This paper analyses the pathways of technology diffusion through social networks, following the experimental introduction of new technologies in Guinea-Bissau. In the context of an agricultural extension project, we document both the direct effects...
Investments in infrastructure – such as roads – typically aim to reduce transport costs, stimulate trade, and make new production activities viable...
Regional integration in Africa has potential for increasing regional trade and contribute towards industrialization and economic development. Agro-processing trade offers numerous opportunities for southern Africa countries and is a potential area of...
This paper explores agricultural performance of Mozambique, its institutional weaknesses, and the underlying factors that underpin an unsatisfactory performance during many decades. We point to the role of systemic political instability and violence...
Climate change is expected to increase the risk in agricultural production due to increasing temperatures and rainfall variability. Smallholders can adjust by diversifying income sources, including through migration. Most existing studies investigate...
Danielle Resnick and Regina Birner In recent years, there has been renewed emphasis on promoting agricultural production and food security in sub...
Using survey data from rural Vietnam, this paper documents a statistically significant, positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. Wage workers are less happy than farmers across a range of different types of wage jobs...
This paper explores the effect of land titling on agricultural productivity in Vietnam and the productivity effects of single versus joint titling for husband and wife. Using a plot-fixed-effects approach our results show that obtaining a land title...
Economic development in low income settings is often associated with an expansion of higher-value agricultural activities. Since these activities often bring new risks, an understanding of cropland decisions and how these interact with shocks is...
The recent food price crisis and the responses of the policy makers in developing countries provide an unprecedented opportunity to analyse the policy processes in these countries. Policy responses differed depending on the nature and magnitude of...
Agriculture contributes substantially to output and employment in South Asian countries. Therefore, any change, like trade liberalization, that impacts on the agriculture sector has widespread ramifications in terms of employment, nutrition...
This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade liberalization, for low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty...
This paper examines the impact of income risk on the level of well-being of rural households in Nigeria. While income risk is defined as the risks associated with variability in income well-being is defined in terms of the level of utility reached by...
Trade liberalization, by aligning domestic prices with world prices, is envisaged to bring welfare gains to a country. In the case of Indian agriculture, owing to the vastness and diversity of the sector, the impact is likely to be profoundly unequal...
This paper addresses informal cross-border trade in the Horn of Africa, with an emphasis on the Somalia borderlands. It will be shown that despite the collapse of a government in 1991, Somalia’s unofficial exports of cattle to Kenya have grown...
Agricultural development can contribute significantly to peace by raising incomes and employment, thereby reducing the social frustrations that give rise to violence. Agricultural growth also generates revenues for governments, allowing them to...
Land efficiency in urban China is examined, using Tianjin as a case study, from the perspective of agricultural land conservation; reduction in energy use, conventional pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions; and human time savings. Issues addressed...
This paper examines growth successes and failures across countries and notes the latter’s perplexing predominance among ex ante low-income economies. An explanation for this persistence of underdevelopment is proposed through an empirical...
Can agricultural development programs improve health-related outcomes? We exploit a spatial discontinuity in the coverage of a large-scale agricultural extensionprogram in Uganda to causally identify its effects on malaria. We find that eligibility...
An AGE model with detailed farm supply and substitution relationships is used to analyze impacts of OECD domestic support reform on developing economy welfare. Stylized simulations indicate reforms best suited for reducing trade distortions with...
International narratives on Argentina’s recovery from the crisis of 2001-02 tend to emphasize the role of rising commodity prices and growing demand from China. Argentina is said to have been ‘lucky’, saved by global demand for its agricultural...
The 2008 episode of food price explosion, political turmoil, and human suffering revealed important flaws in the current global food architecture. This paper argues that to safeguard the strengths of the current system, four failures in market...
Livelihoods of the rural poor in developing countries are critically dependent on the health of the local ecosystems. In this paper we examine the various mechanisms through which globalization can lead to ecosystem degradation, and consequently...
