IFPRI Discussion Paper

This paper examines differences in the spatial and temporal variations of rice yields in China and Brazil. Our analysis indicates that, in China, rice yields have converged over time and rice production has become increasingly homogeneous. In ...

This paper considers vulnerability reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from a more aggregated macro viewpoint. We focus on risk related to agriculture, since vulnerability and agriculture are intimately linked in SSA due to the location of the ...

Ghana is an emerging success story in Africa and in a couple of years will become the first African country to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal of halving its national poverty rate. The government of Ghana has therefore extended its ...

Significant changes in the agricultural sector in northern Mali suggest that irrigation has made a large contribution to welfare increases over the past eight years. Using difference-in-differences, propensity score matching, and matched ...

This paper studies an economy in which the government is not able to perfectly enforce tax compliance among operating firms, and compares it with a similar economy but with perfect tax enforcement. I develop a competitive general equilibrium ...

Malawi has experienced modest economic growth over the last decade and a half. However, agricultural growth has been particularly erratic, and while the incidence of poverty has declined, it still remains high. The Malawian government, within the ...

An economywide, multimarket (EMM) model was developed for Rwanda to analyze the linkages and trade-offs between growth and poverty reduction goals at both macro- and micro-economic levels. The model includes 30 agricultural commodities or ...

Zambia has experienced strong economic performance since 1999. However, agriculture has not performed as well as the rest of the economy, and although the incidence of poverty has declined, it still remains high. The Zambian government, within ...

Rapid economic growth has failed to significantly improve poverty and nutrition outcomes in Tanzania. This raises concerns over a decoupling of growth, poverty, and nutrition. We link recent production trends to household incomes using a ...

Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies within Sub-Saharan Africa. However, such approaches are frequently criticized for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the ...

This paper has been prepared in support of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) roundtable in Ghana. The study also takes a fresh perspective on the role of agriculture for development in light of the global food ...

Although adequate country capacity is considered to be one of the critical missing factors in development outcomes, a lack of understanding of how capacity contributes to economic development and of how to account for the contribution of capacity ...

We analyze the evolution of Sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) over the past 40 years, looking for evidence of recent changes in growth patterns using a nonparametric Malmquist index. Our TFP estimates show a ...

Many prior studies find significant cross-sectional positive ordinary least squares (OLS) associations between maternal human capital (usually maternal schooling attainment) and children’s human capital (usually children’s schooling, ...

This study measures the vulnerability of farmers to climatic extremes such as droughts, floods and hailstorms, by employing the “vulnerability as expected poverty” approach. This approach is based on estimating the probability that a given shock ...

The National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program of Uganda is an innovative public-private extension service delivery approach, with the goal of increasing market oriented agricultural production by empowering farmers to demand and ...

Large private investments in biofuels are presently underway in Mozambique. This paper uses an economywide model to assess the implications of these investments for growth and income distribution. Our results indicate that biofuels provide an ...

We herein investigate the observed discrepancy between real and perceived commercial risks associated with the use of genetically modified (GM) products in developing countries. We focus particularly on the effects of GM-free private standards ...

We present results from an artefactual field experiment conducted in rural Peru that considers how observing nonreciprocal behavior influences an individual’s decision to reciprocate. Specifically, we consider the behavior of second movers in a ...

The International Service for National Agricultural Research¾on its own from 2002 until 2003, and as a division of the International Food Policy Research Institute thereafter has studied 124 public-private partnerships in agriculture in nine ...

This paper investigates children’s time allocation to schooling, home production, and market production using a unique data set collected from northern Mali. Production shocks from harvest period pest infestations induce households to ...

The implications of China’s growth for the development prospects of Sub-Saharan Africa have been the subject of recent attention. Interest in this topic is motivated by the increasing presence of China in the region and the growing ...

This paper investigates the impact of climate variability on maize yield in the Limpopo Basin of South Africa using the Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) estimator and Maximum Entropy Leuven Estimator (MELE). Precipitation and temperature were ...

This case study explores the half century of successful efforts of the international wheat stem and leaf rust resistance programs within the context of the international agricultural research system. The study uses a historical perspective to ...

The Community Forestry Program in Nepal is a global innovation in participatory environmental governance that encompasses well-defined policies, institutions, and practices. The program addresses the twin goals of forest conservation and poverty ...

Cassava was imported from Latin America some 300 years ago, and colonial governments in Africa used it as a famine-reserve crop. Over time cassava spread to over 40 countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, and Nigeria is now the largest cassava producer ...

Cotton, textiles, and apparel are critical agricultural and industrial sectors in India. This study provides descriptions of these sectors and examines the key developments emerging domestically and internationally that affect the challenges and ...

