gender gaps in education in Africa but these payoffs require quantification. This
research uses schooling life tables to simulate how the gender gaps in secondary school
completion within 23 sub-Saharan African countries would narrow if these countries
reduced the incidence of pregnancy-related dropouts. Results suggest that reducing
pregnancy-related dropouts is neither indispensable nor sufficient to close current gender
gaps in most cases, yet it could halve these gaps in one third of the countries studied.
View Working Paper 164 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 163. |
Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait M., Ngoube Maurice, Okene Richard, V.P Onguene,Serge Bahoken, Joseph Tamukong, Moses Mbangwana, Joseph Essindi Evina, and Caroline Mongue Djongoue
April 2004
Access to Schooling and Employment in Cameroon:
New Inequalities and Opportunities
This report is about recent trends in education and access to employment in Cameroon. It focuses
on five questions about (1) current levels of schooling, (2) recent trends in enrolment, (3) recent
trends in schooling inequalities, (4) access to employment, and (5) risks and opportunities to
improve education and employment outcomes. Based on these analyses, the report discusses several
challenges and opportunities in improving education and employment outcomes.
View Working Paper 163 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 162. |
Kanbur, Ravi
March 2005
Growth, Inequality and Poverty:
Some Hard Questions
This commentary poses a series of progressively harder questions in the economic analysis of growth, inequality and poverty. Starting with relatively straightforward analysis of the relationship between growth and inequality, the first level of hard questions come when we ask what policies and institutions are causally related to equitable growth. Some progress is being made here by the economics literature, but relatively little is known about the second level, harder questions—how a society comes to acquire "good" policies and institutions, and what exactly it is that we are buying into when we accept the number one Millennium Development Goal of the United Nations—halving the incidence of income poverty by the year 2015.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 161. |
Kanbur, Ravi
November 2004
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM):
An Assessment of Concept and Design
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) has been proposed as a key
element of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). It is important that the APRM be thoroughly debated in terms of concept and design. This paper is a contribution to the debate. The paper derives design criteria for peer review mechanisms after looking at some functioning examples. These criteria are—Competence, Independence, and Competition. It is argued that while the APRM is a welcome addition to pan-African institutional structure, its design will have to be improved for it to be truly successful. First, APRM should greatly narrow the scope of its reviews if it is to deliver competent assessments. Second NEPAD should devote significant resources to allow
civil society in the reviewed country to do assessments of their own, and to critique the APRM assessment.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 160. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
March 2004
Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods of
Analyzing Poverty Dynamics
This paper outlines my current thinking and recent experience in mixing qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis so as to gain a firmer and more useful understanding of poverty dynamics, especially in rural Kenya. We first explore the very real differences between qualitative and quantitive poverty analysis methods, differences that make them useful complements. Then we debunk a few myths about differences that do not really exist. Finally, I discuss key lessons learned from four multi-year research projects in Kenya that have tried to implement mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods with a range of researchers from animal science, anthropology, economics, geography, range science, sociology and soil science.
Now available as a reprint.
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| 159. |
Sarr, Leopold R.
January 2004
The Impact of Family Literacy on the Earnings of Illiterates: Evidence from Senegal
This paper investigates the extent to which the sharing of literacy knowledge within the
household affects the labor force participation and the earnings of illiterate workers in Senegal.
Controlling for selection bias, selective sorting, endogeneity and measurement error in the
literacy variables, I find evidence that parental literacy and education do not capture all sources of external literacy benefits and that illiterate members also benefit from other literate members of the household. It also appears that rural workers and male illiterates tend to participate more in the labor market than their urban and female counterparts. The earnings of an illiterate female
worker (or an urban worker) are, on average, 44% (or 37%) higher than the ones of another
illiterate female (urban) worker whose family’s ratio of literate to illiterate members is one point
lower. This suggests that policies targeting isolated illiterate households, in both rural and urban
zones as well as illiterate women—who appear to be better recipients and generators of external
literacy benefits within households—are likely to mitigate their vulnerability and thus to reduce
the incidence of illiteracy and poverty in Senegal.