Throughout human history, technology has proven its ability to contribute to higher material living standards, yet the work of poverty alleviation is far from complete. We believe that in the modern age, biotechnology holds remarkable potential for...
In river basins around the world, formal agreements based on international watercourse law are seen as important mechanisms for promoting sustainability and cooperation. While such agreements have been effective in avoiding conflict between states in...
Climate change assessments often inadequately address uncertainty when estimating damages. Using a dynamic economy-wide model of Bangladesh, we estimate and decompose damages from historical climate variability and future anthropogenic climate change...
The consequences of climate change for agriculture and food security in developing countries are of serious concern. Due to their reliance on rain-fed agriculture both as a source of income and consumption, many low-income countries are generally...
This paper argues for a change in government attitudes to their extractive industries: as enclaves useful primarily as revenue sources. This is too narrow a perspective: it fails to recognize the broader economic linkages that are invariably possible...
Chapter in book: Wives and Widows at Work: Women’s Labour in Agrarian Bengal, Then and Now Compared with most other Indian states, women’s reported work participation rates have historically been low in West Bengal. This trend is more prominent in...
Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, poor in natural resources, and with low levels of human development. Its economy remains agricultural and focused on food crops and cotton production. Over the last twenty years it has experienced...
Evidence obtained from detailed household surveys in Mozambique during the 2008-09 food price shock reveals just how pronounced the impact of food price inflation can be on children’s overall nutrition status. Moderate and severe underweight...
The Egyptian food system has been affected by both global food markets and domestic factors. During the recent global food price crisis, an estimated 30–40 percent of the price fluctuations in the global food market were transmitted to Egypt’s food...
The impact of the 2007–08 food price crisis in Brazil was relatively subdued compared with what took place in many other developing countries. Because the crisis potentially undermined both social inclusion and price stability, both important...
The global food crisis in 2007–08 raised concerns everywhere, including in China. However, despite China’s highly-integrated domestic and international markets for many agricultural commodities, the effect of the crisis in China was only moderate...
Global food price hikes during 2007-08 resulted in a sharp rise in staple food prices in Bangladesh, which in turn led to a significant rise in the number of households falling below the poverty line. On the political front, Bangladesh was run by an...
Increased technical and scale efficiency in the production of wheat has been of major interest for farmers and administrators alike in Uzbekistan particularly since wheat became a strategic crop to achieve the goal of food self-sufficiency soon after...
Africa is urbanizing rapidly. Yet most dual economy models focus on the sectoral rather than spatial dimensions of development. This article adopts a “dual–dual” approach to measuring rural/urban and farm/nonfarm linkages. We develop an economy-wide...
This paper jointly evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and...
Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to...
This paper examines the current interest in addressing the problem of young people’s unemployment in Africa through agriculture. Using notions of transitions and mobilities we set out a transformative work and opportunity space framework that...
Part of Journal Special Issue Entrepreneurship and Conflict
Luc Christiaensen Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER At the G8 July summit in Aquila, Italy, US$ 20 billion was pledged to support farmers in poorer...
Ethiopia represents an excellent case study of recent industrial policy experimentation in Africa. The country is well known for its successful promotion of the cut-flower industry through business-government co-ordination. What is less known is that...
This article presents an overview of the current special issue ‘Institutions and African Economies’. The findings include: (1) greater prevalence of democratic regimes improved both agricultural productivity and the overall growth of African...
Biofuels could offer new economic opportunities for low-income countries. We use a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of Tanzania to evaluate different biofuels production options and estimate their impacts on growth and poverty...
The effects of climate change in Turkey are expected to be significant. The aim of this paper is to quantify the effects of climate change on the overall economy by using an integrated framework incorporating a computable general equilibrium model...
Imed Drine The climate change threat North Africa is going through a turbulent year. With much of the focus on political transition, there is a danger...
Recent studies indicate that climate change will negatively impact Africa's growth and development prospects, particularly in the absence of adaptation and mitigation. Losses of up to 4% of Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) are projected, and...