Traditional economic theory posits that a well-functioning capital market is a necessary condition for industrialization and economic growth. In reality, micro and small enterprises are ubiquitous because entrepreneurs can undertake low-return ...

Decentralization has the potential to improve the accountability of government and lead to a more efficient provision of public services. However, accountability requires broad groups of people to participate in local government. Thus, voter ...

This paper explores the role of political institutions in determining the ability of agriculture to avoid taxation in developing countries or attract government transfers in industrialized countries. The utilized model is based on a probabilistic ...

In this paper, we develop a theoretical farm household model of food crop production and marketing decisions, derive testable hypotheses concerning the determinants of these decisions, and test these hypotheses, using data on cereal production ...

“Agricultural diversification towards high-value crops can potentially increase farm incomes, especially in a country like India where demand for high-value food products has been increasing more quickly than that for staple crops. Indian ...

Analyses of how coveted central-government resources in Africa are shared have shown widespread patronage, ethnic cronyism, and pork-barrel politics. While some governments have attempted to rectify the situation by establishing revenue-sharing ...

The paper develops a metric of structural transformation that can account for the production of new varieties of goods embodying advancements in technological know-how and design. Our measure captures the dynamics of an economy’s ...

In recent years the European Union has sought to transform its trading regime with the ACP countries by advocating reciprocal free trade agreements with them through Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). As a result, the EPA talks were launched ...

We use a dynamic CGE model to quantitatively assess the economywide impact of HPAI in Ghana. The likely effect of an avian flu outbreak is modeled as demand or supply shocks to the poultry sector. Our analysis shows that, while chicken is a quite ...

While the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) remains a hotly debated issue in all five Central American countries that are part of the treaty, most discussions are based on preconceived opinions rather than grounded in research-based ...

It has often been argued that new agricultural technologies lead to poverty reduction. This paper argues that any changes in poverty situation attributed to those who adopt new agricultural technology (treatment group) without a counterfactual ...

The notification of the level of domestic support to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is intended to reflect compliance with obligations entered into at the time of the Uruguay Round. WTO members have often been slow to provide notification of ...

The theorized impact of land tenure and titling on access to credit has produced mixed results in the empirical literature. Land tenure and titling is hypothesized to increase access to credit because of the enhanced land security provided and ...

Agriculture plays a dominant role in nearly all the countries of East and Central Africa, and many face similar agroecological, climatic, and development challenges. As a result, significant scale economies can be made through the regionalization ...

The stochastic frontier production function is used to estimate agricultural efficiency index. Then, controlling for household characteristics and other exogenous variables, the efficiency index is regressed on the probability of being sick. ...

Conflicts have existed for generations worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa, conflicts occur for various reasons, including inter-tribal or clanist tensions, resource disputes, and externally instigated wars. These conflicts may persist unabated for ...

South Africa’s high involuntary unemployment and small informal sector are attributed to an underperforming formal sector and barriers to entry in the informal sector. This paper examines the economywide linkages between the formal and informal ...

An increasing literature examines the association between restricted fetal or early childhood growth and the incidence of diseases in adulthood. Little is known, however, about gender difference in this association. We assess the impact of ...

“Agricultural production statistics reported at country or sub-national geopolitical scales are used in a wide range of economic analyses, and spatially explicit (geo-referenced) production data are increasingly needed to support improved ...

Global climate change poses great risks to poor people whose livelihoods depend directly on the use of natural resources. Mitigation of the adverse effects of climate change is a high priority on the international agenda. Carbon trading, under ...

Ser capaz de responder y reaccionar ante las demandas de los productores no implica necesariamente que se generen las mejores soluciones técnicas. Generar innovaciones adecuadas requiere de la participación de muchos: líderes y otros productores, ...

Globally, most food is produced using soil moisture that comes from precipitation (i.e., “green” water). Moreover, most of the water that reaches plants in irrigated systems also stems from precipitation. Despite this, irrigation (or “blue”) ...

Rising world prices for fuel and food represent a negative terms-of-trade shock for Mozambique. The impacts of these price increases are analyzed using various approaches. Detailed price data show that the world price increases are being ...

This paper estimates the economic impact of HIV/AIDS on KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and the rest of South Africa (RSA). We extend previous studies by employing an integrated analytical framework that combines the following: firm-level surveys of workers’ ...

Almost unaffected by the 2008 wave of soaring world food prices, Ugandan local market prices exhibit signs of high price volatility in the first quarter of 2009. At the household level, while net producers may reap some benefits from this ...