View Working Paper 159 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 158. |
Moser, Christine M. and Christopher B. Barrett
November 2006
The Complex Dynamics of Smallholder Technology Adoption:
The Case of SRI in Madagascar
This paper explores the dynamics of smallholder technology adoption, with particular
reference to a high-yielding, low-external input rice production method in Madagascar. We present a
simple model of technology adoption by farm households in an environment of incomplete financial
and land markets. We then use a probit model and symmetrically censored least squares estimation
of a dynamic Tobit model to analyze the decisions to adopt, expand and disadopt the method. We
find that seasonal liquidity constraints discourage adoption by poorer farmers. Learning effects—both from extension agents and from other farmers—exert significant influence over adoption
decisions.
Now available as a reprint.
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| 156. |
Sahn, David
May 2005
Equality of What? Evidence from India
This paper explores univariate health inequality in India using a representative sample of pre-school age children. I make comparisons, both spatially between states, and inter-temporally, to both illustrate the methods for measuring and decomposing health inequality, while providing some interesting empirical findings on health inequality. The results suggest that the changes in the distribution of height are less important than the changes in the mean values, when explaining the evolution of the nutrition poverty index over time in India. However, I also observe that the level of
stunted growth would be reduced markedly among the various Indian states if the
distribution of heights corresponded to the pattern that exists in Kerala, where health of children is relatively equally distributed. In addition, I compare the health inequality results to income inequality figures reported elsewhere, and find no correlation.
Presented at Poverty, Inequality and Development: A Conference in Honor of Erik Thorbecke, Cornell University, October 10-11, 2003.
In Poverty, Inequality and Development: Essays in Honor of
Erik Thorbecke, Alain de Janvry and Ravi Kanbur, eds., Norwell, MA:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 155. |
Fafchamps, Marcel and Minten, Bart
January 2004
Public Service Provision, User Fees, and Political Turmoil
Following an electoral dispute, the central highlands of the island of
Madagascar were subjected to an economic blockade during the first half of
2002. After the blockade ended in June 2002, user fees for health services and school fees were progressively eliminated. This paper examines the provision of schooling and health services to rural areas of Madagascar before, during, and after the blockade. We find that public services were more resilient to the blockade than initially anticipated, but that health services were more affected than schools. The removal of user fees had a large significant effect on public services that is distinct from the end of the blockade and the increase in school book provision.
View Working Paper 155 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 154. |
Barrett, Christopher B. and John G. McPeak
December 2005
Poverty Traps and Safety Nets
This paper uses data from northern Kenya to argue that the concept of poverty traps needs to be taken seriously, and that if poverty traps indeed exist, then safety nets become all the more important. However, as presently practiced, safety nets based on food aid appear to be failing in northern Kenya.
In Poverty, Inequality and Development: Essays in Honor of Erik Thorbecke, Alain de Janvry and Ravi Kanbur, eds., Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005
Now available as a reprint .
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| 153. |
Barrett, Christopher B. and Brent M. Swallow
January 2006
Fractal Poverty Traps
This paper offers an informal theory of a special sort of poverty trap, one in which multiple dynamic equilibria exist simultaneously at multiple (micro, meso and/or macro) scales of analysis and are self-reinforcing through feedback effects. Small adjustments at any one of these levels are unlikely to move the system away from its dominant, stable dynamic equilibrium. Governments, markets and communities are simultaneously weak in places characterized by fractal poverty traps. No unit operates at a high-level equilibrium in such a system. All seem simultaneously trapped in low-level equilibria. The fractal poverty traps formulation suggests four interrelated strategic emphases for poverty reduction strategies.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 152. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
September 2005
Smallholder Identities and Social Networks:
The Challenge of Improving Productivity and Welfare
This paper proposes a general framework for resolving the puzzle of how to reconcile the mass of recent evidence on the salutary effects of social capital at the individual level with the casual, larger-scale observation that social embeddedness appears negatively correlated with productivity and material measures of welfare. It advances an analytical framework that not only explains individual productivity or technology adoption behavior as a function of the characteristics or behaviors of others, but that also explains the aggregate properties of social systems characterized by persistently low productivity. Examples from Kenya and Madagascar are used to illustrate the phenomena discussed.