We estimate the impact of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme using an economywide approach. We find potentially substantial net benefits with indirect benefits accounting for about two-fifths of total benefits. Due to these indirect benefits, the...
We use household survey data to investigate the effects of formal, private property rights to agricultural land on agricultural investment, land valuation and access to credit in Tanzania. Results show that while there are no detectable effects of...
This paper evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and household...
This paper documents and analyses the predominance of informal employment in Africa and shows that lack of demand for labour rather than worker characteristics is the main reason for pervasive underemployment. Integration into the global economy and...
Luc Christiaensen and Lionel Demery Escalating food prices in 2007-2008, climate change and land grabbing have woken the world up to the extraordinary...
Part of Journal Special Issue Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
Land tenure arrangements in Africa are generally skewed in favour of males. Compared to males, female plot owners face complex sets of constraints and systemic high tenure insecurity which culminate in low yields. In order to obtain better returns...
This paper investigates the impact of income and non-income shocks on child labour using a model in which the household maximizes utility from consumption as well as human capital development of the child. Two types of shocks are considered...
We examine the implications of the rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa for food consumption patterns and the food system. A unique classification of food items shows that highly processed food has one-third of the purchased food market...
Alterations in rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures due to climate change will most likely translate into yield reductions in desirable crops. In this particular context, the object of this paper is to lay down findings and results for...
Africa’s improved growth performance over the last 15 years provides an opportunity for the continent to transit from recovery to structural transformation. This paper reviews the evolution of development theory and practice, the role of agriculture...
Climate variability poses a major risk to agricultural incomes in Africa. In Ghana, most of the country’s poor people live in the north and households find it difficult to hold back their productive assets during the lean season. This study...
Part of Journal Special Issue Legal Empowerment and Group-Based Inequality
The development literature considers associations an important economic development tool that allows producers to pursue their economic welfare collectively and through participatory means. This paper comparatively analyses the experience of three...
We examine important changes in agriculture in Vietnam in the context of ongoing structural changes in the economy. We use a household-level panel dataset and a quantitative framework to document the extent and consequences of factor misallocation in...
The impact of commercial farms on smallholders in developing countries remains highly controversial. This study draws on four periods of investments in commercial farming in Mozambique to frame an empirical analysis of their contemporary economic...
This paper aims to evaluate the impact of accessing agricultural extension on households’ agricultural profit. Results from pooled cross-sectional data show that each additional time of access is associated with a 15.5 per cent increase in...
A large part of Africa is chronically affected by a severe food crisis which threatens the food security of many of her inhabitants. A peculiarity of this continent is that food production is not only a source of food but also a source of incomes for...
The liberalization of food marketing has been implemented as part of structural adjustment programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this study we assess i) the aims of reform policy, ii) the implementation of specific reform measures, iii) the politics...
The impressive economic growth record of Thailand before 1997 was dominated by the increasing importance of modem industrialization, as well as the expansion of other sectors. This occurred at the expense of agriculture, which accounts for the...
Using a unique survey data set this paper documents a positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. This direct effect is only partly offset by negative, indirect effects working through income and other variables. These...
The paper studies the experience of Ethiopia with regard to the two major famines the country has witnessed in the last fifteen years. It is argued that the entitlements approach developed by Amartya Sen provides a useful analytical framework within...
This paper uses panel data at commune, household, and plot levels to study the causes and effects of agricultural land fragmentation in rural Vietnam. We focus on both inter-farm fragmentation (the division of land into many small farms) and intra...
This paper considers the role and modus operandi of the National Coffee Federation of Colombia. Much respected and much criticized over time, today its role is being challenged as inappropriate to the new commitment to a free market economy. The...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.Africa has achieved a much-improved agricultural and economic growth performance over the last 15 years. During 2003-2010 the agricultural sector grew at an annual average rate of almost...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
We employ a novel approach to investigate the reasons for a low demand for agricultural insurance. We confirm that farmers systematically undervalue agricultural insurance. First, we find that private transfers, mainly from family members, explain...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
9 May 2013 Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen and Roger Williamson Pathways to Industrialization in the Twenty-First Century, (edited by Adam Szirmai, Wim...