We develop a detailed trade analysis to assess the potential welfare impacts of a free trade agreement (FTA) on the agricultural sector of southern African countries and to determine opportunities and challenges faced by the region as a ...

China has used hybrid rice technology to help feed more than 20 percent of the world’s population using just 10 percent of the world’s total arable land. Hybrid rice allowed for a 14 percent reduction in total rice-growing acreage since 1978, ...

Previous studies implicitly assume uniform price-effects across regions or provinces within countries. They also do not address the issue of integration between the world food market and local markets. Instead, they assume a complete transmission ...

This article uses combined household- and community-level data collected from the Maule Region (VII) of Chile to evaluate factors affecting the decision to participate in yearly irrigation maintenance activities, and the influence of current ...

This paper examines the impacts of prenatal conditions and water quality on child growth using recent data from Indonesia. Our empirical results show that an increase in birth weight has significant positive effects on children’s subsequent ...

Yemen is an oil-exporting and food-importing country on the Arabian Peninsula with persistently high levels of poverty. The impacts of the food, fuel, and financial global crises are likely to further complicate preexisting conditions of internal ...

A critical yet often overlooked component of food security is diet quality. Even households who have access to sufficient amounts of food and calories may still lack essential micronutrients, increasing their risk for both short- and long-term ...

Assessing impacts of public investments has long captured the interest and attention of the development community. This paper presents the evolution of different methods and approaches used for ex ante appraisal, monitoring, project evaluation, ...

In this study, we examined India’s domestic support policies to understand their classification and measurement for the purposes of official World Trade Organization (WTO) notifications. We then employed the underlying methods to prepare ...

“La innovación es la introducción exitosa de nuevos conocimientos y tecnologías en los procesos social y productivo. Las formas convencionales de fomentar la innovación en la agricultura y la industria alimentaria en los países en ...

Traditional approaches to innovation systems policymaking and governance often focus exclusively on the central provision of services, regulations, fiscal measures, and subsidies. This study, however, considers that innovation systems ...

The institutional change in rural Kyrgyzstan during the transition period included farm reorganization, land reform, building markets, and community institutions. The land reform established private property rights to land, including the rights ...

Ethiopia is at a critical crossroads with a large and increasing population, a depressed national economy, insufficient agricultural production, and a low number of developed energy sources. The upper Blue Nile basin harbors considerable ...

This paper uses a two-stage conditional maximum likelihood procedure and new data from Ghana to identify the determinants of rural-urban migration at the individual, household and community levels, with a particular focus on rural services. The ...

This paper proposes a simple methodology to estimate the agricultural spending that will be required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015 (MDG1) in 30 sub-Saharan African countries. This method uses growth-poverty ...

This paper uses data from national household expenditure surveys to explore whether food insecurity is more severe in South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa. It employs two indicators of the diet quantity dimension of food insecurity, or the inability ...

The Agreement on South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) entered its second phase of implementation in 2008. The creation of a free trade area is expected to affect its participants—Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri ...

Strategies for boosting the agricultural economies of developing countries usually focus on small farms, attempting, for example, to link smallholders with markets through production chain development. However, such strategies often fail to ...

Water management in the Pirapama River Basin in northeastern Brazil is affected by both water quantity and water quality constraints. The region is known for significant sugarcane-based ethanol production—which is key to the Brazilian economy and ...

In 2006, India proposed a draft rule requiring the labeling of all genetically modified (GM) foods and products derived thereof. In this paper, we use primary and secondary market data to assess the economic implications of introducing such a ...

Vietnamese land-tenure policy reforms were embedded into general economic reforms (Doi Moi), enabling the country’s transition toward a market economy. Since 1998, they were implemented incrementally together with complementary instruments such ...

This paper takes a local perspective on global food price shocks by analyzing food price transmission between regional markets in Ghana. It also assesses the impacts of differential local food price increases on various household groups. Taking ...

Despite the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which brought to an end 20 years of civil war in the Sudan, this country continues to experience smaller-scale conflicts, particularly around access to and control of natural resources. Some ...

This paper analyzes the vulnerability of South African farmers to climate change and variability by developing a vulnerability index and comparing vulnerability indicators across the nine provinces of the country. Nineteen environmental and ...

The institution of marriage plays some role in determining one’s risk of exposure to HIV. Since the transmission of HIV in the population is mainly through sexual activity, avoiding infection depends on risk-avoiding behavior. ...

Parallel to the growing attention being devoted to the relationship between empowerment and development, an increasing number of tools are being developed to measure empowerment and determine the link between these two phenomena. This paper ...

This study analyzes the vulnerability of Ethiopian farmers to climate change based on the integrated vulnerability assessment approach using vulnerability indicators. The vulnerability indicators consist of the different socioeconomic and ...

