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With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

David Spielman

David Spielman is the director of IFPRI’s Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit and has been with the institute since 2004. His research agenda covers a range of topics including agriculture and rural development policy; agricultural science, technology, and innovation; plant genetic resources and seed systems; agricultural extension and advisory services; and community-driven rural development.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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IFPRI currently has more than 480 employees working in over 70 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

John Hoddinott

Nonresident Fellow

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Bio

John Hoddinott is a Nonresident Fellow in the Poverty Health and Nutrition Division. He is also H.E. Babcock Professor of Food & Nutrition Economics and Policy, Cornell University. He was formerly a deputy director of the Poverty Health and Nutrition Division of IFPRI. A Canadian citizen, Hoddinott holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Toronto, an M.A. from York University and a D.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford.

His principal research interest lies in the microeconometric analysis of issues in development economics. John is especially interested in the causes of poverty, food insecurity and undernutrition, and the design and evaluation of interventions that would reduce these. Much of his current research has focused on the determinants and consequences of human capital formation. This builds on his earlier work on modeling the processes of intra-household resource allocation and on labor markets. John has also had involvement in discussions surrounding aid flows, responses to the 2008 food price crisis and reforms to the global food security architecture such as the Food Aid Convention.

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Publications

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Journal Article

Estimating multidimensional development resilience

2026Lee, Seungmin; Abay, Kibrom A.; Barrett, Christopher B.; Hoddinott, John F.
Details

Estimating multidimensional development resilience

Existing measures of resilience are typically based on a single well-being indicator. This is problematic in contexts where households face deprivations across multiple dimensions. We develop a multidimensional resilience measure, integrating probabilistic moment-based resilience measurement approaches with multidimensional poverty measurement methods. Applying these to household panel data from Ethiopia, we show that univariate and multidimensional resilience measures based on expenditure-based poverty, dietary diversity, and livestock asset holdings can yield varied inferences on the ranking of households as well as potential impact of development interventions. Univariate resilience measures constructed using consumption expenditure, dietary diversity and livestock asset holdings show distinct temporal and spatial distributional patterns. But while univariate measures are weakly correlated with one another and with different well-being metrics, multivariate measures exhibit much stronger rank correlations. When we contrast univariate measures of resilience to multidimensional measures of resilience, we find that the latter vary less over the study period; multidimensional resilience measures seem to capture more “persistent or structural” vulnerability and associated capacity of households. We also demonstrate the differences in these univariate and multivariate measures, including the potential of the composite multidimensional resilience measures for supporting targeting processes.

Year published

2026

Authors

Lee, Seungmin; Abay, Kibrom A.; Barrett, Christopher B.; Hoddinott, John F.

Citation

Lee, Seungmin; Abay, Kibrom A.; Barrett, Christopher B.; and Hoddinott, John. 2025. Estimating multidimensional development resilience. Journal of Development Economics 178(January 2026): 103583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103583

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Data; Development; Households; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103583 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Understanding social safety nets and intra-household food allocation: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

2026Coleman, Fiona M.; Ahmed, Akhter; Roy, Shalini; Hoddinott, John F.
Details

Understanding social safety nets and intra-household food allocation: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Evidence shows that social protection can improve diets, but little is known about how impacts vary within households, the extent to which the modality of the transfer affects how it is distributed across all household members, whether adding training on the importance of nutrition and diets alters the way transfer resources are allocated within the household, relative to a transfer alone, and if differences in allocations are shaped by differences in livelihood opportunities. We use individual food intake data from two randomized control trials fielded in rural Bangladesh to address these questions. Our results overwhelmingly demonstrate that food gains are distributed equally, regardless of the type of transfers households received (cash, food, or combination), inclusion of nutrition training, regional context, or specific dietary outcome measured. These patterns of findings hold when we consider several extensions: (1) analyzing more aggregated demographic groups; (2) considering alternative measures of diet; (3) analyzing shares rather than levels; (4) considering impacts relative to deprivation at baseline; (5) analyzing impacts on non-food outcomes that can be assigned demographically; (6) re-estimating impacts using alternate samples and alternate estimation models. Where the few significant differences are found, they are often small in magnitude and in favor of children.

Year published

2026

Authors

Coleman, Fiona M.; Ahmed, Akhter; Roy, Shalini; Hoddinott, John F.