Tony Addison Mid-September finds UNU-WIDER very busy preparing for our big conference on climate change and development policy that takes place later...
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Tony Addison A visit to Buenos Aires in September provided a good vantage point to look at the euro zone’s deepening crisis. Angle readers will recall...
Tony Addison With six months remaining till the end of 2011, it’s time to take a peek into the near future. What can we expect? John Kenneth Galbraith...
India’s policy responses to the food price crisis were strong. Exports of basic staples were banned. Domestic support prices of wheat and rice were raised substantially. The urea price increases in global markets were absorbed through enhanced...
Following the successful implementation of the Doi Moi reform programme, Viet Nam has experienced outstanding economic progress, for example in aggregate output and poverty reduction. For many years, Viet Nam developed much faster than the typical...
Tiếp nối sự thành công của chương trình cải cách Đổi mới, Việt Nam đã gặt hái được rất nhiều thành tựu kinh tế về tăng trưởng và giảm nghèo, Việt nam đã phát triển nhanh hơn các nước đang phát triển khác; và từ năm 2014, sự khác biệt về tăng trưởng...
This paper evaluates the impact of an intervention to improve farming techniques and food security in the Gaza area of rural Mozambique. We examine the impact of a group-based approach to technology adoption in subsistence agriculture, using panel...
Due to increasing population pressure on limited cultivable land in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), farm size has been shrinking, fallow periods have been shortened, and soil fertility has been declining. In accordance with the Boserupian...
An assessment of the impacts of projected climate change on water availability and crop production in the Volta Basin and the southwestern and coastal basin systems of Ghana has been undertaken as a component of the impacts and adaptation study for...
This paper examines the determinants and implied economic impacts of climate change adaptation strategies in the context of traditional pastoralism. It is based on a household level survey in southern Ethiopian rangelands. Pastoralists’ perception of...
Research report prepared under Component 5 of the Business Sector Development Programme (BSPS), Hanoi, Vietnam and the Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS), 2013. With DERG, CIEM and IPSARD research teams.The origin of this report dates back...
Research report prepared under Component 5 of the Business Sector Development Programme (BSPS), Hanoi, Vietnam and the Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS), 2013. With DERG, CIEM and IPSARD research teams.The origin of this report dates back...
The main purpose of this paper is to argue that Ghana's economic recovery under SAP would have been much brighter if policy makers had not made some obvious errors in the application of the theory of 'comparative advantage' and in the selection...
Several large-scale efforts have been made to combat malaria in the last decade under the Millennium Development Goals, and while these have led to a...
After the devastating famine of 1974, Bangladesh has successfully avoided any further disaster of its kind, surviving two close calls in 1979 and 1984 and a succession of floods in the recent years. Welcome as it, this success raises for the analyst...
Book chapter in: P. Dorosh and S. Rashid (eds) Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia: Progress and Policy Challenges.Ethiopia’s economy has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Although growth in agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) from 1998 to...
Book chapter in: Fan, S., and R. Pandya-Lorch (eds.), Reshaping Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.In recent times, many countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, have been left puzzled by their failure to improve...
Traditional development models focus on the sector rather than location of growth. Advocates of agriculture-led strategies emphasise agriculture's strong growth linkages and potential to raise rural incomes. The new economic geography literature...
The pressure on an already stressed water situation in South Africa is predicted to increase significantly under climate change, plans for large industrial expansion, ongoing rapid urbanization, and government programs to provide access to water to...
Understanding how internal labour migration affects the agricultural sector is important for all developing countries whose markets do not work well or are non-existent. In fact, even if the movement out of the agricultural sector can be viewed as a...