Adaptation to climate change involves changes in agricultural management practices in response to changes in climate conditions. It often involves a combination of various individual responses at the farm-level and assumes that farmers have ...

This paper uses data envelopment analysis and new data from Burkina Faso to test the impact of intercontinental and continental migration on technical efficiency in the production of two cereals-millet and sorghum-by rural households. Econometric ...

A tremendous increase in the number of orphans associated with a sharp rise in prime-age adult mortality due to AIDS has become a serious problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, more than 30 percent of school-aged children have lost at least one ...

This paper uses panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi to examine the impacts of disasters on dynamic human capital production. Our empirical results show that accumulation of biological human capital prior to a disaster helps children ...

As a result of the Uruguay round, Norway was committed to reducing its domestic support for agriculture, in particular its aggregate measurement of support (AMS), which was to be reduced by 20 percent. We show that Norway has complied with its ...

Using survey data from the Upper East region of Ghana collected in 2005, the paper evaluates the household- and community-level factors influencing women’s and men’s decisions to participate in off-farm activities, either in the ...

Local farming communities throughout the world face binding productivity constraints, diverse nutritional needs, environmental concerns, and significant economic and financial pressures. Developing countries address these challenges in different ...

This study evaluates the potential impact of the recent rise in world food prices on the Moroccan economy and possible policy options to respond to it. The study focuses mainly on the poverty effects of such an external shock and the possible ...

Migration can serve as an outlet for employment, higher earnings, and reduced income risk for households in developing countries. We use the 2004-2005 Human Development Profile of India survey to examine correlations between the receipt of ...

This paper documents the factors driving the impressive growth in fertilizer use and maize productivity in Kenya since the early 1990s up to 2007. The basic story is one of synergies between liberalization of input and maize markets and public ...

Recognizing that “gender matters,” many development interventions have aimed to close the gender gap in access to resources, both human and physical, and to address the specific needs of female farmers. This paper critically reviews attempts to ...

Plant transformation research has achieved outstanding progress in the development of transgenic crops over the past decades, and the research results have been spread through journal publications and patents. With the recent emergence of ...

Fiscal federalism has been argued to intensify regional competition and promote economic growth. This paper is the first, to our knowledge, to empirically assess the patterns and extent of strategic tax competition between geographically ...

The civil war in Sierra Leone, caused by a mix of political, social, and economic factors, had a huge impact on the overall economy in general and on the performance of the agricultural sector in particular. The agricultural research system of ...

In order to realize agricultural potential and to increase agricultural yields, India’s extension system has experienced major conceptual, structural, and institutional changes since the late 1990s. This paper reviews existing reform ...

The development pattern in Ghana is characterised by a north-south divide in which the north lags far behind the south. This paper sets out to identify avenues for pro-poor growth in Ghana, focussing on agricultural opportunities, particularly in ...

Over the past several decades, China has made tremendous progress in market integration and infrastructure development. Demand for natural resources has increased from the booming coastal economies, causing the terms of trade to favor the ...

In recent years, quality standards have become crucial for developing countries’ agricultural production systems in gaining access to high-value markets abroad or at home. High-value supply chains offer opportunities for high profits, but in ...

Production systems in low-income developing countries are generally poorly diversified, focusing on rainfed staple crop production and raising livestock. These activities are inherently risky and investment and production decisions by farm ...

Between 1970 and 2009, India has overcome many infrastructural, market, and institutional challenges to transition from a dairy importing nation to the top producer in the world of both buffalo and goat milk, as well as the sixth largest producer ...

Kenya’s economy is relatively diverse, with both agricultural and industrial potential. However, the economy has performed poorly over the last decade, and poverty and inequality have risen. This paper examines the impact of alternative ...

Over the last two decades, several seed-related programs have been initiated in eastern Kenya to improve farmers’ access to quality seeds of dryland cereals and legumes. They are provided during two occasions, regular and emergency times. ...

This paper discusses the application of the equilibrium displacement model (EDM) to estimate ex-ante the welfare effects of biological productivity growth for semi-subsistence crop and its impact on poverty reduction. The conventionally used EDM ...

La innovación es de suma importancia para el desarrollo productivo en la agricultura Boliviana, por tratarse de un sector caracterizado por bajos niveles de innovación en cuanto a la incorporación de nueva tecnología y conocimiento en los ...

This paper examines social learning regarding HIV infection, using HIV test results and sibling death data from Malawi. In the analysis, we compare hypotheses on social learning, selection. and common factors. Empirical results show that young ...