Citation

Coleman, Fiona M.; Ahmed, Akhter U.; Roy, Shalini; and Hoddinott, John. 2025. Understanding social safety nets and intra-household food allocation: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh. Journal of Development Economics 178(January 2026): 103585. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103585

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Social Safety Nets; Resource Allocation; Gender Equity; Cash Transfers; Diet; Gender; Social Protection

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103585 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Evolution of consumption and livelihood impacts from cash and food transfer programs: Eight-year post-program experimental evidence from Bangladesh

2025Ahmed, Akhter; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hidrobo, Melissa; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena; Roy, Shalini
Details

Evolution of consumption and livelihood impacts from cash and food transfer programs: Eight-year post-program experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Findings from this study will provide greater insight as to how and why transfer programs have mixed post-intervention effects across different contexts, and how gender and livelihood opportunities may influence these trajectories. These insights will help inform the future design of transfer programs that aim to support sustainable poverty reduction and gender-equitable livelihoods, including to guide modifications tailored to the local context.

Year published

2025

Authors

Ahmed, Akhter; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hidrobo, Melissa; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena; Roy, Shalini

Citation

Ahmed, Akhter; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hidrobo, Melissa; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena; and Roy, Shalini. 2025. Evolution of consumption and livelihood impacts from cash and food transfer programs: Eight-year post-program experimental evidence from Bangladesh. IFPRI Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/179365

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; Social Protection; Cash Transfers; Food Security; Evaluation; Consumption; Livelihoods; Food Assistance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Blogs

Ethiopia’s social safety net effective in limiting COVID-19 impacts on rural food insecurity
Research Post
 | 
January 28, 2021

Ethiopia’s social safety net effective in limiting COVID-19 impacts on rural food insecurity

By Kibrom A. Abay, Guush Berhane, John Hoddinott, and Kibrom Tafere

A survey shows such programs can be effective in addressing the impacts of sudden shocks.

Impact study demonstrates Bt brinjal eggplant variety helps farmers in Bangladesh earn more with less pesticide
Research Post
 | 
October 18, 2019

Impact study demonstrates Bt brinjal eggplant variety helps farmers in Bangladesh earn more with less pesticide

By Akhter Ahmed, John Hoddinott, Paul Tanger, and Lesley Perlman

A new genetically-engineered pest-resistant eggplant variety shows promise.

Rohingya in Bangladesh are surviving – but their long-term prospects are grim
Issue Post
 | 
July 02, 2019

Rohingya in Bangladesh are surviving – but their long-term prospects are grim

By Paul Dorosh and John Hoddinott

Aid efforts have averted a potential humanitarian disaster. Needed now – a long-term solution.

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Events

The Forced Exile of Rohingyas into Bangladesh: Economic and Nutritional Outcomes and Future Policy Options
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

July 10, 2019, 12:15 – 1:45 pm

The Forced Exile of Rohingyas into Bangladesh: Economic and Nutritional Outcomes and Future Policy Options

More than 600,000 Rohingya people fled violence in Myanmar in 2017 and crossed into southeastern Bangladesh, joining 200,000 to 400,000 other forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.   This seminar will include analysis of incomes, employment, food security, and nutrition based on a household survey conducted in camps housing Rohingyas and in neighboring host communities. Model simulations […]

News

September 16, 2020 | In the News

Indian farmers can’t wait anymore, they are sowing seeds of GM crops one Bt brinjal at a time (The Print)

The Print (India) published an article on how the Modi govt’s nod to field trials of two brinjal varieties comes after years of delayed decisions, leaving farmers to deal with daily risks of agriculture. Whereas the projects failed in India, Bangladesh picked up where India left off.  IFPRI, together with the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), carried out […]

October 24, 2019 | Press Release

NEW STUDY: Food markets near Ethiopia’s poor provide too little diversity at too high a price for optimum child health

Washington, D.C.: The rural poor in Ethiopia tend to live near lower-quality markets that sell fewer food groups at high prices, adversely impacting the health of children in these communities, a new study from researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has found. The findings, drawn from data from rural Ethiopia, mark the […]

October 11, 2019 | In the News

Merit of Bt brinjal technology

The Financial Express (India) published an op-ed by Abdul Bayer who wrote it’s time to pay more attention to non-rice crops. IFPRI, in a coauthored paper by Akhter Ahmed, John Hoddinott, Naveen Abedin, Nusrat Hossain discussed the results of the GM crop eggplant. It looked at pesticide use, infestation, net yields, and health.

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