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability
This paper uses econometric methods and case-study evidence to examine the political economy of complex humanitarian emergencies, multidimensional crises characterized by warfare, state violence, disease, hunger, and displacement. We emphasize that...
This paper considers the impact of agriculture and international trade development on income distribution and economic activity in Mozambique. A social accounting matrix multiplier decomposition model is used—in particular, an extension of the...
Zimbabwe’s persistent economic challenges since the early 1990s have been largely attributed to unpopular political decisions at the expense of building productive capacity in different sectors of the economy. Using a global value chains framework...
India accounts for 16.7 per cent of the world’s food consumers. With the exception of China, India’s size in terms of food consumers is many times larger than the average size of the rest of the countries. At the time of independence in 1947, India...
Using multinomial logit we analyze factors that influence the choice of mechanization technologies in Nyanza Province. The results show that farmers are aware of the attributes of the mechanization technologies, and that animal traction is the most...
The paper considers the macroeconomic impact of shocks to agricultural output and of negative and positive price shocks. It is shown that negative price shocks have particularly large externalities: it is estimated that the overall impact of these...
The paper examines the underlying political economy motivations of the government’s policy responses to food price increases in 2007/08 focusing particularly on maize as the main staple crop. The main government policy responses to the food price...
27 May 2014 Wisdom Akpalu The number of fishers and fishing vessels in the capture fishery sector, especially the artisanal marine fishery sub-sector...
10 December 2013 Tony Addison Our November-December Angle comes amid intense activity on our ReCom—Research and Communication on Foreign Aid—programme...
29 June 2013 Tony Addison The June-July summer issue of Angle comes to you amid the 19 hours daylight of the Finnish mid-summer. Last week UNU-WIDER’s...
Tony Addison This month saw UNU-WIDER in Stockholm for the ReCom results meeting on ‘aid and the social sectors’, which took place at Sida on 13 March...
31 October 2013 Tony Addison October finds Angle in New York, for our event on ‘Fragility and Aid–What Works?’ at the Permanent Mission of Germany to...
Mulu Gebreeyesus and Michiko Iizuka Industrial policy can be defined as the policies that stimulate specific economic activities and promote...
18 December 2014 Roger Williamson At the UN headquarters in New York on 18 November 2014, Peter Timmer, emeritus professor from Harvard, showed how...
25 June 2014In this interview Dr Margaret McMillan outlined the theory of structural transformation, which analyzes the underlying structure of the...
Review shows that global agricultural production must be increased by about 70 per cent by 2050 in order to provide sufficient nourishment for the world’s growing population. Focusing on tropical climates to 2050, climate change is likely to reduce...
Strong economic growth has not turned into poverty reduction in Mozambique due to stagnation in job creation. While the country sees great growth potential from natural resources, this industry is unlikely to generate many jobs as it is not labour...
We estimate the impact of Malawi's Farm Input Subsidy Program using an economy-wide approach. This approach yields benefit-cost ratios about 60% higher than existing partial equilibrium studies, a result of our accounting for indirect benefits...
Commodity price shocks are an important type of external shock and are often cited as a problem for economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper quantifies the impact of agricultural commodity price shocks using a near vector autoregressive...
Malawi’s farm input subsidy benefits the poor and can be part of a viable national development strategy. Agriculture is Malawi’s main economic sector...
UNU-WIDER had a busy September. We celebrated our 30th birthday with some 600 people at our three-day conference on ‘Mapping the Future of Development...
Foreign aid can contribute to sustainable forestry in many ways. The goal is to secure forest benefits of the future, without compromising the needs of the present generations. This paper elaborates on forestry aid as it has evolved in the past...
The sub-Saharan Africa region recorded the fastest conversion of forest land to agriculture in the past 20 years. The region also has the widest yield gap and together with Latin America and Caribbean has the largest unused arable land. However...
Mozambique has achieved remarkable macroeconomic success over recent decades, boasting one of the world’s highest rates of GDP growth. However, absolute poverty remains persistent, spilling over into social unrest. To better understand the link...
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