In The Social Economics of Poverty: Identities, Groups, Communities and Networks, Christopher B. Barrett, editor, London: Routledge, 2005.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 151. |
Younger, Stephen D.
October 2003
Growth and Poverty Reduction in Uganda, 1992-1999:
A Multidimensional Analysis of Changes in Living Standards
This paper examines Uganda’s progress on poverty reduction when poverty is measured in multiple dimensions. In particular, I consider poverty measures that are defined across household expenditures per capita or household assets, children’s health status, and in some cases, mother’s literacy. The comparisons are robust to the choice of poverty line, poverty measure, and
sampling error. In general, I find that multidimensional poverty declined significantly in Uganda during the 1990s, although results for the latter half of the decade are more ambiguous. While there was clear progress in the dimension of expenditures and assets, improvement in children’s
height-for-age z-scores is less certain for the 1995-2000 period. I also make poverty comparisons for individual regions and urban and rural areas in the country. Rather surprisingly, progress on multivariate poverty reduction is less clear in Central region and in urban areas.
View Working Paper 151 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 150. |
Andriantsoa, Pascal, Nancy Andriasendrarivony, Vincent Carbonneau, Steven Haggblade, Bart Minten, Mamy Rakotojaona, Frederick Rakotovoavy, and Harivelle Sarindra Razafinimanana
August 2003
Les médias malgaches: floraison spontanée d’une ressource nationale
More than hundred radio stations have been started up over the last decade in Madagascar. These are mostly private and co-exist with the National Malagasy Radio that used to have the monopoly in the country. In the same way, more than 15 private groups started TV stations which broadcast along side the national TV. Madagascar has a long history on written press. Today, on top of the five national newspapers, there exist more than hundred publications that are published on a weekly, monthly, three-month or other regular basis. This study on the Malagasy media aims to answer the following questions: Where is this explosive growth of media coming from? Will private investments be able to sustain this sector? Which types of messages and programs are being broadcasted in the media? Which part of the population is targeted? What is the role of the government?
View Working Paper 150 (PDF FORMAT)
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| 149. |
Barrett, Christopher B.
March 2005
Rural Poverty Dynamics: Development Policy Implications
This paper summarizes a few key findings from a rich and growing body of research on the nature of rural poverty and, especially, the development policy implications of relatively recent findings and ongoing work. Perhaps the most fundamental lesson of recent research on rural poverty is the need to distinguish transitory from chronic poverty. The existence of widespread chronic poverty also raises the possibility of poverty traps. I discuss some of the empirical and theoretical challenges of identifying and explaining poverty traps. In policy terms, the distinction between transitory and chronic poverty implies a need to distinguish between "cargo net" and "safety net" interventions and a central role for effective targeting of interventions.
Prepared for invited presentation to the 25th International Conference of Agricultural Economists, August 17, 2003, Durban, South Africa.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 148. |
Meyerhoefer, Chad, Christine R. Ranney, and David E. Sahn
August 2005
Consistent Estimation of Censored Demand System using Panel Data
We derive a joint continuous/censored commodity demand system for panel data applications. Unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for using a correlated random effects specification and a generalized method of moments framework used to estimate the model. While relatively small differences in elasticity estimates are found between a flexible random effects specification and one that restricts the random effect coefficient to be time invariant, larger differences are observed when comparing the flexible model to a pooled cross-sectional estimator. The results suggest the limited ability of such estimators to control for preference heterogeneity and unit-value endogeneity leads to parameter bias.
Now available as a reprint .
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| 147. |