This paper examines dynamics in public good accessibility and cross-community inequality in Indonesia, using village-level panel data from 2000 to 2006 from their decentralized public-good allocation system. The introduction of decentralization ...

This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in Sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in Sub-Saharan Africa can ...

Very limited empirical analyses are done on evaluating how changes in the retail environment affect diet and health status of consumers, especially in developing countries. The major objective of this study is to shed some light on some of these ...

With the Biotech Revolution, questions are being asked about what role the government should play in the process-does public research in developing countries play a role? Can governments speed the spread of technology by offering complementary ...

This paper explores and compares the impact of different types of public spending on rural household welfare in Ethiopia. The analysis of public financial and household-level data reveals that returns to road investments are significantly higher ...

“Cotton is the largest source of export receipts of several West African countries. Statistics however show a decreasing tendency in cotton yields and an increasing tendency in pesticide use. Under this circumstances there appear to be ...

By using a global computable general equilibrium model, this report analyzes the impact of various pending free trade agreements for Peru. In December 2007, a Peru-United States free trade agreement (FTA) was finally ratified by the U.S. ...

We use two rounds of surveys, taken in 2000 and 2008 in the Zhili Township children’s garment cluster in Zhejiang Province, to examine in depth the evolution of this industrial cluster. Firm size has grown on average in terms of output and ...

Global retail chains are becoming increasingly dominant in the global food trade and their rise leads to dramatic impacts on agricultural supply chains and on small producers. However, the prospects and impacts of a food retail revolution in poor ...

During the past 70 years, concerted efforts by the national veterinary services of affected countries from Senegal to China and Russia to South Africa—aided by international organizations—have brought the once-dreaded rinderpest virus to the ...

For 30 years, U.S. food and nutrition scientists and policymakers concerned with food and nutrition have explored the possibility of making the human right to food (HRF) the moral and legal cornerstone of U.S. domestic and international ...

In this paper we develop a dynamic CGE model to examine the impact of CAFTA on production, employment and poverty in Honduras. We model four aspects of the agreement: tariff reductions, quotas, changes in the rules of origin for maquila and more ...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the impact of climate change on food production in a typical low-income developing country. Furthermore, it provides an estimation of the determinants of adaptation to climate change and the ...

This paper assesses the impact of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP), the largest social protection program in Sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa. Using Propensity Score Matching techniques, we find that the program ...

While the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) remains a hotly debated issue in all five Central American countries that are part of the treaty, most discussions are based on preconceived opinions rather than grounded in research-based ...

Mungbean is a major pulse crop in Asia. National partners in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand collaborated with AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center, using an integrated, interdisciplinary approach ...

This study offers new conclusions on the economic cost of a failed Doha Round. The first section is devoted to an analysis of how trade policies evolve in the long and medium runs. We show that even under normal economic conditions, policymakers ...

The Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) was invited by the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry to conduct a study titled “The Impact of Organized Retailing on the Unorganized Retail Sector.” ...

We herein investigate the short-run macroeconomic impact of aid in small developing countries (SDCs) by using a vector auto regression (VAR) model to study the impact of aid on net import (absorption) and domestic demand (spending). We focus on ...

Believing that complex problems call for complex solutions and that stakeholders should have a say in policies that concern them, policymakers have strongly promoted the development of forums and organizations made up of many stakeholders to ...

We examine the effect of trade protection rates on evasion in three African countries: Kenya, Mauritius, and Nigeria. In capturing the effect of trade protection on tariff evasion, we use a much improved measure of trade protection from MacMAP ...

Climate change is expected to have serious environmental, economic, and social impacts on South Africa. In particular, rural farmers, whose livelihoods depend on the use of natural resources, are likely to bear the brunt of adverse impacts. The ...

This paper uses models of irreversible investment under uncertainty to examine the investment and abandonment behavior of poor rural households. It considers the decision of Ugandan coffee-farming households to invest in or abandon coffee trees. ...

This paper considers urban-rural location and education as the main causes of expenditure inequality and attempts to examine inequality changes associated with urbanization and educational expansion in Indonesia from 1996 to 2002, using ...

This paper uses farmers’ responses to exogenous weather shocks in South Africa’s Limpopo River Basin to gauge how farmers are apt to respond to future climate change-induced shocks, in particular drought. Droughts are expected to ...

This study tests the null hypothesis that it is sufficient to interview only the household head to obtain accurate information on household income. The results show that using a husband’s estimate of his wife’s income does not produce ...

This paper reviews the success of zero-tillage wheat in the rice-wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Diffusion of the zero- tillage technology increased in the last decade, particularly in northwest India. In 2008, in India alone, the ...